Referendums

Cornell Van Ryk, a resident of the MD of Pincher Creek, has been posting his thoughts on the Oct. 19 referendum questions to social media. After readers asked us to bring the series to the paper, he agreed to walk Breeze readers through the ballot. He describes himself as a political junkie with no particular […]

If you turn the pages of this week’s issue with a sigh and feel weary at the sight of yet another referendum story, I understand. I feel it too. This week’s paper leans more toward hard news than usual. It wasn’t planned, it’s simply how the stories came together. There’s an article on campaign signs […]

For some Piikani and Kainai members, the Oct. 19 referendum raises a question that isn’t on the ballot: what a provincial vote can mean for treaties signed with Canada. For others, the harder question is whether they can prove who they are at the polls. Both concerns came up Aug. 29, when about 30 members […]

Signs promoting Alberta independence have been knocked down or taken repeatedly in Pincher Creek since they went up Sept. 8, according to a volunteer with the campaign that placed them. They asked not to be named for fear of being targeted in the community. They filed a report with RCMP on Sept. 10 for the […]

The fight over coal mining near the headwaters of the Oldman River is headed to court. Corb Lund‘s Water Not Coal campaign has asked a judge to overturn Elections Alberta‘s decision that its petition, signed by more than 200,000 Albertans, fell just short of forcing a referendum. One of the two projects the petition targeted […]

A citizen initiative petition proposing a referendum on Alberta becoming an independent country has been declared successful after Elections Alberta verified enough signatures to satisfy the requirements of the Citizen Initiative Act. The agency announced Friday that statistical verification estimated 222,597 valid signatures from an initial submission of 286,593 signatures, surpassing the required minimum of […]

Water Not Coal is asking people contacted by Elections Alberta during petition signature verification to share their experiences, as the campaign weighs a legal challenge with a filing deadline of Aug. 2. “We’re still gathering our information. We’ve put out a public call,” campaign proponent Corb Lund says. “We want to understand their experience and […]

Elections Alberta began verifying signatures July 6 on a citizen initiative petition seeking a referendum on Alberta independence, with results due by July 27. The petition, titled A Referendum Relating to Alberta Independence, proposes the question “Do you agree that the Province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an […]

Submission from Allan Garbutt, Cowley   Let me get this straight. Our premier and her government claim to believe in direct democracy. That is, they will do what the people ask them to do. The citizen petitions and subsequent referendums seem to be an example of this. For those items that do not generate petitions, […]

Corb Lund’s campaign to halt new coal mining along Alberta’s Eastern Slopes has cleared its threshold, but Premier Danielle Smith says the question won’t appear on the Oct. 19 referendum ballot, despite earlier indications it would. On June 10, Lund and a group of Water Not Coal supporters unloaded 18 bins of signature sheets from […]