A petition asking people if they believe Alberta should stay in Canada has obtained about 80 per cent of its required number of signatures.
The “Alberta Forever Canada” petition has approximately 230,000 signatures so far, Thomas Lukaszuk, the petition’s submitter and former Progressive Conservative deputy premier, said at a news conference on Friday.
Lukaszuk’s petition, submitted in June, needs to gather about 294,000 signatures from eligible voters over a 90-day period that ends on Oct. 28.
The Elections Alberta website said Albertans who are eligible to vote can use citizen initiative petitions to have a legislative or policy proposal introduced in the legislative assembly or to have a constitutional referendum conducted.
On his application for the petition, Lukaszuk chose the legislative proposal option.
Lukaszuk told CBC in July that his goal is to have Smith call his petition’s question in the legislature and have Alberta MLAs vote on it.
“We don’t need to have a referendum. That is why we very strategically filed this petition under the policy stream, not the constitutional stream.”
On Friday, Lukaszuk said there are about 5,000 volunteers across the province working to gather signatures.
