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Newly tabled legislation would create a 12-month blackout period before and after provincial elections for starting or continuing a citizen initiative petition.
If passed, Bill 23, the Justice Statutes Amendment Act, would also repeal deadlines for the government to call a referendum for any future successful policy or constitutional petition.
“Our democracy is better when all Albertans from all walks of life and with diverse voices participate, and as the government, we’ll always ensure that our democracy is one of trust and openness,” Amery said at a news conference Monday.
By creating blackout periods on either side of a provincial election, the government is aiming to create a “clear window” of time for public consideration of citizen petitions that is separate from the time the public considers policies during a general election.
“Albertans deserve to have an unfettered line of view on both of these very important issues,” Amery said.
The bill, which would amend four pieces of legislation, would also allow the appointment of lawyers to act as scrutineers to citizen initiative petitions and recall applications. These scrutineers would oversee Election Alberta’s process of verifying signatures, and could be appointed by any party involved in the petition, including the proponents and MLAs named in a recall petition.
The bill also introduces new measures around the creation and distribution of deepfakes targeting provincial political participants. A deepfake refers to content that appears to depict a real person but in fact has been digitally created — such as through artificial intelligence programs — or altered.
Amery said the move is an attempt to prevent election interference.
“We know that deepfake technology is going to continue to improve, and the distinction between what is reality and what is fake is becoming more and more difficult to distinguish,” he said.
Individuals could be fined up to $10,000 and organizations could be fined up to $100,000 for either creating or sharing deepfakes that mislead voters about a party leader, minister, MLA, electoral candidate, leadership or nomination contestant, or any employee or officer of Elections Alberta.
Citizen petitions
Under current Citizen Initiative legislation, the government must hold a referendum on or before the next general election date — as long as they receive a constitutional question or a committee recommendation for a policy question more than one year before a fixed election date.
If passed, Bill 23 would remove that timing requirement.
Government officials said the bill, if passed, would not be retroactive, and would not affect petitions that were started under previous sets of rules.
A successful petition to prompt a referendum question on Alberta staying as part of Canada is heading to an all-party committee of the legislature for consideration.
Former deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk’s “Forever Canadian” petition, initiated last year, gathered 438,568 valid signatures — about 14 per cent of Alberta electors. The Forever Canadian petition was written as a policy question under a previous set of rules.
Now, a group called Stay Free Alberta is in the midst of gathering signatures for a petition asking for a referendum for Alberta to separate from Canada. This process is operating under a different set of rules, after the government introduced amendments last year to the Citizen Initiative Act.
That group has until May 2 to gather about 178,000 signatures.
If Bill 23 passes, it would be the third time the United Conservative government has substantively amended the Citizen Initiative Act and the second substantive set amendments to recall legislation since those two democratic options were introduced by former Premier Jason Kenney’s UCP government in 2021.
Changes to the sunshine list
Bill 23 also intends to change rules around disclosing salaries and severance packages of high-earning public sector workers. These publications are colloquially called sunshine lists.
Upon the recommendation of an all-party legislative committee, the listing of top salaries would include government employees and public sector workers who earn more than $130,000 of base salary.
The threshold for government workers is now $133,813, and employees of agencies, boards and commissions, such as post-secondary institutions, is $159,676.
Instead of increasing that threshold annually in line with inflation, the escalator will be tied to a year-over-year weighted average change to negotiated wage settlement increases, officials said.
“These are publicly funded positions and Albertans have the right to know who is getting what,” Amery said.
The legislation would also eliminate the requirement to publish severance agreements and payments for former employees in December of each year.
