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‘We will definitely surpass the minimum’: [Former Deputy Premier of Alberta] Lukaszuk confident anti-separatist petition can gather needed signatures (www.ctvnews.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/alberta@lemmy.ca
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The question that the separatists were proposing was Do you agree that the province shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province of Canada? And the question that Lukaszuk proposed is Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?

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[–] [S] 6 points 1 year ago (13 children)

There can only be one petition because they are too similar. Basically, the separatists can't submit their petition because Lukaszuk already submitted his.
I don't know what happens if the threshold is met. I believe the Alberta government has to at least make a response to it, but even that I'm not sure.

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  • [+] 4 points 1 year ago (11 children)
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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

    Except you'd want to sign it. It's not a petition to leave, it's a petition to stay.
    The separatists were proposing a question "Do you agree that the province shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province of Canada?" which would mean even if, for example, 2 million Albertans refused to sign it, it wouldn't matter if 177 thousand people agreed to do so. Under the new question, "Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?" if those 2 million Albertans signed the petition, it wouldn't matter if those 177 thousand refused to sign it. Granted, it is a gamble because it's easier to do a thing rather than not do a thing.
    I could be wrong on his intentions, but considering that Lukaszuk is the head of a movement called Forever Canadian, and from his twitter it seems like he's pro-Canada.
    Edit: I meant it's easier to not do a thing rather than do a thing, wording got mixed up there.

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  • [+] 2 points 1 year ago (9 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    We live in the voodoo zone now. I would read everything with a hypercritical lens going forward when it comes to this government and this province. The murderer's calls are coming from inside the house, when it comes to Alberta. It's misinformation central.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago* (7 children)

    In an ideal world I'd agree with you. But if we lived in that world the UCP wouldn't have formed government in the first place. And considering that our Opposition Leader has basically told Smith to put up or shut up, the referendum is happening regardless of whether it should.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)

    That is a good point, though the separatists themselves disagree, as they're still working to submit their own petition. I guess the question remains of how many times a petition like this can be made. If this one fails, can the separatists put forward another one? That's not going to be great. "Alberta couldn't pass a petition to stay but could pass one to leave."

    Another thing to consider is our neighbour to the south. If the petition to leave passed, would they care that the threshold is extremely low, or that this doesn't actually mean that Alberta has separated? It's not like Trump has stopped believing that we should be the 51st state, and it's not like anyone in the American government cares enough to stop him.

    A petition to leave passing might compel Trump to "little green men" us, because, y'know, we "voted" for it.

    To be frank we're just in a really shitty situation.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    While it's a good point to state that the best outcome would be that neither petition passes, I think we would have to hope against everything we've seen so far for it to come to that. The fact that the separatists were still trying to submit their petition despite the fact that Lukaszuk's petition is basically the same thing says that, at the very least, they don't want any petition and/or referendum on Alberta separatism to have an anti-separatism slant.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    The threshold for the petition only requires about 6 percent of the electorate to actually sign the petition, so you'd only need about a third of the people strongly in favour of separatism. That's why the threshold for the referendum was lowered this much. In my opinion, it basically makes the petition passing inevitable. It certainly could be that the 30 percent who are slightly/strongly in favour of separatism are actually an overrepresentation in the polls due to various reasons.

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