{"id":385122,"date":"2026-01-03T07:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/385122\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T07:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:18:16","slug":"alberta-separatist-group-gets-green-light-to-collect-referendum-signatures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/385122\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta separatist group gets green light to collect referendum signatures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\tBy Staff<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Canadian Press\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tPosted January 2, 2026 5:32 pm\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t1 min read\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>Alberta\u2019s election agency has fired the starter\u2019s pistol on the race to collect enough names for a referendum on the province quitting Canada.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765485674_689_70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/elections-alberta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Elections Alberta<\/a> announced Friday that Mitch Sylvestre and the <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/alberta-prosperity-project\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alberta Prosperity Project<\/a> have from Saturday until May 2 to collect just under 178,000 signatures to qualify.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCitizen initiative petition signature sheets have been issued,\u201d Elections Alberta said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765813388_386_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n<p>Get the day&#8217;s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-blockquote__content l-article__blockquoteContent\">\u201cThe proponent may now proceed with collecting signatures.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Elections Alberta had already announced before Christmas that it had approved the referendum question.<\/p>\n<p>But it said the group could not collect signatures until it had finalized details, including hiring a chief financial officer.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11597489\/haitian-migrants-deported\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/f01084e7cfadc27ea8d9a3b59770efe02695d3fd4741dff6cb2823ed13cf9b9d.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tSome Haitian migrants arrested in Quebec on Christmas Day deported to U.S.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11597637\/cfia-suspends-licence-goodfood\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767424696_653_Goodfood.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tCFIA suspends licence of meal kit delivery service Goodfood\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The question seeks a yes or no answer to: \u201cDo you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Sylvestre could not be immediately reached for comment.<\/p>\n<p>He has previously said a referendum is needed because of federal government restrictions on oil development alongside dim hopes for electoral change in Ottawa.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 More to come\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Politics<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Staff The Canadian Press Posted January 2, 2026 5:32 pm 1 min read Descrease article font size&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35933,25158,48,111707,43,44,714,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-385122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta-prosperity-project","tag-alberta-separatism","tag-canada","tag-elections-alberta","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}