{"id":679619,"date":"2026-05-19T12:40:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T12:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/679619\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T12:40:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T12:40:44","slug":"%f0%9f%8e%b6can-you-tell-me-how-to-get-how-to-get-to-forever-canadian-street-%f0%9f%8e%b6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/679619\/","title":{"rendered":"\ud83c\udfb6Can you tell me how to get. How to get to Forever Canadian Street.\ud83c\udfb6"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Thomas Lukaszuk and Michael Janz unveil a mock-up of the proposed Forever Canadian Avenue street sign (source: Dave Cournoyer)<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfb6Can you tell me how to get. How to get to Forever Canadian Street.\ud83c\udfb6<\/p>\n

That might be a tune that children visiting Alberta\u2019s provincial legislature for the first time will sing in years to come if an Edmonton City Councillor gets his wish.<\/p>\n

City Councillor Michael Janz joined former Edmonton MLA Thomas Lukaszuk and supporters near the Alberta Legislature today to announce a proposal to rename a two-block stretch of 99th Avenue between 107 Street to 109 Street to Forever Canadian Avenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis street belongs to all Albertans. This is the Alberta Legislature and the Forever Canadian movement collected signatures from all across Alberta,\u201d Janz said of the pro-Canada citizen initiative campaign<\/a> that collected more than 456,000 signatures in 2025 to support the ballot question \u201cDo you agree that Alberta should remain part of Canada?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when we have a movement of grassroots volunteers like this in our community at a time when many organization are struggling to get volunteers and to just see the numbers the group put up, it\u2019s incredible,\u201d Janz said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is such a special place for all of us. This is where we come for Canada Day. I can\u2019t think of a better location for us to honour our commitment to a united Canada together,\u201d Janz said.<\/p>\n

Janz pointed to a stretch of 97th Street in north Edmonton that was renamed Canadian Forces Trail in 2018<\/a> as his inspiration for the idea. That name change was proposed to Edmonton\u2019s volunteer Naming Committee<\/a> by then-councillor Jon Dziadyk. Janz\u2019s proposal will also need to be submitted and approved to the city\u2019s Naming Committee for consideration.<\/p>\n

If approved by the naming committee, the cost of the street signage changes will be the responsibility of the person who proposed the name change.<\/p>\n

\u201c99th Avenue is very symbolic because 121 years ago, in 1905, just about 500 metres behind us, is where Alberta became Alberta, that is where Prime Minister Laurier and our first premier, Rutherford, adopted the Alberta Act in 1905,\u201d Lukaszuk said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you go another 100 metres down south and that\u2019s where Fort Edmonton was and that\u2019s where the whole story of this land began other than our First Nations who, obviously, are a very key part of our Forever Canadian movement,\u201d Lukaszuk continued.<\/p>\n

Lukaszuk was the Progressive Conservative MLA for Edmonton-Castle Downs from 2001 and 2015 and served as a cabinet minister in the governments of Premier Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford. He jumped back into the spotlight last year to lead the Forever Canadian campaign.<\/p>\n

The successful Forever Canadian citizen initiative petition, the first in the province\u2019s history, was submitted to Speaker Ric McIver last year and has been sent to an MLA committee to study. <\/p>\n

Sending the question to a UCP-dominated committee avoids having to put the question to a province-wide ballot or to a vote by MLAs in the Legislature. Lukaszuk has said he would prefer to have MLAs vote on the question rather than going through the effort of a province-wide vote. <\/p>\n

Avoiding a Legislature vote provides cover for MLAs in Premier Danielle Smith\u2019s UCP Caucus who support Alberta\u2019s separation from Canada<\/a> or are vulnerable to nomination challenges by separatist-endorsed UCP candidates ahead of the next provincial election.<\/p>\n

Janz\u2019s Forever Canadian Avenue announcement comes just days after a judge quashed<\/a> Elections Alberta\u2019s approval of a citizen initiative petition organized by separatist leaders with deep ties to the governing United Conservative Party. <\/p>\n

Premier Danielle Smith called the judge\u2019s ruling antidemocratic and declared her government would appeal the decision<\/a> as separatist leaders publicly threatened her leadership<\/a> of the party if she didn\u2019t intervene. While a large majority of Albertans support remaining in Canada<\/a>, a majority of UCP voters tell pollsters they would vote for Alberta to separate from Canada if a referendum is held.<\/p>\n

\"DanielleDanielle Smith will take the pipeline but won\u2019t shelve the separatism talk<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI think we all need to be very clear eyed about what we\u2019re facing with this whole question around separatism in Alberta. It\u2019s not a joke,\u201d Janz said. \u201cIt\u2019s something we should be full throated in responding to and all of us, especially elected officials, should be coming out and voicing our commitment to Canada and to Confederation.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked by reporters about his pitch to Alberta separatists, Lukaszuk replied that \u201cIt\u2019s not a pitch, because I\u2019m not selling anything \u2014 Canada sells itself,\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cBut the message to separatists is, yes, Canada is not a perfect country, and yes there are some issues that separatist are raising that are worth analyzing and focusing on repairing,\u201d Lukaszuk said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when we are starting to see collaborative federalism<\/a> at work and our Premier actually is doing an exceptionally good job negotiating with Prime Minister Carney and delivering long-term benefits from Alberta, why would we want to sabotage ourselves and stop this process,\u201d Lukaszuk said. \u201cWe\u2019re actually seeing that Canada truly works.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Thomas Lukaszuk speaks with reporters about the Forever Canadian Avenue proposal with supporters and the Alberta Legislature Building in the background (source: Dave Cournoyer)<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading Daveberta – Alberta politics and elections! This post is public so feel free to share it.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for reading and subscribing to Daveberta. There is rarely a dull moment in Alberta politics and it\u2019s a real pleasure to be able to share my thoughts about what\u2019s happening in my corner of Canada with so many of you.<\/p>\n

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Thanks again,<\/p>\n

Dave<\/p>\n

Refer a friend<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Lukaszuk and Michael Janz unveil a mock-up of the proposed Forever Canadian Avenue street sign (source: Dave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-679619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679619","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=679619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}