{"id":572349,"date":"2026-03-31T06:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/572349\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T06:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:40:15","slug":"alberta-proposes-election-blackout-on-citizen-led-referendum-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/572349\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta proposes election blackout on citizen-led referendum questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alberta\u00a0Premier Danielle Smith\u2019s government is proposing major changes to its law governing citizen-led petitions for the third time in less than a year.<\/p>\n

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Justice Minister Mickey Amery introduced Monday a bill that, if passed, would make it impossible to start a petition for a constitutional or policy referendum a year before or a year after a provincial election.<\/p>\n

Petitions currently completed or underway wouldn\u2019t be affected by the two-year blackout period, and corresponding deadlines for holding a referendum would be repealed.<\/p>\n

Amery told reporters before introducing the changes that they\u2019re about creating a consistent window for those looking to bring proposals forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want voters to be able to weigh in on election matters during elections without having citizen-led initiatives stand in the way of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said the United Conservative Party government is continuing to \u201crefine\u201d and improve the process to make it as easy and as streamlined as possible for Albertans.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI certainly wouldn\u2019t foresee a scenario in which a question would be put aside or held over for 10 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Last year, Smith\u2019s government first dropped a signature threshold and extended signature collection periods by a month for citizens to put referendum questions on a ballot.<\/p>\n

In December, the government passed a law clearing legal hurdles faced by those aiming to hold a separatist referendum, and it later changed regulations to increase the application fee to $25,000 from $5,000.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlberta bill aims to clear further obstacles to citizen-driven referendum questions\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The petition seeking a referendum question on\u00a0Alberta\u00a0leaving Canada has until May 2 to collect just under 178,000 signatures.<\/p>\n

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Three other citizen-led initiative petitions have also kicked off since last June.<\/p>\n

A successful one in December aims to make it policy that\u00a0Alberta\u00a0won\u2019t leave Canada. It was carried out under previous rules.<\/p>\n

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Another petition lobbying against public funding for private schools failed in February.<\/p>\n

And a petition asking to outlaw new coal mining on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains has until June 10 to collect signatures.<\/p>\n

Amery\u2019s new legislation also proposes lowering thresholds for publishing public sector salaries.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPetition against Alberta eastern slopes coal mining starts collecting signatures\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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That means the provincial Sunshine List would capture those earning $130,000 in base salary per year, rather than a minimum of $133,819 for government employees or $159,676 for those working for broader public sector bodies.<\/p>\n

The government would also disclose public sector severance payouts once a year instead of twice. Amery said the move is about cutting red tape.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will create less duplication for those that are required to produce two separate reporting requirements and make it one, which I still think captures all of the information that Albertans want and deserve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCarney addresses prospect of an Alberta separatism referendum in 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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The proposed legislation also aims to ban \u201cmisleading\u201d digitally created media of politicians or election officials known as deepfakes.<\/p>\n

Elections\u00a0Alberta\u00a0would enforce fines of up to $10,000 for individuals and $100,000 for entities who produce or share deepfakes that mislead voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to keep our elections fair and honest, and a lot of this is driven by the desire to proactively meet the threats as they come,\u201d Amery said.<\/p>\n

He pointed to other legislation in the works under Technology and Innovation Minister Nate Glubish that would allow lawsuits over sharing deepfake intimate images.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alberta\u00a0Premier Danielle Smith\u2019s government is proposing major changes to its law governing citizen-led petitions for the third time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,53105,44,28599,714,160872],"class_list":{"0":"post-572349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-danielle-smith","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-petition","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-referendum"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572349","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=572349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}