Alberta group gets green light to collect signatures for separation referendum

EDMONTON — Alberta’s election agency has fired the starter’s pistol on the race to collect enough names for a referendum on the province quitting Canada.

Elections Alberta announced Friday that Mitch Sylvestre and the Alberta Prosperity Project have from Saturday until May 2 to collect just under 178,000 signatures to qualify.

“Citizen initiative petition signature sheets have been issued,” Elections Alberta said in a statement Friday.

“The proponent may now proceed with collecting signatures.”

Elections Alberta had already announced before Christmas that it had approved the referendum question.

But it said the group could not collect signatures until it had finalized details, including hiring a chief financial officer.

The question seeks a yes or no answer to: “Do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?”

Sylvestre, a constituency association president for Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party, said a referendum is needed because of federal government restrictions on oil development alongside dim hopes for electoral change in Ottawa.

“I’m convinced that there’s no path forward for Alberta within Confederation,” he said in an interview Friday. “(Ottawa is) taking us down a path that none of us in the Alberta Prosperity Project want to go down.

“I really believe that we can win this.”

More than 240,000 people have previously pledged their willingness to sign the petition, Sylvestre said.

He added the group already has 2,000 people signed up to collect signatures, but they are still waiting for Elections Alberta to certify them.

Sylvestre said he expects that process to continue Monday.

“We’re going to have many, many more approved and ready to go very, very shortly,” he added.

“Things are moving fast.”

The group’s approved question is similar to one it had previously submitted: “Do you agree that the province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?”

That question was tied up in court for a review of its constitutionality.

The delay prompted Smith’s government to change the rules for citizen-initiated referendums in December.

The changes rendered the court review moot, as they allowed Sylvestre to reapply at no charge while also preventing Alberta’s chief electoral officer from rejecting referendum proposals deemed unconstitutional or not factually accurate.

Justice Colin Feasby, who issued his decision on the original question despite the government vetoing the result, deemed the proposal to be unconstitutional, but only under the previous rules.

Feasby, in his decision, wrote that Alberta separating from Canada would violate certain Charter and treaty rights, as there are no guarantees Albertans would keep their right to vote federally or maintain mobility rights if the province were to become its own nation.

He also noted that those rights would need to be accounted for in any negotiation undertaken to amend the Constitution, which would be required should Alberta look to leave Confederation.

Later Friday, the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, part of Treaty 8 territory, said it would file a statement of claim alleging a failure by Alberta, Canada and the chief electoral officer to “diligently implement the Treaty and for breaching the Treaty.”

Chief Sheldon Sunshine, in an online statement, said an injunction would also be filed Monday to pause the petition.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 2, 2026.

Daniela Germano, The Canadian Press