Alberta’s election agency says it has approved a proposed referendum question that asks whether the province should separate from Canada.
Elections Alberta announced Monday (December 22) that it has cleared the wording of a yes-or-no question that reads: “Do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?”
The proposal was submitted by the Alberta Prosperity Project and its chief executive officer, Mitch Sylvestre. The agency said the group now has until early January to appoint a financial officer for its petition campaign. Once that requirement is met, the group will be allowed to begin collecting signatures.
Sylvestre, who is also a constituency association president for Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party, has four months to gather just under 178,000 valid signatures. If the threshold is reached within the required time frame, the question would be put to Albertans in a province-wide referendum.
In a statement posted on social media Monday, the Alberta Prosperity Project called the approval a “huge victory” for the province.
Sylvestre said the campaign is already preparing for the signature drive. He said about 2,000 people have signed up internally to help collect signatures, and more than 240,000 people have previously pledged their willingness to sign the petition.
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