If you ask Thomas Lukaszuk, there’s only one answer to the newest referendum question Albertans will be answering on October 19.<\/p>\n
“We will win,” he said.<\/p>\n
The former deputy premier of Alberta and the man leading the federalist Forever Canadian initiative responded to Premier Danielle Smith’s address to the province on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Over 400,000 people signed Lukaszuk’s petition, launched in response to the separation movement.<\/p>\n
In her address on May 21, Smith said an additional referendum question will be posed in conjunction with the nine others Albertans will be voting on in just under five months’ time. The latest question will ask whether Albertans want to remain in Canada or whether the legal process should be commenced to hold a referendum on Alberta leaving Confederation.<\/p>\n
To Lukaszuk, the question strikes him as convoluted.<\/p>\n
“The premier has handed down a decision to hold a referendum on holding a referendum,” he said.<\/p>\n
The question is worded this way because the province is currently appealing a May 13 court decision that ruled a separatist petition invalid for failing to consult with First Nations.<\/p>\n
The petition from Stay Free Alberta had garnered more than 300,000 signatures in support of Alberta leaving Confederation at the time of Justice Shaina Leonard’s decision.<\/p>\n
Several prominent voices in Alberta supporting the separation movement have already expressed displeasure with Smith’s address, including David Parker and Jeffrey Rath.<\/p>\n
During the Quebec referendum campaign in 1995, thousands of Canadians gathered in Montreal for a massive rally in support of keeping Quebec in Confederation. When asked if something like that would be possible here, Lukaszuk said he’s already started speaking with others in Canada about keeping Alberta in the fold.<\/p>\n
“I’m flying to Toronto next month to speak to the business community there, which is very much concerned about what is happening in Alberta because our economy is integrated,” he said.<\/p>\n
Lukaszuk knows the federalist movement has its work cut out for it.<\/p>\n
But he’s confident they will emerge victorious.<\/p>\n
“Losing is not an option,” said a resolute Lukaszuk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you ask Thomas Lukaszuk, there’s only one answer to the newest referendum question Albertans will be answering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,49,48,251338,893,44,251337,714,32146,95361],"class_list":["post-685958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-confederation","tag-government","tag-news","tag-political-events","tag-politics","tag-spare-news","tag-thomas-lukaszuk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685958","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=685958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}