EDMONTON— Elections Alberta has reportedly initiated legal action against an Alberta independence advocacy group after police were seen at a group event on Wednesday over alleged illegal use of Alberta's official List of Electors. "It has come to Elections Alberta’s attention an inappropriate use and/or distribution of the List of Electors by a legitimate list recipient may have occurred," reads a statement from Elections Alberta issued on Thursday. "... There has been no breach of Elections Alberta’s databases or systems. The unfolding situation is believed to involve a third party and to have occurred as a result of the inappropriate use and/or distribution of the list of electors by a registered political party that was a legitimate recipient of the list."The Centurion Project is an Alberta independence advocacy group formed by a group of leaders, including David Parker, followed by a group of 100 sub-leaders, each in charge of 1,000 members, tasked with advocating for Alberta independence to 10 friends. Their mission is "To recruit, equip and mobilize a team of community leaders across the province of Alberta to take on the task of winning Alberta's sovereignty." Their system operates under the 10X program, which includes a database of information on individual Albertans, and each member is to "claim electors" they know and are willing to educate about independence. "You just need an email and your name, and you'll find that we've taken public data, we've scraped public data from 411, from Canada Post and all these places you can get information on people, and we have 3 million voting-age Albertans in the database," said Parker on the Shaun Newman Podcast on Monday. .Forever Canadian leader Thomas Lukaszuk said on Wednesday that the database has not been compiled legally, though. He said his group has learned and confirmed that "Alberta’s list of electors, containing everyone’s personal information, was made available to the separatists.""This is illegal, risks public safety, and creates uneven playing field as we fight for Canada," wrote Lukaszuk.Elections Alberta is prohibited from commenting on an investigation that may or may not be taking place, but they said Albertans deserve to know that they take the potential unauthorized distribution and use of the list seriously.They assured Albertans that they are using "every possible action to determine if this has taken place and, if so, to protect and recover the information."Parker claims the Centurion Project is being investigated for potentially illegally accessing and using the List of Electors. The project was made aware of the alleged investigation on Wednesday, when at least eight Edmonton Police Service officers showed up at a Centurion Project speaking event in Edmonton, and reportedly delivered a "cease and desist" order from the watchdog. EPS confirmed its presence at the event in a statement on Thursday, saying they were there "at the request of Elections Alberta to assist in serving documents."They would not offer any additional information and instructed all further questions be directed to Elections Alberta. .Project leaders have said officers were respectful and left the event after learning nothing illegal was happening there, and have criticized Elections Alberta for the theatrics of sending numerous officers to deliver a notice."Let this sink in. Someone at Elections Alberta has enough pull to make a call to the chief of police, and get a dozen officers dispatched to serve a notice of 'investigation' letter," wrote Marty Belanger, who was speaking at the event when police were present, on X. "This is pure intimidation."Centurion Project leaders have not said whether they used the official list, but an X post by Belanger prior to the event suggested that the group secured information about Albertans legally through Canada post. "Newsflash folks. Your personal data is for sale," Belanger wrote. "Canada Posts rents it out to other businesses on a regular basis. So do many other corporations."Canada post openly rents their data to buisnesses, such as Costco, to help with marketing campaigns. "Access Canada's most advanced address database and reach residential and business addresses by location, demographics, business type and much more," reads the Canada Post website. "Perfect for your acquisition strategy.".Lukaszuk followed his initial post with a screenshot of a Centurion Project resource guide demonstrating the elector search function a available to project members. "Now that separatists have access to the voters’ list (containing contact information and address of every Albertan), they set up an internal search engine for looking up Albertans," Lukaszuk wrote. "This unprecedented illegal leak, aimed at helping them win the referendum, puts Albertans at risk." Belanger dismissed the claims, saying Lukaszuk "has never heard of a thing called a 'phone book.'"Parker chimed in on Thursday with his own quip about a phone books. "Look everyone! I found names and addresses in a nefarious document called a phone book! Call the cops!" Parker wrote on X. .The Western Standard has reached out to Elections Alberta, Alberta's Justice Ministry and Parker for comments.
