Premier Danielle Smith and one of her ministers are calling on Alberta’s electoral officer to reverse course and sign off on a proposed referendum question on separation, saying it shouldn’t be held back by red tape.

Their call is in response to chief electoral officer Gordon McClure announcing Monday he referred the proposed question to the courts so a judge could decide if it contravenes Canada’s Constitution.

The proposed question – which needs McClure’s approval before the group behind it can start gathering the signatures necessary to get it on a ballot – 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?”

Smith and Justice Minister Mickey Amery, on social media, say Albertans should be able to embark on gathering signatures “without needless bureaucratic red tape or court applications slowing the process.”

“As it is the Government of Alberta that ultimately decides how or if to implement any referendum result, those government decisions will ultimately be subject to constitutional scrutiny,” Amery wrote Tuesday.

“We encourage Elections Alberta to withdraw its court reference and permit Albertans their democratic right to participate in the citizen initiative process.”

Potential Alberta separation referendum question referred to judge for approval

Smith, in her own post, says she agrees with Amery, but adds she believes in “Alberta sovereignty within a united Canada.”

McClure hasn’t explained if the question was referred to the courts because of specific concerns, only saying Monday that provincial laws require potential referendum questions to respect more than 30 sections of the Constitution, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

His office didn’t immediately respond to questions Tuesday seeking a response to Smith and Amery’s comments, which came after the group that submitted the question called the electoral officer’s decision a “delay tactic.”

Opposition NDP deputy leader Rakhi Pancholi, in a statement, accused Smith and Amery of going against the administration of a law they themselves set in order to appease separatists within the United Conservative Party.

“Yet again, Danielle Smith and her UCP government’s authoritarian tendencies, corruption and incompetence are on full display,” Pancholi said.

“Albertans deserve better than a government hell-bent on tearing our country apart to save their political skins.”

Mitch Sylvestre with the Alberta Prosperity Project, whose name is attached to the application submitted to the electoral officer, has not responded to interview requests this week.

Sylvestre has said he thinks interest among Albertans in holding a separation referendum increases with every speaking event his group organizes.

“The more people that hear what the message is, the more people that will be in favour,” he said in an interview last month.

Provincial law says a hearing date must be scheduled within 10 days of the court referral, and McClure’s office said Monday that he would have 30 days after a court ruling is issued to determine if the proposed referendum question meets other legislated requirements.

If approved, Sylvestre and the Alberta Prosperity Project would need to collect 177,000 signatures in four months to put the question of Alberta separation on a ballot.

In June, the chief electoral officer approved a competing question that seeks to have Alberta make it official policy that the province will never separate from Canada.

That petition, put forward by former Alberta Progressive Conservative deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, was approved before new provincial rules took effect that lowered the threshold for citizen-initiated referendums to get on ballots.

Amery said Tuesday the rule changes were intended to make the process “broadly permissive” and that McClure’s referral to the court didn’t match the intent behind the changes.