Pro-separation billboard still up after removal deadline from Alberta town passes

An Alberta separatist has doubled down in his battle against a southern town over a three-metres-tall and six-metres-wide billboard urging the province leave Canada.

Cory Morgan says the sign he paid for is still standing in Taber in defiance of a letter he says the town sent earlier this month to the private owner of the billboard demanding the message be removed by Saturday.

The electronic billboard, located on town land, shows the Alberta shield surrounded by the words: “Send Ottawa a Message! Choose Alberta.” Morgan says he paid roughly $1,100 for it to be up until the end of this month.

Morgan says he won’t let Taber push him around and he has paid for two more smaller signs in the town since receiving the letter, with the third one going up Sunday.

“I have got nothing against Taber itself,” Morgan said in a phone interview Sunday.

“There’s fantastic people [there]. It’s a neat area … It’s just their town administration I got a bit of a beef with right now.”

He said his fight against the town of 10,000 people is about the principle that a third-party political advertiser shouldn’t have their voice shut down by government.

“That’s a troublesome precedent,” he said.

“[Taber] should stick to potholes, picking up garbage and catching dogs. It’s not their job to tell people what they’re allowed to see or not allowed see on a legal billboard.”

Message doesn’t speak for community, town says

The Town of Taber, located 195 kilometres southeast of Calgary, did not immediately respond to a request for a comment Sunday but has previously said it has heard multiple concerns about the first billboard’s messaging.

It said in a June 3 social media post that its message doesn’t represent or speak for the town or broader community.

That same day, in a letter obtained by The Canadian Press, town chief administrative officer Derrin Thibault sent a letter to the billboard operator demanding the sign come down by this weekend.

“The Town has received multiple concerns regarding political content currently being displayed on the digital sign,” Thibault wrote.

“The continued display of the subject advertisement constitutes a nuisance and is inconsistent with the permitted use of the licensed area.”

Morgan said the signs are tied to the Oct. 19 referendum vote on whether Alberta should stay in Canada or start the process to hold a second, binding referendum on quitting the country.

He said he chose Taber simply because there was a billboard space available in the right price range.

Morgan said he didn’t expect the sign to garner so much negative and positive attention.

He said he has heard from many supporters of Alberta’s independence movement and has raised more money to erect more signs ahead of the referendum.

But he said he has also heard from federalists hurt by the movement and has had a difficult time finding places elsewhere in Alberta to erect the signs.

“I understand people are upset maybe on both sides,” he said.

But he hopes other towns don’t give him a hard time like Taber has.

“It’s only going to make things worse,” he said.

“So perhaps just stick to your municipal mandates, and we’ll carry on with this four months of campaigning.”

Alberta’s separation debate is expected to last through the summer. Premier Danielle Smith has been criticized for holding the vote at all. But she says she was obligated to hold it because hundreds of thousands of Albertans have weighed in on the debate in petition campaigns and deserve to have their say.

Critics, including the opposition NDP, say Smith is playing a double game: enabling the referendum to appease separatist hardliners in her party while campaigning to stay in Canada in order to stay onside with centrist voters.

Polls suggest a large majority of Albertans reject separation.