The higher application fee for citizen-initiated referendums is aimed at discouraging 'frivolous applications and protect Alberta taxpayers,' Danielle Smith’s government says.PAUL SWANSON/The Globe and Mail
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s government is hiking the application fee for citizen-initiated referendums to $25,000 in the hopes that it will discourage what it calls frivolous petitions.
Several groups have been working to bring their special-interest questions to a provincewide vote, but until this week, it cost just $500.
The higher fee means only applicants with “serious interest” will propose an initiative or referendum question, said Heather Jenkins, spokesperson for Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery, in a statement.
“Citizen-initiative petitions are costly and that is why a higher application fee was chosen to discourage frivolous applications and protect Alberta taxpayers,” said Ms. Jenkins.
The rules came into effect Wednesday through an order-in-council.
Four citizen-initiated petitions have been submitted in Alberta this year. Only one, a proposal asking if Alberta should remain in Canada, has thus far collected enough signatures.
Three others, which individually address Alberta separation, private-school funding and coal mining in the Rockies, are in different stages of the approval process.
Ms. Smith has faced a barrage of citizen-initiated activity in the past year that has been widely borne out of frustration with her government, most prominently through efforts to recall legislators – including the Premier herself. The higher fee doesn’t apply to recall petitions.
The province’s rationale for bumping the fee echoes Ms. Smith’s argument that the nearly two dozen active recall petitions, which each cost $500 to file, have led to the process being abused.
The organizers proposing an independence referendum in Alberta won’t be forced to pay the higher fee after their question was approved this week by Elections Alberta. The pro-separation Alberta Prosperity Project now has 30 days to submit the $500 fee.
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Another potential referendum question submitted by country singer Corb Lund advocating for no new coal mining in Alberta’s Rockies will also be exempt from the new fee.
The petition asking if Alberta should stop funding private schools is currently collecting signatures and will also sidestep the new fee.
Under the amendments announced Wednesday, applicants will have the full $25,000 refunded if they collect enough valid signatures – currently about 177,000 – to force a referendum.
Proponents will have 30 days to raise funds for the fee once Alberta’s Chief Elections Officer greenlights the proposed referendum question, according to the new rules.
The Alberta NDP criticized the changes and said the United Conservative Party “keeps changing the rules of the game as they go.”
“This change is clearly meant to stifle democratic action by citizens who are simply exercising their rights under legislation created by the UCP themselves,” justice critic Irfan Sabir wrote in a statement.
Mitch Sylvestre, chief executive of the Alberta Prosperity Project, said in an interview that the fee change seems logical: “I don’t think that should be a big problem,” he said.
Alberta held two referendums in 2021 – one asking if equalization should be removed from the Canadian Constitution and another on abolishing daylight saving time. Referendums in Alberta are non-binding.