{"id":668027,"date":"2026-05-14T02:54:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T02:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/668027\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T02:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T02:54:15","slug":"danielle-smith-rejects-alberta-judges-ruling-against-separation-petition-as-anti-democratic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/668027\/","title":{"rendered":"Danielle Smith rejects Alberta judge\u2019s ruling against separation petition as \u2018anti-democratic\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Premier Danielle Smith is rejecting the ruling of an Alberta judge who on Wednesday quashed a separatist petition<\/a> and says the province will appeal the court ruling.<\/p>\n

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In her written judgment, Justice Shaina Leonard ruled the petition should never have been issued because the provincial government failed in its duty to consult with First Nations and Alberta\u2019s separation would be a violation of treaty rights.<\/p>\n

Premier Danielle Smith, during an unrelated announcement in Edmonton shortly after the decision came down, called the court\u2019s ruling incorrect in law and anti-democratic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that it is a single judge who has made a decision, and we have now 700,000 Albertans \u2014 whether they\u2019re on the remain side or the leave side \u2014 who\u2019ve said that they want to have this public debate,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince we believe that this one is incorrect in law and anti-democratic, we will be appealing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Smith said she\u2019ll be meeting with her cabinet and UCP caucus to further review the decision and decide next steps.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to hear from Albertans. That\u2019s what we think democracy is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and Blackfoot Confederacy, made up of the Piikani Nation, Siksika Nation and Blood Tribe, took the Government of Alberta, the province\u2019s Chief Electoral Officer and Mitch Sylvestre, who is leader of the Alberta independence movement, to court.<\/p>\n

The province\u2019s referendum process and its use by separatists, they argued, is unconstitutional because it does not include a requirement to consult with First Nations.<\/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\t\u2018Alberta sits on treaty land\u2019: Indigenous leaders oppose separatist movement\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The separatist group Stay Free Alberta handed in its petition last week and boasted that it had nearly 302,000 names \u2014 well above its 178,000 requirement.<\/p>\n

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Premier Danielle Smith has said if the petition had enough signatures, the group\u2019s question would be put on a ballot during a planned referendum this fall.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGet breaking National news<\/p>\n

Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won’t miss a trending story.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the province have defended the process and pushed for the separatist petition to play out.<\/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 government lawyers push back against First Nation attempt to kill separatism petition\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Neil Dobson, a lawyer for the province, argued in court that if a referendum passed and the province took steps to follow through, then a duty to consult would be triggered.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s judgment was preceded by a ruling from the judge last month when she paused the signature verification process for the petition while she considered the First Nations\u2019 legal challenge.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the judge said the provincial government, as the party that would implement succession, had a duty to consult, but no consultation occurred so \u201cAlberta breached its duty to consult with the applicants.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The judge also said \u201cas a matter of logic and common sense, there can be no doubt that Alberta\u2019s secession from Canada will have an impact on Treaties 7 and 8,\u201d and, \u201cit follows that the Chief Electoral Officer\u2019s decision has a potential adverse effect on those Treaty rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reaction to Wednesday\u2019s ruling was swift.<\/p>\n

The lawyer for the separatist group Stay Free Alberta issued a statement on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe disagree fundamentally with the decision which appears on its face to violate the principles of natural justice and contain numerous errors of law,\u201d said Jeffrey Rath, who added that the group will be filing an appeal.<\/p>\n

Elections Alberta also issued a statement, saying, \u201cWe are analyzing the decision and outcomes to determine what that means for Elections Alberta and citizen initiative petitions in progress, and will need some time to do that work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The premier has already outlined nine questions dealing with immigration and constitutional changes that will be asked during an Oct. 19 provincial referendum.<\/p>\n

However, Wednesday\u2019s court ruling means the possibility of including a separation question on the ballot remains up in the air.<\/p>\n

The pro-federalist \u201cForever Canadian\u201d petition was earlier verified, but an Alberta legislative committee hasn\u2019t yet decided if the question asked on that petition \u2014 \u201cDo you agree that Alberta should remain within Canada?\u201d \u2014 will be put to a referendum or a vote amongst all MLAs on the floor of the provincial legislature.<\/p>\n

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Thomas Lukaszuk, a former Alberta deputy premier, spearheaded the \u201cForever Canadian\u201d petition, which collected over 400,000 signatures and was verified by Elections Alberta officials in December.<\/p>\n

\u2013with files from The Canadian Press.<\/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\tFirst Nations protest as Alberta separatism court battle continues\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Premier Danielle Smith is rejecting the ruling of an Alberta judge who on Wednesday quashed a separatist petition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[246371,25159,35932,25158,43,44,714,245875,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-668027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta-first-nations","tag-alberta-referendum","tag-alberta-separation","tag-alberta-separatism","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-take-back-alberta","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668027","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=668027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}