A Canadian judge will decide if a potential referendum on Alberta separatism will move forward. The proposed referendum question seeks a yes or no answer to: "Do you agree that the Province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?"
The province sits between British Columbia on the west coast and Saskatchewan and borders the United State's at Montana.
Alberta's Premier Danielle Smith (shown above) said that Albertans should be able to embark on gathering signatures "without needless bureaucratic red tape or court applications slowing the process."
Alberta's chief electoral officer Gordon McClure said in a news release on Tuesday that it is the law, and his responsibility, to ensure any referendum question is constitutional, the CBC reported.
"Given the potential implications of the constitutional referendum proposal and given the legislature has expressly authorized the chief electoral officer to state a question seeking the opinion of the court, the chief electoral officer has referred a question to the court for its opinion," McClure's statement said.
The statement said McClure is particularly interested in whether the proposed question respects democratic rights, mobility rights, the right to life, liberty and security of the person, equality before the law and equal protection under the law, enforcement of rights and freedoms, or recognition of Indigenous and treaty rights.
Brian Rushfeldt is the former executive director of Canada Family Action, who resides in Alberta.
"Our premier basically said I'm leaving it up to the people. Now she's getting accused of promoting separatism. She's not. She's simply saying that we need different treatment than what we've been getting because as a province, here's the disparities that the federal government has been putting on us. And still putting on us and that's got to stop."
Rushfeldt feels confident the vote will happen, perhaps as early as the fall.
"I'm positive that the referendum is going to come. I don't think a judge can stop it actually. Although all the radical whiners, that whole group have run off to a judge hoping that the judge will say ‘well, she can't do this.’ Premier Smith is going to say, “you don't have the authority judge. We are the government. We are elected by the people, and this is what we're going to do. We're going ahead with this referendum.’"
