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Independence opponents such as Thomas Lukaszuk have repeatedly been trying to rewrite the narrative with the Forever Canadian petition, claiming the signatures were never gathered with the intent to trigger a referendum. Documents and interviews prove otherwise.

Now, opponents are questioning the number of signatures collected by Stay Free Alberta.

Professor of political science and member of the Black Faculty Collective at the University of Alberta, Jared Wesley, wrote a Substack column stating, “The oft-repeated claim that organizers gathered roughly 300,000 signatures on a separation petition rests entirely on statements made by one individual: Mitch Sylvestre."

Since the hard copies of the petition forms are now sealed and unverified by Elections Alberta due to Justice Pearson’s ruling against the process, Wesley can make such unsubstantiated claims with the confidence that the signatures won’t formally be counted to prove him wrong.

Wesley’s writing implies that perhaps Mitch Sylvestre delivered empty boxes to Elections Alberta or that the signatures on the petition forms were fake. It would have to be assumed that Sylvestre knew the petitions would never reach the verification phase of the process if he were to try such a fraud. That’s an extremely unlikely scenario.

While a formal count may never happen, plenty of evidence exists that the signatures were collected in good faith and that the numbers are accurate. Over 7,000 people were registered as canvassers with Elections Alberta to collect signatures. That process included verifying their ID (saying this before Wesley claims the people didn’t exist).

Massive rallies with thousands of people had been held with the intention of collecting signatures and organizing volunteers. Hundreds of pop-up signature collection sites were set up across the province with trained volunteers who demanded identification from every person who wanted to sign the petition to ensure they could validly sign. Both legacy and independent media outlets covered the signature collection efforts for months.

While exact valid-signature counts were not finalized due to the court intervention, it is untrue to claim the number of signatures collected rests entirely upon the word of Mitch Sylvestre. A formal count would only shift the amount by a negligible measure. It certainly would never drop the numbers below the 178,000 threshold, which had been set by legislation to trigger a referendum.