{"id":428678,"date":"2025-12-06T11:25:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T11:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/428678\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T11:25:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T11:25:18","slug":"judge-rules-proposed-alberta-separation-referendum-would-be-unconstitutional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/428678\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge rules proposed Alberta separation referendum would be unconstitutional"},"content":{"rendered":"

A judge from the Alberta Court of Kings Bench has issued a surprise ruling on the proposal for a referendum on Alberta independence.<\/p>\n

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In a written judgement issued Friday, Justice Colin C.J. Feasby said the referendum proposal violates the Canadian constitution.<\/p>\n

Feasby\u2019s ruling also included some harsh words for the UCP government that tabled legislation on Thursday<\/a>, attempting to prevent the court from ruling on the constitutionality of the proposed referendum question.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlberta bill aims to clear further obstacles to citizen-driven referendum questions\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Justice Minister Mickey Amery\u2019s bill would allow such petition drives to go ahead regardless of whether they violate the Constitution, while effectively ending the court review.<\/p>\n

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Feasby, in his decision, wrote that the government deciding to change the rules midstream undermines respect for democracy and the administration of justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rule of law plays a critical role with respect to the democratic process where stability of the governing legal regime enhances legitimacy and public confidence in the outcomes of elections and referendums,\u201d Feasby wrote.<\/p>\n

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\u201cChanging legislation to circumvent a valid legal process commenced by the independent officer of the Legislative Assembly responsible for administering democratic processes is the antithesis of the stable, predictable, and ordered society that the rule of law contemplates, and democracy demands.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He also focused most of the comments in his written judgement on the referendum question\u2019s failure to guarantee First Nation treaty rights.<\/p>\n

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Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst Nations, as founding partners in the creation of Alberta, cannot be ignored or bypassed as Alberta contemplates its future whether that is part of Canada or not,\u201d said Feasby.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoreover, this decision has concluded that the transformation of provincial and territorial borders into international borders would contravene the Numbered Treaties by significantly impairing the exercise of Treaty rights by First Nations,\u201d added Feasby.<\/p>\n

A proposed referendum question on Alberta independence from the Alberta Prosperity Project was submitted to the Court of Kings Bench for review earlier this year.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlberta separation question back in court\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Alberta\u2019s chief electoral officer, Gordon McClure, requested a judge review the proposed question<\/a> to determine if it violates the Constitution.<\/p>\n

The question would ask Albertans: \u201cDo you agree that the Province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Premier Danielle Smith and Justice Minister Mickey Amery have criticized McClure\u2019s decision to ask for a judge\u2019s review.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAlberta Justice Minister at a press conference in Edmonton Thursday where he discussed new legislation the government tabled that would\u2019ve prevented the Court of King\u2019s Bench from ruling on the constitutionality of the referendum question.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the UCP government tabled legislation that would halt the court proceedings \u2014 a decision Feasby referred to in his judgement as \u201ccontrary to the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cLegislating to pre-emptively end this court proceeding disrespects the administration of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While Feasby\u2019s ruling had not been expected to be released so soon after the legislation was tabled, in it he suggests that the ruling\u2019s release was expedited because \u201cthis case concerned a matter of importance to the public\u201d and the intervenors in the case had invested significant time and money to participate in the proceedings and therefore \u201cthe public is entitled to the fruits of this process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlberta\u2019s cavalier disregard for court resources and lack of consideration for the parties and First Nations intervenors who participated in this proceeding in good faith is disappointing, to say the least,\u201d added Feasby.<\/p>\n

He wrote that he still issued his decision because the bill hasn\u2019t become law yet, and because Albertans deserve to understand the complex legal issues at play if the province was to quit Confederation, or at least vote to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing in this decision should be understood to mean that the constitution cannot be amended or that Alberta cannot hold a referendum on separation,\u201d Feasby said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis decision only stands for the proposition that Alberta in the (Citizen Initiative Act) did not give citizens the power to initiate a referendum on the question of independence from Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Jeffrey Rath, spokesperson for the Alberta Prosperity Project, reacted to the judge\u2019s ruling by saying he doesn\u2019t believe the process \u201ccontravenes anybody\u2019s rights,\u201d but the judge\u2019s decision \u201cis now rendered irrelevant by the government of Alberta amending the legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe get a referendum on independence next year on our question \u2014 so we\u2019re thrilled with where we\u2019re at and we\u2019re very happy and grateful to Danielle Smith and her government.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, former deputy premier, Thomas Lukaszuk, who helped collect more than 400,000 signatures on the Forever Canada petition asking, \u201cDo you agree that Alberta should remain within Canada?,\u201d called the UCP\u2019s recent actions both \u201cunconstitutional\u201d and \u201cunethical.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, this is unfathomable in a democracy, in a country run by a rule of law \u2014 and there will be a day of reckoning.\u00a0 The minister chose the wrong group of people and the wrong person to mess with.\u201d<\/p>\n

With files from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge from the Alberta Court of Kings Bench has issued a surprise ruling on the proposal for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":428679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10905,66933,199383,2147,4219,50,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-428678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-alberta-legislature","9":"tag-alberta-referendum","10":"tag-alberta-separation","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-crime","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115672379711169090","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}