Driving from Lake Louise to Jasper last week, Forever Canadian petitioner Thomas Lukaszuk came around the famous “big bend” in the Icefields Parkway. 

As the road’s incline steepened, the vintage RV he’s been travelling the province in—a 1992 motorhome dubbed the Unity Bus—crawled up the long hill. While the bus’ 7.5L V8 engine roared, Lukaszuk coaxed the vehicle to the top.

“I wasn’t sure we were going to make it,” Lukaszuk laughed upon arrival in Jasper last Wednesday (October 22).

That was never the case for his Forever Canadian campaign. Although collecting nearly 300,000 signatures in 90 days was a lofty goal, since June, Lukaszuk has been cautiously optimistic he’d be able to present the complete application to Elections Alberta officials.

His petition is a response to a growing separatist movement in Alberta. That movement, known as the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), is asking supporters to pledge its support for Alberta to become a sovereign country and to cease being a province in Canada.

The former deputy premier for the Progressive Conservative Party wants the provincial government to put the question “Do you agree that Alberta should remain within Canada?” to Albertans, via referendum.

If (and when, according to Lukaszuk) that question gets a resounding “Yes” on provincial ballots, he hopes the separatist “nonsense” will cease to exist—although instead of a referendum he has said he’d much prefer the Alberta government simply adopt the petition’s affirmation as policy.

“The sooner we end this conversation and focus on real issues, the better it will be for Alberta and for our country,” he said.

Lukaszuk acknowledges that some Albertans won’t agree with that sentiment, and never will, but based on his conversations with signatories, he knows there is a much larger population who is behind him. For those reasons, his focus, he said, is on reaching those who are still on the fence. 

“We need to find a way to communicate, because somehow we have failed in passing the knowledge on to many young people about how Canada works,” he said. “And if you try to tell them that they’re wrong and that’s not how [separatism] works, there’s this anger around them.”

Therefore, instead of coming in hot with answers, his strategy has been to come into potentially testy interactions with questions. 

“I might say ‘let me ask you, how do you envision that?’ he said. “And then usually after a short conversation they say ‘yeah you know you make a good point,’ even if I didn’t even make a point.”

The deadline to submit the petition is tomorrow (October 28). While Lukaszuk says the Forever Canadian campaign has the required signatures—plus an additional 15 percent buffer, for potential clerical errors—the latest challenge has been retrieving those signed documents from the more than 6,500 volunteer signature collectors across Alberta. 

“That’s been a totally separate effort, one which is not easy in the absence of Canada Post,” he said.

To make their October 28 deadline, Lukaszuk’s teams has hired couriers, drivers and even chartered small aircraft to ensure all the petitions could be collected. As an aside, Lukaszuk said, the requirement for pen-on-paper signatures is “ridiculous.”

“We do banking online. We buy houses and transfer money online. Elections Alberta and this piece of legislation is behind,” he said.

But just like the 300 K threshold, those are the rules his campaign is bound by. Lukaszuk said the campaign has been the most meaningful and productive democratic exercise of his political career.

“It’s been rewarding and I’ve learned a lot,” he said.

The chief electoral officer will have 30 days after tomorrow to determine whether the petition has reached the mark.

Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com