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”.
No, the question is exactly “Do you agree that Alberta should stay in Canada”. I am an official canvasser for the petition. It is a mistake to think that if you don’t sign there won’t be a referendum.
Ok great, can you expound on that a bit and explain why? It’s my understanding that two similar questions can’t be put forward for a referendum question, so the “stay” question was presented first and the “leave” question cannot be petiitioned as they’re too similar. So I’d like to ask this question specifically, what happens if this “stay” petition doesn’t get enough signatures?
If there aren’t enough signatures (with either question) then, and please correct me if I’m wrong, the question doesn’t get enough support to go to ballot on the referendum, therefore there is no referendum question on the ballot for separation.
My second question is this: If this petition gets enough signatures, does the question get put on the ballot for referendum because it got enough signatures, and if it doesn’t, is the result no separation question on the ballot?
There are two separate petitions. One asks, do you agree Alberta should stay in Canada? This is a consultation. If we get enough signatures it will go to a referendum. This is independent from the other question which is, do you think Alberta should leave Canada? This question may not even be constitutional. The Chief Electoral Officer has referred it to a judge. But if it is approved and they collect enough signatures, it also goes to a vote. But first we have to get enough signatures to make sure the “stay” question gets to be voted on.
I think the “leave” question is ill-posed. If you look at the question of the Quebec referendum, you’ll see that it was, do you agree that the government of Quebec should negotiate with Canada a separation agreement? Then if the answer was yes, Quebecers would vote again whether to separate in the conditions that were negotiated. To ask whether you want to separate without negotiating anything doesn’t make sense if you ask me. But that’s their problem. We need to establish once and for all that Albertans want to be Canadian forever and lay this whole thing to rest.