CALGARY — Premier Danielle Smith has confirmed the question put forth by musician Corb Lund’s anti-coal citizen initiative petition will not be added to the October referendum ballot.
On Wednesday, Smith said that there was not enough time to go through the entire regulatory process to put it on the ballot, despite the fact that she has previously said Lund’s question would be included in the referendum if the country music singer had gathered enough verified signatures.
“The Forever Canada petition went before a committee of MLAs,” she said.
“So it’s both parties and then they took hearings, got legal advice and then made a determination about how to proceed with that — and so this particular legislative proposal will follow the same pathway.”
Last week, Lund submitted his petition to Elections Alberta, saying campaign volunteers had collected over 200,000 signatures — significantly more than the roughly 178,000 required.
His petition asks the question: "Do you agree that the Province of Alberta should prohibit new coal mine development and exploration in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains?"
The petition also specifically names two potential coal projects — Northback Holdings’ Grassy Mountain project and Valory Resources’ Blackstone mine — and calls for them to be stopped from being green-lit by Alberta’s regulators.
The premier stated her government had received notification from Elections Alberta that, in order to prepare for the October 19 vote, a June 1 deadline had been set for any new additions to the ballot.
“This one came in a little bit late,” she said.
“They still have to validate the signatures, so we're waiting for that validation process.”
Once the validation occurs, Smith said a new legislative committee would be put together in September, after which there would be a recommendation to the legislature about whether to proceed with a bill or a referendum on the question.
She also added Lund’s petition was complicated because it dealt with land rights.
On Tuesday, when reports first emerged that Lund’s petition might not make the October referendum ballot after Smith hinted at the possibility during her weekend radio show, Lund accused the premier of using a procedural excuse to keep the question off the ballot.
“She’s pretending that through some technicality she’s not going to put it on the referendum,” Lund told Global News.
“She knows she can put anything she wants on the referendum because she’s done it ten times in a row.”
When asked by the Western Standard at a press conference in Edmonton on Wednesday about the petition not making it onto the October ballot, Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi said that “the premier’s hypocrisy on this is extraordinary,” citing that Smith put the independence question on the referendum despite an Alberta justice ruling it was unconstitutional.
“[Smith] wrote a law, so abide by the law, even when it's inconvenient,” Nenshi said, adding that his party’s position remained opposed to coal mining in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
“You believe in direct democracy, you always tell us you do. Let's have the referendum," he said.
