Constitutionality of potential Alberta separation referendum question put to judge

A potential referendum question on Alberta separating from Canada has been referred to a judge for confirmation that the question doesn't violate the Constitution.

The proposed question seeks a yes or no answer to: "Do you agree that the Province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?"

Alberta's chief electoral officer Gordon McClure, in a news release Monday, said provincial laws require potential referendum questions to respect more than 30 sections of the Constitution, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

McClure's release doesn't say which, if any, specific sections he's unsure about and his office said in an email it couldn't respond to questions while the case is before the court.

The potential referendum question was submitted to the electoral officer earlier this month by Mitch Sylvestre, an executive with the Alberta Prosperity Project, a non-profit group that has been touring the province promoting independence.

Jeffrey Rath, Sylvetre's legal council and one of the people who drafted the proposed referendum question, panned McClure's move to ask for the court's opinion.

"It's a silly question," Rath said, and accused Elections Alberta of delaying the evaluation of the application.

"It demonstrates an unreasonableness on the part of the Chief Electoral Officer that smacks of bias."

Rath said the question was written with the federal Clarity Act in mind, which requires the House of Commons to only consider the results of a provincial separation referendum when voters have been presented with a clear question.

Alberta's Citizen Initiative Act, which empowers Albertans to request a question be put to a referendum by gathering signatures on a petition, references the Constitution, but not the Clarity Act.

Court must hear case within 10 days

Sylvestre, who didn't respond to an interview request Monday, has said he thinks interest among Albertans in holding a separation referendum increases with every speaking event his group organizes.

"The more people that hear what the message is, the more people that will be in favour," he said in an interview last month.

The electoral officer's release says the Court of King's Bench will schedule a proceeding for the matter and that Sylvestre and the provincial justice minister have been notified of his decision to refer the question to a judge.

Provincial law says the court must schedule a hearing date within 10 days of receiving the question. It says the applicant (Sylvestre, in this case) is welcome to participate in the hearing.

If his question is approved, Sylvestre and the Alberta Prosperity Project would need to collect 177,000 signatures in 120 days to put the question of Alberta separation on a ballot.

In June, the chief electoral officer approved a competing question that seeks to have Alberta make it official policy that the province will never separate from Canada.

That petition, put forward by former Alberta Progressive Conservative deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, was approved before new provincial rules took effect that lowered the threshold for citizen-initiated referendums to get on ballots.

Lukaszuk's proposal also differs in that it seeks a referendum on a proposed policy — rather than a potential constitutional referendum like Sylvestre's proposal — and he'll need to collect nearly 300,000 signatures in 90 days.

The former deputy premier confirmed Monday that signature collection efforts for his proposed policy referendum were expected to begin in the coming days.