straight White male

Carlene Variyan: "Premier Smith talks about 300k who wrote their name on a petition. There are also 100k+ and generations of First Nations and Métis people in Alberta who are the actual rights holders of the land that Danielle Smith and her party have decided they want to take and start their own country with."

BREAKING: My read of Justice Leonard’s decision: it does not prohibit an Alberta independence referendum. The ruling is much narrower and merely technical. It says Bill 14’s transition provisions did not revive or validate the Sylvestre independence citizen-initiative petition after the earlier proposal had already been rejected. The decision today points to a cleaner lawful route: the secession referendum needs to be initiated by Alberta’s Cabinet under the Referendum Act, not through the Citizen Initiative Act. It also makes clear that the Government must consult First Nations before the vote, in case there is a potential impact on Treaty and traditional rights. That means the ball is now in the Smith government’s court to set the secession question for the October 2026 referendum (just like the Supreme Court of Canada envisioned in the 1998 Reference Case).