Alberta Prosperity Project CEO Mitch Sylvestre (L) holds a press conference with (L–R) lawyer Jeffrey Rath, Dr. Dennis Modry, and former MP LaVar Payne in Calgary on March 26, 2025. The Epoch Times
Legal proceedings are underway in Edmonton to decide whether an Alberta separatist group is allowed to launch a referendum on whether or not the province should separate from Canada and become a sovereign nation.
During deliberations that began Nov. 19 and are set to run to Nov. 21, Justice Colin Feasby of the Court of King’s Bench in Edmonton heard arguments from the non-profit Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) co-founder and counsel Jeffrey Rath and others about the constitutionality of allowing a referendum on Alberta independence.
The application to hold a referendum was submitted by APP executive director Mitch Sylvestre this past July and poses the question to Albertans: “Do you agree that the Province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?”
Sylvestre’s application was sent by Alberta’s chief electoral officer to the Court of the King’s Bench to evaluate constitutionality, citing uncertainty about the question’s implications for the province.
The court is now hearing from various intervenors including five First Nations, Elections Alberta, and two lawyers acting as amicus curiae, or “friends of the court.” The friends of the court are Edmonton lawyer Matthew Woodley and professor Eric Adams of the University of Alberta, who are in charge of a fact-finding role and have posed that allowing the APP to collect signatures for a potential referendum would contravene section 2(4) of the Citizen Initiative Act and therefore be unconstitutional.
In his arguments before the court, APP’s Rath said that any potential outcome of the referendum is not pertinent to the constitutionality of allowing signatures to be collected for a potential referendum.
“There is no intention flowing from Mr. Sylvestre’s proposal to unilaterally or in any way unlawfully affect anyone’s constitutionally protected rights,” Rath said, “It is clear that the referendum is merely consultative.”
Rath said that his client is not proposing a plan for separation nor what to do in the event that Albertans do vote to secede, but only requesting the right specifically to collect signatures for a non-binding referendum.
First Nations
Justice Feasby raised the issue of treaty rights with First Nations who might have to cross a national border to reenter areas of their own land under a potential independent Alberta.
“These folks are going to have to cross a border to go home” after hunting, Feasby said as an example. “They’re going to be going home with a firearm. They’re going to be going home with, in this scenario, a moose in the back of the pick up. They are going to be subject to border controls when they do that.”
Rath said that international borders wouldn’t impede the rights of First Nations to access their territory, but matters such as the right to enter Alberta for those with criminal records would be something a future country would have to work out independently. Rath said a future independent Alberta would have no issue with respecting First Nations treaties, but pointed to Ottawa and other provinces as having a more serious issue.
“First Nations people are suing governments every single day in this country over ongoing violations of treaty rights,” Rath said.
The government of Alberta has said that it doesn’t agree with the chief electoral officer’s decision to refer the matter to judicial review, while the opposition NDP says the government shouldn’t have gotten involved in the matter.
Rath said that he expects a ruling on whether the referendum will be allowed before Christmas. Once Feasby rules, Alberta’s chief electoral officer has 30 days to ensure the proposed referendum meets all other requirements under the Citizen Initiative Act. If the referendum is given the greenlight by the court and by the chief electoral officer, APP will have around four months to get about 177,000 signatures required to put the question on a provincial referendum ballot.
Paul Rowan Brian is a news reporter with the Canadian edition of The Epoch Times.