‘First step’: Alberta separatists deliver referendum petition, tout 300K signatures

EDMONTON –  

Alberta separatists handed in a massive petition Monday to try to trigger a referendum on the province leaving Canada, touting a final tally of nearly 302,000 signatures after months of campaigning.

Waving Alberta flags and sporting matching blue hoodies, more than 300 supporters gathered at the Elections Alberta office in Edmonton as a convoy of trucks delivered the paperwork. 

Mitch Sylvestre, the head of Stay Free Alberta and main organizer of the petition, first pulled in with a trailer containing 42 banker boxes of petition sheets.

“You guys brought us here. Without you guys, none of this would happen,” Sylvestre said.

“You stood in the cold, you got abused and people yelled at you…. It was not easy.”

Provincial law requires 178,000 signatures to force such a vote — a threshold organizers had said was surpassed more than a month ago.

The question of separation could go on a provincewide ballot as early as October, as Premier Danielle Smith has said she would move forward if enough names are gathered and verified. 

Sylvestre, a constituency association president for Smith’s United Conservative Party, told the crowd that he would be sending the premier a letter and an affidavit swearing that more than 7,000 canvassers collected 301,460 signatures.

He soon updated the number to 301,620, when another organizer handed him a sheet of paper.

“This day is historic in Alberta history,” Sylvestre said. “It’s the first step to the next step — we’ve gotten by Round 3 and now we’re in the Stanley Cup final.”

However, Elections Alberta has been barred from verifying the signatures, while an Edmonton judge considers a court challenge by a group of Alberta First Nations.

The judge ordered a temporary pause last month after the First Nations argued the petition process is unconstitutional. Lawyers for the First Nations said there was no formal consultation with Indigenous leaders about the separation question and that separation would violate treaty rights.

The judge’s decision is expected to come this week.

Sylvestre said he trusts that Smith’s government will understand the “clear expression of the democratic will of Albertans” and move forward with putting it on the ballot.

A pro-federalist petition has already been verified.

Thomas Lukaszuk, a former Alberta deputy premier, spearheaded the “Forever Canadian” petition, which had just over 400,000 signatures verified by election officials in December.

Sylvestre’s petition is to go through enhanced scrutiny, after Elections Alberta and the RCMP announced separate investigations into another separatist group, the Centurion Project, for illegally publishing a public database with the names and addresses of nearly three million Albertans.

The database, Elections Alberta said last week, matches an official elector list that the agency supplied to the pro-independence Republican Party of Alberta.

Voter lists are only distributed to elected officials, political parties and party officials and can’t be shared with third parties. A judge last week ordered the Centurion Project database shut down.

Elections Alberta said it traced the database back to the Republican Party, because every list the agency creates has unique fake names.

Elections Alberta said it would scan Sylvestre’s petition for those fake names.

Sylvestre said he was approached last month by separatist campaigner David Parker, the leader of the Centurion Project, about using the database.

“They showed me the app, claiming that it was gonna be this wonderful thing. I looked at it for less than a minute, and then I said, ‘No, we’re not doing this.'”

Sylvestre said his refusal caused a falling out and he and Parker haven’t spoken since.

Smith, in question period Monday, said she didn’t think the leaked voter list questions the validity of Sylvestre’s petition and that searching it for the fake names is an appropriate measure.

Smith also denied criticism that legislation passed last year got in the way of Elections Alberta investigating the data leak sooner.

An Alberta-based journalist has said she warned Elections Alberta about the database at the end of March but that the agency told her it didn’t have enough evidence to pursue further.

Elections Alberta defended its actions last week by pointing to the legislation, which heightens the threshold before the agency can launch an investigation.

“There clearly is no limitation,” Smith told the house. “(Elections Alberta must have) reasonable grounds to believe an offence has been committed. Clearly, they have reasonable grounds, because an investigation is underway.”

Smith said her government is waiting for the investigations to wrap up before considering any legislative changes.

Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said the government needs to act now, especially with the clock ticking toward an October referendum.

“They’re going to let Elections Alberta investigate — the very same Elections Alberta that they have defunded and defanged, that they’ve taken away the investigative ability of,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2026.

— With files from Lisa Johnson