Forever Canadian was created by Thomas Lukaszuk in summer 2025 with the goal of invoking a referendum on the independence question through a petition under the Citizen’s Initiative Act in Alberta. The petitioning period has long since passed, and Alberta has now entered an active referendum period with at least part of Lukaszuk’s question appearing on a ballot on question number 10.

Forever Canadian has continued to operate and has been fundraising, holding events, and distributing campaign style signs around the province yet the group is not a registered third-party advertiser (TPA) with Elections Alberta. 

Questions have been raised about this by concerned people but so far, clear answers from Elections Alberta haven’t been forthcoming.

How is Forever Canadian allowed to campaign without being bound by the regulations TPAs are under?

The regulations and requirements for TPAs are stringent. They enforce contribution limits and compel weekly reporting of all financing to Elections Alberta. The name of every person or group that contributed over $250 to a TPA is published on the Elections Alberta site, and TPAs must provide a full accounting of their campaign to Elections Alberta.

TPAs can’t raise over $609,000 during the entirety of the campaign nor may they accept any funding from outside of the province. There are even regulations covering the scale of the printing on the campaign signs distributed by TPAs.

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For groups operating a TPA, it can be quite onerous to ensure compliance with the regulations, and it limits the abilities of the organizations. Yet Lukaszuk’s group appears to be able to ignore all that.

Neither Lukaszuk nor Elections Alberta have explained the basis of this apparent exemption yet, but some people have claimed it’s because Forever Canadian is acting as a society in Alberta rather than a TPA. As a society they don’t have to disclose who funds them, they aren’t bound by maximum contributions, they don’t have spending limits, and they can accept funding from outside of Alberta.

In other words, Lukaszuk’s group may be foreign-funded, and Albertans have no way to know it.

Forever Canadian doesn’t expressly state which way they feel Albertans should vote on the referendum question this fall, but they certainly implicitly make a case for choosing option one on question number 10. At the least they are violating the spirit of the laws governing advertising during campaigns.

Complaints about Forever Canadian have been lodged with Elections Alberta but there has been no formal statement from them yet.

Until there is clarification, the status of Forever Canadian in the referendum campaign remains questionable and is frustrating the many groups on both sides of questions who are putting in the effort to remain compliant with electoral laws.