An Alberta flag at the entrance to the signature collection area outside the Big Four Roadhouse in Calgary on Jan. 26, where organizers gathered signatures for a petition calling for an Alberta independence referendum.Amir Salehi/The Globe and Mail
An Alberta judge questioned government lawyers about the potential role of foreign interference in the campaign for provincial independence, and whether the United Conservative Party government has assessed the possibility that international sources have funded Alberta’s most prominent separatist group.
Alberta Court of King’s Bench Justice Shaina Leonard asked Tuesday what the province is doing to investigate foreign-interference threats.
Government lawyer Jennifer Keliher told the judge there is no evidence that the active separatist petition effort faces meddling from outside the country, but didn’t specify how provincial bodies are assessing that threat.
“The structure is in place to deal with these threats if they actually arise,” Ms. Keliher said.
Justice Leonard raised the questions during the first day of a three-day hearing initiated by Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation. The band in northern Alberta is hoping to get an injunction quashing a separatist petition seeking 178,000 signatures that would force an independence referendum.
Sturgeon Lake is seeking the injunction by suing the Alberta and Canadian governments and the province’s chief electoral officer.
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Premier Danielle Smith has said an independence vote could be added to a referendum ballot she has scheduled for Oct. 19 where the province has planned questions on immigration and other constitutional issues.
The First Nation argues that an independence referendum would violate their treaty rights and make the province vulnerable to foreign interference.
Sturgeon Lake has specifically raised concern about meetings between leaders of the prominent pro-independence Alberta Prosperity Project and the U.S. State Department.
When Justice Leonard asked whether the Prosperity Project had disclosed its financial contributions, Ms. Keliher deferred to Elections Alberta lawyer Joseph Redman. He said the elections agency has had “concerns” regarding acquiring records in investigations related to the funding of independence activities.
Asked by Justice Leonard whether Elections Alberta had information about the Prosperity Project’s funding specifically, Mr. Redman said: “I don’t think I could say that we know nothing. I think that there are records that have been requested that have not been provided.”
The Alberta Prosperity Project did not respond to a request for comment.
Experts have raised concerns that Elections Alberta doesn’t have the ability to investigate the foreign-interference threats that could arise in an independence referendum. Ms. Smith said last month that she’s seeking national-security clearances from Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, to better understand potential foreign threats.
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Some Alberta First Nation leaders, including Sturgeon Lake Chief Sheldon Sunshine, attended the hearing in-person on Tuesday, along with more than 100 other people who attended virtually. An online chat attached to the hearing was overrun with a back-and-forth between independence supporters before it was shut down by court officials.
This week’s hearings follow several changes to Alberta’s direct democracy laws passed by Ms. Smith’s government that have increased the likelihood of an independence referendum and galvanized the province’s separatist movement. While most public-opinion polling shows support for independence in Alberta at around 20 per cent to 30 per cent, the movement has had a very active public campaign.
Last week, independence advocate Mitch Sylvestre said organizers had reached the goal of nearly 178,000 signatures, one month ahead of the May 2 deadline to deliver the signatures to Elections Alberta for verification.
In December, the Alberta government legislated additional changes to the Citizen Initiative Act that removed the safeguard requiring referendum questions to comply with the Canadian Constitution. However, the changes also mean the Alberta government wouldn’t be forced to implement the results of a referendum if doing so would violate the Constitution.
Orlagh O’Kelly, counsel for Sturgeon Lake, is asking Justice Leonard to reinstate the Citizen Initiative Act’s constitutional protections and suspend the independence petition.
Ms. O’Kelly said in her opening arguments that the case is “foundational to the continuation of the numbered treaties, the maintenance of the treaty relationship and, as a consequence, Alberta’s continued existence in Canada.”
Her arguments partly drew from an affidavit filed by former national-security adviser Wesley Wark to former prime ministers Paul Martin and Stephen Harper. In it, he wrote that the Prosperity Project’s policy seeking close ties with the Americans “must be regarded as an open door to U.S. political influence and potential interference.”
The Alberta government, in its written submission to Justice Leonard, said Sturgeon Lake’s arguments rely on hypothetical scenarios and that “foreign interference has never required Canada to stop a democratic process.”