Former journalist Sean Amato hit the ground running in his newly minted role as an NDP staffer by spreading misinformation.

In a posting on X, Amato says, “Premier Smith keeps saying 700,000 Albertans want this, but that's not true. 0 Albertans signed a petition for THIS question, 0 Stay Free Alberta signatures have been verified and the leader of the 400k signature petition says this was not their top option.”

This is an extension of Thomas Lukaszuk’s oft-repeated lie that his Forever Canadian group didn’t actually want to trigger a referendum. That mistruth has been repeatedly corrected by this publication.

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To say that nobody wanted a referendum on the independence question is an insult to the over 700,000 people who signed petitions demanding exactly that. Playing a game of semantics over the phrasing of the question doesn’t change that reality.

The 301,000 signatures submitted by Stay Free Alberta were not verified due to an undemocratic ruling from a Trudeau-appointed judge. That doesn’t mean the signatures do not exist or that they weren’t legitimately gathered.

The 400,000+ signatures collected by Thomas Lukasuk’s group called for a referendum on a question very similar to the first part of the question Premier Smith has added to the referendum ballot this fall.

It has been made abundantly clear by Albertans on each side of the unity debate that they want the issue to be resolved in a referendum. Whether NDP communication staff like it or not.