With a very odd headline, Globe and Mail columnist Shannon Proudfoot appears to be implying that the 700,000 Albertans who signed petitions calling for a referendum on independence don’t exist.

The headline states, “Danielle Smith tries to blame 700,000 illusory Albertans for her separatism gambit”

The first two paragraphs of the column then lay out an analogy that can only be described as bizarre:

“Let’s say you live in a house with your family of four, and one day, three angry-looking characters bang on your front door and tell you they’re going to burn down your house. Everyone in your family is horrified and incensed, of course, and you yell at the trio of arsonists to get off your porch while your spouse calls the police.

"Now, some math: In this scenario, do you have three people who want to burn down a house? Or do you have seven people demanding a robust debate about whether it should be burned to the ground?”

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The piece only gets worse from there.

In a very awkward and weird way, Proudfoot is trying to imply that the hundreds of thousands of Albertans who signed petitions to bring about a referendum either didn’t really want a referendum or the people may not even exist.

Forever Canada frontman Thomas Lukaszuk has been trying to deny his petition called for a referendum despite public documents proving that’s exactly what his initiative was demanding. Even he never tried to deny the signatories were real people.

The reality is that over 404,000 Albertans signed the Forever Canadian petition and over 301,000 Albertans signed the Stay Free Alberta petition. All of those Albertans really exist and they all knew they were signing petitions for nothing less than invoking a referendum on independence albeit some were pro and some against independence. They all called for the question to be voted upon.

And no gangs of arsonists are travelling the province, banging on doors.