Alberta senator Paula Simons says the public release of a provincial voters’ list has created serious safety concerns, including for herself and other elected officials, as RCMP continue investigating the unprecedented privacy breach.Blacklock's Reporter says appearing before the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee Wednesday, the Edmonton senator described the situation as a threat to Albertans whose personal information was exposed when Alberta’s List of Electors was posted online earlier this year.“The situation in Alberta is very grave,” Simons told the committee. “It is a threat to the safety of many Albertans, myself and Sen. Tannas and Sen. Wells included.”Simons was referring to fellow Alberta Senator Scott Tannas and Newfoundland Senator David Wells, who also sit on the committee.The senator urged committee members to pay closer attention to the fallout from the disclosure of voter information and criticized what she described as limitations facing Alberta’s privacy watchdog.“I think it would have been very edifying for the committee to have heard about the crisis in Alberta with the privacy of voter information and the inability of the Privacy Commissioner to fully engage with the situation,” she said.Following the hearing, Simons declined to elaborate on the nature of the threats she referenced.“For obvious reasons I have no comment,” she said.Simons noted only Tannas and Wells because they were present in the committee room, despite the fact three other Alberta senators — Daryl Fridhandler of Calgary, Patti LaBoucane-Benson of Stony Plain and Karen Sorensen of Banff — could also have been affected by the breach.“I only named the senators who are members of the committee and who were in the room,” Simons said. “That was why I used them as examples.”.RCMP are investigating the April 30 publication of Alberta’s voter registry on a private website operated by Centurian Project Ltd., an Alberta independence organization. The database contained the names and addresses of approximately 2.9 million registered voters.Authorities believe 545 people, including journalists, accessed the information before a court order forced its removal.The controversy comes amid growing debate over Alberta sovereignty and ahead of a provincial referendum scheduled for Oct. 19.The ballot question asks Albertans: “Should Alberta remain a province in Canada or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”Simons has been a vocal opponent of Alberta independence and has previously sought clarification from Ottawa on whether any province could leave Confederation without federal approval.During Senate Question Period last year, she asked whether the federal Clarity Act — legislation adopted following the Quebec sovereignty movement — would also apply to Alberta and Saskatchewan.Then-Government Representative in the Senate Marc Gold responded that the law applies equally to all provinces.“It is not really a matter of belief, it is a matter of law,” Gold said. “The Clarity Act applies to all provinces.”When Simons pressed for details on what legal hurdles a province would face before separating, Gold declined to provide a detailed explanation.“Were I in a classroom perhaps in a law school or otherwise that would be a question I would welcome,” he replied.
