Aw. You knew it had to happen, just a question of when and how they managed it, especially since the signature petition drive to get the Alberta Independence referendum on the ballot had turned into a blockbuster success.
It wasn’t supposed to be that way.
But the First Nations are restless at the thought of losing all that influence.
Their challenge to the petition drive got its day in court and a relatively sympathetic judge. Verifying the signatures, a critical part of the referendum process for the October 19th ballot, is suspended for a month. Organizers can continue gathering signatures while the court hears the First Nations’ challenge to the entire independence proposal.
The First Nations are claiming a treaty violation that negates any sort of independence and are attacking the initiative on multiple fronts.
An Alberta judge has put up a roadblock on a petition drive to force a vote on the province quitting Canada.
Justice Shaina Leonard, in a written decision issued Friday afternoon, says Alberta separatism organizers can continue collecting signatures.
But she says Elections Alberta can’t verify those names or otherwise refer the matter to Premier Danielle Smith’s government until an overall decision is issued on the associated First Nations’ court challenge.
Lawyers for multiple First Nations are calling for Alberta’s citizen-initiated referendum process and a separatist group’s use of it to be halted, saying without due consultation it amounts to a treaty violation and is unconstitutional.
They were in court in Edmonton this week trying to get the petition drive stopped in the meantime.
The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), official orifice of the Canadian government, is nearly giddy at the thought of the separatists being quashed before they turn a name in.
First Nations’ court challenge may block Alberta separatism itself, not just petition drive
Argument that a province leaving country severs Indigenous treaties may affect Quebec, too
The argument First Nations groups made this week in an Edmonton courthouse wasn’t only aiming to block Alberta separatists’ petition drive toward a referendum, even if that was the specific, narrow goal of an injunction and a related hearing.
Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation and other litigants are challenging the very idea that a province can split from Canada, and in doing so sever their constitutionally protected First Nations treaties.
Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) is centred in northeast Alberta, but its ancestors followed caribou throughout what’s now Saskatchewan and Northwest Territories — and members today freely cross those boundaries to hunt, fish and trap, lawyer Kevin Hille told the court this week.
“Any constraint on those activities by an international border would violate those [rights],” Hille said.
After all, a newly independent Alberta would inherently draw a new international boundary within the territory of Treaty 8 (which ACFN is part of), which includes parts of Alberta, NWT, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Separation stands to physically and legally harm this treaty and the other treaties within Alberta, the lawyers for First Nations argued.
ACFN and the Blackfoot Confederacy in southern Alberta appeared before Justice Shaina Leonard this week seeking a judicial review of Alberta’s chief electoral officer’s decision to authorize Stay Free Alberta’s citizen initiative petition toward an independence referendum. Sturgeon Lake was requesting an injunction to block processing the more than 177,800 signatures Stay Free claims it has received, but doesn’t have to submit until a May 2 deadline.
Indian apologists are upbraiding Albertans on social media, telling them their good lives as Canadians are only thanks to First Nations.
Your life is better because of First Nations. You wouldn’t be in Alberta, you wouldn’t have anything or the privileges and infrastructure at your fingertips if it wasn’t on the backs of the First Peoples of this land.
— Brandi Morin (@Songstress28) April 11, 2026
As you can imagine, that’s going over with a thud.
Current scene on Gateway Blvd in Edmonton, where a group of Alberta separatists has gathered along with a vehicle convoy seen nearby. pic.twitter.com/wKFdzjIMeS
— YEGWAVE (@yegwave) April 12, 2026
The Ottawa liberals are making it awfully easy to find people to sign. Now some well-to-do Canadians, like this former Microsoft exec, are proposing that if a young Canadian went through a Canadian university program but has a job offer in the US – very much like this man himself did and became fabulously wealthy – that there should be some sort of exit tax attached to their leaving the country to recoup those educational costs.
Or induce the talent to stay home in Canada.
The people who had all the opportunities in the world want to limit what new generations have.
— Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 (@ryangerritsen) April 11, 2026
I can’t imagine why anyone wants to leave.
They are all in this together
— Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 (@ryangerritsen) April 11, 2026
THAT IS A HOSTAGE SITUATION
Canada wants to hold its citizens hostage with a ransom of $500k to leave the country. Why? Because it’s a failed communist WEF state that isn’t growing, over taxed, over regulated DEI hellhole. pic.twitter.com/OobhDjk9v5
— TruthSeeker01011 (@TruthSeek01011) April 11, 2026
As for the signature gathering?
The tribes may find out they’re not as popular as they’ve puffed themselves up to be, either.
More First Nation people would vote for Alberta Separation than they would for their corrupt Chiefs#AlbertaSeparation https://t.co/FaSm3XXevx
— Alberta Separation (@albertaseparate) April 12, 2026
Authoritarians, wherever they operate from, rarely are.
Carney and his entourage billed taxpayers $524,800 on AIRPLANE FOOD in one year.
That’s about 30 years of groceries for the average family.
They’re living the high life on your dime.
Gross. https://t.co/1JIQ8NQ0uA pic.twitter.com/aUmTd0Jwmo
— Franco Terrazzano (@franco_nomics) April 13, 2026
Everything hangs in the balance for the next month over a petition that affects nothing but triggers a vote to decide whether something will be affected.
…One separatist supporter despairingly made a reference to the Eagles’ big hit to bemoan the argument of First Nations treaties standing in their group’s way.
“Welcome to the Hotel Canada,” that person wrote — implying that separatists may check out, but they can never leave.
That wasn’t exactly the argument First Nations made this week in court. But they cautioned that the treaties Canada and Indigenous people signed aren’t Alberta’s to disrupt.
The First Nations feel mighty affected, and as Canada seems to revolve around their #feelingz, this could go badly.
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