Alberta NDP launches anti-separatism campaign: ‘We are not sleepwalking into this referendum’

The Alberta NDP has launched a new “pro-Canada” campaign aimed at mobilizing Albertans who oppose the separatist movement in the province.

The “For Alberta, For Canada” campaign is encouraging Albertans to sign up online and take part in a day of action on April 25.

“Yes, this is powered by Alberta’s New Democrats, but everyone is welcome joining in for Alberta, for Canada,” NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi told a press conference Thursday in Calgary. “It doesn’t make you a New Democrat member. It doesn’t make you join any political party.

“What it makes you is a fighter for Canada, a true patriot, and we’re taking back patriotism.”

Nenshi says the campaign is independent from Thomas Lukaszuk’s “Forever Canadian” petition.

“What ‘For Alberta, For Canada’ is really about is helping everyday people get involved,” Nenshi said. “You know, in political campaigns, you have an air war and you have a ground war, and lots of people are going to be making speeches, from Thomas Lukaszuk to Jason Kenney and everyone in between. They’re going to be writing op eds. We’re going to see lots of ads.

“But what we really wanted to do was give individuals the chance to get involved in their communities, and that’s really what ‘For Alberta, For Canada’ is about.”

The campaign is being launched ahead of a likely referendum on Oct. 19, though a question on separation hasn’t officially been put on the ballot.

It’s also coinciding with the beginning of court hearings this week by an Alberta First Nation challenging the constitutionality of Alberta’s citizen-initiated referendum process, saying its use by separatists violates treaty rights.

READ: Court hearing on possible injunction to stop Alberta separation movement begins

Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation and other First Nations believe an injunction would be appropriate because there’s no rush to hold a vote, nor is there an “unbridled right to petition to break up Canada.”

Last week, Stay Free Alberta, which is collecting signatures calling for a vote on Alberta leaving Canada, said its effort had collected the required number of signatures ahead of a May 2 deadline.

“The only reason they have the target is because the premier reduced the target for them,” Nenshi said.

Lukaszuk’s petition on the opposite side of the issue successfully gathered its required number of signatures in December. Nearly 405,000 of the 439,000 were verified by Elections Alberta – well above the required 294,000.

The NDP has argued for months that Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP are “harbouring separatists.” That opinion intensified after Red Deer-South MLA Jason Stephan, in a column in Western Standard, pushed for Albertans to sign a petition calling for a referendum on separatism.

Smith has long expressed a desire for “an independent Alberta within a united Canada.”

Nenshi said Thursday he does not believe Smith is pro-Canada.

“The premier thinks this is a political game,” he said. “She thinks it’s about pandering to her base, about pandering and playing both sides. And she’s going to wrap herself up in the cape and say she’s Captain Canada, and only she can save Canada. For her, it’s just a game.

“For us, this is serious work about the future of the greatest nation on Earth. She is playing games for her own political survival with the future of this country. And what we know from every other place we’ve gone is you can never take any of this for granted. We are not sleepwalking into this referendum. We are standing up for Canada with our full voices, with our full throats, for the greatest country ever built.”

Nenshi says he’s taking lessons from Brexit in the United Kingdom and the two referenda in Quebec — in 1980 and 1995. In the latter Quebec referendum, the anti-separatist side won with 50.58 per cent of the vote.

“We have to get working right now because what we know, if you were there in 1995 — and I was there at that rally on the streets of Montreal in 1995 — Canadians woke up about two weeks before that referendum and said, ‘oh man, we’re going to lose our country, we gotta do something.’ And we came within a sliver of losing our country. We’re not repeating that mistake,” the Alberta NDP leader said.