Elections Alberta has begun verifying signatures collected for a citizen initiative seeking a referendum on Alberta independence after the province’s Court of Appeal granted a partial stay in an ongoing legal dispute.
Justice Alice Woolley ruled June 29 that the independent elections agency could count and verify the signatures while the appeal proceeds. Verification began July 6.
The petition, proposed by Mitch Sylvestre and promoted by Stay Free Alberta, asks whether Alberta should leave Canada and become an independent state.
Elections Alberta issued the petition Jan. 2. Organizers collected signatures until early May and delivered the petition materials to the agency May 4. The campaign says it gathered more than the 177,732 signatures required, although that claim must still be confirmed through Elections Alberta’s verification process.
Verification had been halted after Court of King’s Bench Justice Shaina Leonard quashed the petition May 13. Leonard found that Alberta had failed to meet its duty to consult First Nations before setting the process in motion.
Sylvestre appealed that ruling.
Woolley’s partial stay does not decide whether Leonard’s decision was correct. It allows Elections Alberta to preserve and examine the signatures while the larger constitutional and consultation issues move through the courts.
The results may be released publicly, but Elections Alberta cannot take the petition beyond verification unless the legal barriers are resolved.
The provincial government has separately announced an Oct. 19 referendum containing several questions, including one asking whether Alberta should remain in Canada or begin a process that could lead to a later binding vote. That government-led vote is separate from the Stay Free Alberta petition.
For now, the court ruling advances the counting process, not the independence proposal itself.