CALGARY — Corb Lund says he is “deeply disappointed and shocked” after Premier Danielle Smith announced his question regarding coal mining will not appear on Alberta’s October referendum ballot.
Smith announced Wednesday there was not enough time for the country music singer’s Water Not Coal petition to complete the required regulatory process to be added to the October 19 ballot, citing a June 1 deadline established by Elections Alberta.
She added a committee has been tasked with determining the path forward on the anti-coal question concerning future coal mining in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
However, the committee is not expected to be formed until roughly a month before the referendum.
“After more than 200,000 Albertans added their names to the Water Not Coal petition, and after months of canvassing by thousands of volunteers, to be told that the petition won't make the ballot because it allegedly missed a June 1 deadline is unacceptable,” Lund said in an official statement.
Lund stated he met with Smith in her office on May 11 to discuss the wording of the proposed referendum question and how it would appear on the ballot, and that “at no point was any June 1 deadline mentioned.”
“In fact, as our petition was in full swing collecting signatures, the Premier stated widely in the media that if Water Not Coal collected enough signatures, our question would be on the ballot,” Lund said.
“My team, all the canvassers and Albertans in general deserve consistency, honesty and fair treatment around these petition and direct-democracy issues that the Premier has professed to believe in so strongly, so many times.”
Elections Alberta has confirmed it was asked by the UCP government about the referendum question deadline, and that the deadline was June 1 for several reasons, including the time needed to test and validate all technology systems involved in the process, insufficient time to recruit and train staff, and insufficient time to source paper and print an additional 4.9 million ballot sheets, referendum forms and other required supplies.
Lund argued Smith has previously demonstrated she can add referendum questions to the ballot, pointing to the original nine referendum questions and the recently added Alberta independence question.
“The authority and the choice are available to her,” he said.
“Albertans deserve to know why that authority was not used in this case, despite more than 200,000 people calling for it.”
