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Former conservative deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk’s Forever Canadian petition needs to collect nearly 300,000 signatures to trigger a referendum question that would ask if Alberta should remain in Canada.Amber Bracken/The Globe and Mail
The man who has spent months working to collect enough signatures to force a referendum on whether Alberta should remain in Canada hopes it never actually gets to a vote.
For the past month and a half, Thomas Lukaszuk has sat alone behind the wheel of a vintage red and white motorhome dubbed the “Unity Bus” going town-to-town trying to collect nearly 300,000 signatures for a petition Premier Danielle Smith has suggested would send Alberta to its first-ever separation referendum.
“A referendum is not a solution to a problem,” said Mr. Lukaszuk, a former Alberta MLA. “It just aggravates the issue. It polarizes Alberta even more, in a province that is more polarized than it ever has been on everything.”
He hopes his “Forever Canadian” initiative of affirming Alberta’s place in Confederation is adopted as government policy instead of being thrown to voters.
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His referendum question, “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?” was approved in late June by Alberta’s chief electoral officer. That opened a 90-day window to collect nearly 294,000 signatures, which ends Tuesday. The chief electoral officer will then have 30 days to determine whether he reached the mark.
With enough signatures, the question would be sent to the Speaker who will propose it be sent to an all-party committee. That group will then decide whether to table a report with policy recommendations – Mr. Lukaszuk’s favoured outcome – or suggest it be put to a public vote, a decision made by the Premier and her cabinet.
Once the deputy premier and education minister in Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservative government in the early 2010s, Mr. Lukaszuk has become one of Ms. Smith’s fiercest critics. He argues he’s handing Ms. Smith a gift to end debate over separation.
“If she decides to call a referendum, let there be one,” Mr. Lukaszuk said in an interview. “But that would be a travesty.”
A combination of factors, including U.S. President Donald Trump’s annexation threats and trade war along with the re-election of a Liberal government in Ottawa, have broadly fuelled separatist sentiment in Alberta.
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Ms. Smith, while standing by her stated goal of “a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada,” has faced criticism for being too cozy with the U.S. administration and not being vocal enough in support of national unity.
She has argued Mr. Lukaszuk’s Forever Canadian petition would have consequences if it went the way of separatists.
“Mr. Lukaszuk’s vote is a yes-no question. He may be trying to characterize it differently, but if you ask people if you want to remain in [Canada], yes or no, there are implications if people answer no,” Ms. Smith said in mid-September.
The likelihood of a referendum grew in April when the government passed legislation lowering the number of signatures needed to trigger a vote and extended the time frame in which the names can be collected.
Mr. Lukaszuk’s petition drive has invigorated Albertans wishing to express their pro-Canadian sentiment. Verna Ahner, a Calgary music teacher who canvassed for signatures, said she joined because she felt patriotism was being drowned out by talk of separation.
She believes Albertans would vote against separation “roundly and soundly” and described the petition as a “polite off-ramp” for Ms. Smith to avoid a referendum. But her husband, who works for a company with international ties, is less convinced. “He’s genuinely concerned that at some point, something is going to go wrong and this could be a real thing,” said Ms. Ahner.
Mr. Lukaszuk has deployed more than 6,500 volunteers across Alberta to collect signatures at weddings, funerals (the families requested their presence, Mr. Lukaszuk says), graduations and farmers markets. He communicates with volunteers through an AI website which dispatches volunteers to high-traffic areas.
Though he wouldn’t say whether he’s gathered enough signatures, Mr. Lukaszuk said he’s confident going into Tuesday. “I’m not losing any sleep at night anymore.”
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On the other side of Mr. Lukaszuk are Alberta’s separatists. A provincial judge is currently deciding the viability of a constitutional referendum question proposed by pro-separatism Alberta Prosperity Project CEO Mitch Sylvestre. His question asks whether Alberta should become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada.
Ms. Smith and her Justice Minister, Mickey Amery, have argued Mr. Sylvestre should at least be allowed to collect signatures.
Mr. Sylvestre said in an interview he wouldn’t rally support for a “no” to the Forever Canadian question.
“We’re not going to justify their nonsense … we get a No vote and it means nothing. So why would we vote?” said Mr. Sylvestre.
Mr. Sylvestre, who is also the chair of a rural UCP constituency association, says a majority “No” vote to the Forever Canadian question wouldn’t activate the Clarity Act – legislation that establishes the conditions under which the federal government would enter secession negotiations with a province.
Such a vote would be a galvanizing moment for separatists, said Gerard Kennedy, an associate law professor at the University of Alberta. But it would raise thorny legal questions about whether Albertans had indeed voted to leave confederation.
“Even though a ‘Yes’ vote would clearly shut down separation, a ‘No’ vote would not necessarily trigger the reverse,” said Prof. Kennedy.
“A vote that you don’t want to stay – is that a vote that you want to leave? It’s a little uncertain.”
That’s why Mr. Sylvestre said it’s imperative his question be put to voters.
“If we’re going to do a referendum for independence, we want a clear question based on the Clarity Act so that we can vote whether we can stay or leave and have real consequences,” he said.
One wrinkle in the debate is that referendums on the same topic must have five years’ distance between each other, according to the provincial law. The Forever Canadian petition could therefore freeze a constitutional referendum question until at least 2031.
As for Mr. Lukaszuk’s concerns about the prospect of a separation question, he doesn’t believe he’s playing with fire.
“I’m giving us the last fire extinguisher that there is.”
