It's clear it's a pandering to the provincial government base, and has zero legitimacy. This all stems from a boneheaded move to unify the right in Alberta to prevent another NDP leadership term - that term being something that actually did our province some good.

We've unfortunately been putting up with these leaders doing this sort of thing too long and let the rural part of this province dictate far too much.

FWIW, I even bought myself a membership to try and do at least a small part to prevent this a decade ago, but that was impossible. People have truely lost their minds here and it's bizarre to talk to people that were once rational.

"Separation" seems like clear bad faith to me as well. Alberta as an independent country? Yeah right, they'd pull a Texas for sure.

I see from other comments that there's some concern over the validity of the signatures. But comparing the number of signatures on competiting petitions doesn't tell us much. I assume signature gathering in Alberta shares some common ideas with places I've lived... If you want something on the ballot you have a minimum number of signatures to gather, maybe another tier that enables a faster process, and you want to collect some number beyond that because some signatures will be found invalid, but after that there's no reason to continue collecting.

> First Nations have successfully argued in court that as consultations with them are required by the Canadian Constitution, no such consultations had even been suggested by separatists.

IMHO as an outside observer, if the current question is 'should we commence the legal process to have a binding referrendum', having consultations now is inappropriate. They would be part of the process to have a binding referrendum and so they must either be done or not after the results of this referrendum.

Apart from the fact that the Alberta population is ~4 million, it is difficult to see how separatists can figure they'd win a referendum to separate.

Isn't the important number not the total population, but the number of people who show up to vote?

What is a consultation? That sounds like a vague ill-defined veto over ever making changes.

I'm very open to tribal sovereignty in deciding what whether to remain in in Canada, but that should apply to tribal territory, not holding the majority of the population of the territory hostage.

They are already separate first nations not joined to Canada or Alberta. I don't understand why Alberta not wanting to participate in Federalism anymore is an issue.