Alberta separatists submitted stacks of boxes to election officials on Monday, which they said contained the signatures of more than 300,000 supporters, enough names to force an independence referendum in Canada’s oil-rich province.
A boisterous crowd of several hundred waved the blue provincial flag on a bright, clear day, cheering as separatist leader Mitch Sylvestre delivered the petitions to Elections Alberta.
“We’re not like the rest of Canada,” Sylvestre told AFP.
“We’re 100 percent conservative. We’re being ruled by Liberals who don’t think like us.”
“They’re trying to shut down our industry,” he said, referring to the lucrative provincial oil sector.
The pro-independence camp in the western province of five million people had existed on the margins for decades, but the movement has gathered pace in recent months and is closer than ever to triggering a vote.
Polls put separatist support at roughly 30 percent, but even if the federalist side wins a prospective referendum, leaders on both sides say the process has left Canada permanently changed.
Standing outside the provincial legislature on a grey Sunday evening, former Alberta deputy premier and activist for the federalist side, Thomas Lukaszuk, told AFP he now struggles to look at the blue provincial flag that fluttered behind him, saying it has been co-opted by separatists.
“It stands for something that most of us Albertans and Canadians don’t stand for. It’s a form of treason,” said Lukaszuk, who moved to Canada as a child when his family sought refuge from communist Poland.
Lukaszuk, who is spearheading Alberta’s Forever Canadian campaign, said the ongoing separatist movement has been helped by a right-wing premier, Danielle Smith, who has sought closer ties with President Donald Trump’s Republican Party.
Source: Insider Paper
