EDMONTON — Stay Free Alberta's referendum third-party advertising group reported over $39,000 in donations during the most recent reporting period after claiming zeros financial contributions in the prior seven weeks since registering with Elections Alberta. According to reports published by Elections Alberta on Friday, groups advertising on either side of the Alberta independence referendum generated over $119,530 during the period of Aug. 28 and Sept. 3. The bulk of the donations was split among three groups, but Stay Free Alberta's $39,460 was the most among all TPAs during the week, upping their campaign total to $44,185 one week after reporting their first donation. .Stay Free Alberta and Mitch Sylvestre led the pro-independence citizen initiative petition that helped trigger the October vote, but the group had remained quiet since submitting their signatures in May. Sylvestre said at the time that he intended to refocus his attention on the Alberta Prosperity Project, the Alberta independence advocacy group of which he is the CEO. The APP paused operations in January in order to ensure they did not conflict with election laws while the Stay Free Alberta petition was active.APP launched its referendum campaign on Aug. 29, when over 1,000 individuals gathered at the Alberta Legislature Building, waved Alberta flags, and listened to Sylvestre and other speakers discuss the importance of securing support ahead of October. "No politician is going to save you," said Sylvestre at the rally. "You're going to have to do it yourself, with all of us helping. This works because of numbers. It's very simple, because of ordinary people who decide that they're not going to sit this one out.""That's the entire strategy, and that's the only one that has ever worked anywhere. We need to have more votes than them. That's it. We have to stop the cheat. We have to make it too big to win because they're going to cheat." Stay Free Alberta's citizen initiative financial statements were due to Elections Alberta on Thursday. .Federalist TPA Alberta's Voice and pro-independence group Let Alberta Decide"were the other two groups that received significant donations during the contribution period, raising $32,929 and $22,429, respectively. Alberta's Voice's donations continued their rise on the referendum TPA campaign leaderboard, as they have raised $152,421 and have now passed "Pathway to Independence" for second place overall among all groups. Let Alberta Decide continues to have a sizeable lead on the overall leaderboard, though, as their additions raised their campaign total to $484,988 and pushed them closer to the $607,000 ceiling with over six weeks remaining before the referendum. Thomas Lukaszuk's Forever Canadian group has yet to declare any donations related to the Alberta independence referendum. .The 16 pro-independence groups raised $74,641 during the reporting period, once again outraising the seven nationalist TPAs, which together raised $44,889. Albertans have now donated over $1.18 million to TPAs on either side of the Alberta independence debate, with nationalist groups collecting $895,575 and pro-Canada advertisers raising $289,802 since Premier Danielle Smith called the referendum question in May.
