Citizen Initiative Petition Verification Completed, Results Announced

July 24, 2026

EDMONTON, AB – As a result of a judicial decision on June 29, 2026, Elections Alberta has conducted the verification and determination process for the “A Referendum Relating to Alberta Independence” citizen initiative petition. As required under section 10 of the Citizen Initiative Act in force on May 1, 2026, Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure has determined the requirements of section 6 have been met and the petition is successful. 

The most frequent reasons signatures were rejected during the validation phase included incomplete addresses, electors not completing their declaration that they are an eligible elector, canvassers signing their witness declarations before electors signed the petition, and electors providing a mailing address instead of the required physical residential address. 292 duplicate signatures were also rejected. Signing a petition more than once is a breach of s.4(2) of the Act. 

 The primary reasons signatures were rejected during the verification phase included information provided by the elector during verification not matching the signature sheet, and electors being unable or unwilling to verify the information on the petition sheet. 

 On May 1, 2026, the Chief Electoral Officer directed that the Citizen Initiative petition verification process be amended to include determining if any of the seeded names from the Republican Party of Alberta’s List of Electors are contained in any incoming petition. If any of the seeded names are included, further scrutiny of the petition will result.

As part of the verification process, Elections Alberta screened the petition and has confirmed that none of the signatures submitted came from the seeded names on the Republican Party of Alberta’s List of Electors. 

 Additional information 

• The statistically valid sample size for the verification portion of the process was 384. 952 individuals whose names were on the petition were contacted by phone to complete the 384 verifications. 

• No individual contacted for verification reported their information was on the petition fraudulently. Elections Alberta is aware of a social media post alleging otherwise. Elections Alberta has reviewed the post in the context of our verification script and process and verification contacts records. The description in the social media post does not reflect that script or process and the verification records do not support the allegation. The account holder that made the post has not responded to requests for further information from Elections Alberta. 

• Caller ID identifying calls were from Elections AB was active for the petition verification process. 

• Electors who expressed a concern that the call or email from Elections Alberta were not legitimate were provided ways to contact Elections Alberta to confirm the contact was legitimate. 

• If an elector contacted for verification did not answer a call, return a voicemail, or return an email from Elections Alberta during the process, they did not fail verification. 

As required by section 11(1) of the Act and as directed by the Court of Appeal, this notice has been published on the Elections Alberta website.

The Current Citizen Initiative Petitions page on the Elections Alberta website has been updated to reflect the results. 

 Next steps 

Following the public reporting of the results of the verification, the next steps in the citizen initiative process are on hold.  The decision to issue “A Referendum Relating to Alberta Independence” citizen initiative petition” was quashed by the Court of King’s Bench on judicial review, and remains under appeal to the Court of Appeal.  Next steps will depend on the outcome of the appeal and further direction from the Court. 

Initiative Petition Background Information

The “A Referendum Relating to Alberta Independence” citizen initiative petition is for a constitutional proposal with the proposed question: “Do you agree that the Province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?”

Elections Alberta is an independent, non-partisan office of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta responsible for administering provincial elections, by-elections, and referendums.

The application was approved and the Notice of Initiative Petition issued on January 2, 2026. Please see: New Citizen Initiative Petition Issued – Elections Alberta. 

 The signature period for “A Referendum Relating to Alberta Independence” citizen initiative petition ended May 2, 2026, and on May 4, 2026, Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure received the petition and signature sheets from proponent Mitch Sylvestre, as well as a signed affidavit from the proponent that all copies of signature sheets have been destroyed, as required by section 6(1.1) of the Citizen Initiative Act. 

 Petition verification was stayed by the Court of King’s Bench. A decision of the Court of King’s Bench then quashed the Chief Electoral Officer’s decision approving the petition application. Boxes with the petition signature sheets were sealed, signed, locked in cabinets, secured and stored with 24/7 security monitoring until the verification process began. 

 Mr. Sylvestre appealed the quashing of the petition and on June 29, 2026, a Justice of the Court of Appeal issued a partial stay. The partial stay required Elections Alberta to complete the verification process contemplated by sections 10, 10.1 and 10.2 of the Citizen Initiative Act, and to report the results of the verification process to the public as contemplated by sections 11, 12(l)(c), and 12(2). This stay extended to allow the application of sections 13 and 13 .2 of the Citizen Initiative Act. 

 The partial stay does not require the Chief Electoral Officer to submit a copy of the proposal to the Minister, as set out in section 12(1)(b) of the Citizen Initiative Act. The Justice of the Court of Appeal provided direction that the partial stay be effective July 6, 2026. 

 The verification process was conducted between July 6 and July 23, 2026, and has now been completed. Any further steps in this citizen initiative process are stayed pending direction from the Court of Appeal.  

 More information on the citizen initiative process, including recent changes to legislation, what happens next if a petition is successful, the status of citizen initiative petitions, proponent financing rules, third party advertising rules, and answers to frequently asked questions may be found on Elections Alberta’s website. 

For media inquiries, please contact:
Michelle Gurney
Media Relations
Phone: 403.431.0759 
Email: [email protected]

Posted in: Uncategorized