It’s my understanding that a referendum petition is about the phrasing of the question that’s presented to go on the referendum ballot.

The pro-Canada group “won” the right to petition for their question to go on the ballot as they submitted before the anti-Canada traitors could. Basically, stay in Canada vs leave Canada.

Am I just an idiot, or is the safest thing for AB to do is not sign regardless of who is asking? If this petition gets enough sigs all it means is that this will be the question asked on the ballot for referendum instead of the leave question right? But if it fails, there won’t be a referendum at all.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me this is being proposed as a petition to stay in Canada, but it’s really a petition to trigger a referendum with “stay in Canada” as the question instead of “leave Canada”.

  • Warehouse@piefed.caEnglish
    4·
    7 days ago

    The question from the petition that the Alberta Prosperity Project is proposing is “Do you agree that the Province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?” which is currently being held up in the courts, while the Forever Canadian’s currently ongoing petition is “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?”

    There is currently no ongoing petition where signing it indicates a desire for Alberta to leave Canada.

    • GrindingGears@lemmy.ca
      3·
      6 days ago

      Exactly that though: Do you agree that the Province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?. If you answer yes to that, obviously we should cease to be a province and become a sovereign country. If you answer no to that, you will not be agreeing that the province of Canada shall become a sovereign country, and ceasing to be a province in Canada.

      Sounds pretty straight forward, right? I’m sure something like 80% of the vote will be no. Except then they’ll try and mount a legal challenge to twist that around on us. Because you’ve answered no to the sovereign country part, but the second part where ceasing to be a province in Canada is a bit more ubiquitous. You could be saying no I do not want to be a sovereign country, but you are not clearly stating yes or no to being a province in Canada. It’s implied, sure (with the and), but implied in such a question opens this up to court challenges (and I’m sure a bunch of foreign interference). You could be saying no I do not agree that the province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and I think it should cease to be a province in Canada. Or in other words, hello USA! That’ll be the argument. Yes its ridiculous, but it could be a valid fear.

      Whereas, Do you agree that Alberta Should remain in Canada? Well that’s a yay or a nay.

    • Jack_Burton@lemmy.caOP
      21·
      7 days ago

      But both are asking to sign a petition to call for a referendum on separation, and fighting for how the question is asked right? So if either were to get enough signatures, the fundamental result is the same, there’s a referendum.

      Signing the stay petition is still a signature that goes toward calling a referendum, correct?

      • Warehouse@piefed.caEnglish
        1·
        7 days ago

        https://www.alberta.ca/system/files/custom_downloaded_images/jsg-citizen-initiative-act-fact-sheet.pdf

        It can, but maybe not. Unless I’m reading it wrong, a referendum vote isn’t actually needed.
        Though if I am reading it right, it seems like a “heads I win, tails you lose” sort of scenario.
        If the “leave” petition passes, it seems like they could just state “Yep that’s what Alberta wants now, no vote needed.”
        I doubt that a “stay” petition would get such a benefit of the doubt.

        • Jack_Burton@lemmy.caOP
          1·
          7 days ago

          Is that how it works? I’m under the impression any petition at this point is solely to get it put on the ballot. If no one signs, it doesn’t go on the ballot, and there’s no separation vote on the referendum ballot.

          • GrindingGears@lemmy.ca
            1·
            6 days ago

            I’m not an expert here, so if I’m wrong on this and if someone is actually an expert, hopefully they could weigh in to correct my interpretation.

            But my understanding of it is this:

            I think it would be pretty much directly stated that if you got something like 70 or 80% of Albertans to sign onto this petition, like at that point the chief electoral officer could reliably question do we even need to have a referendum then? If the signatories were vetted and it could be proven they represented a huge percentage of the electorate, it states the obvious.

            That will never realistically happen though. But what could (and will) happen is basically this turns into a challenge over who gets to raise the need of a referendum and the framing of the question. It was originally going to that sovereignty group, but now this Canada First group has mounted a court challenge to hopefully basically overcome them, and be the ones to control the framing of the question.

          • Warehouse@piefed.caEnglish
            1·
            7 days ago

            The Chief Electoral Officer would then review the signatures and determine if the petition has been successful. Successful legislative and policy initiatives would then be referred to a committee of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for consideration. If the committee does not support a legislative initiative, a public vote would be held.

            So it sounds like this passing doesn’t necessarily lead to a referendum. Which, again, leads to the “heads I win tails you lose” scenario.