Alberta removed the requirement that citizen initiative petitions must comply with the Constitution.
Claimed by: Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 (Bill 14) and Alberta government fact sheet
True: True as written according to the settled evidence. How we rate.
Summary
Bill 14, which received royal assent on December 11, 2025, amended the Citizen Initiative Act to remove several gatekeeping rules, including the requirement that a proposal cannot contravene sections 1 to 35.1 of the Constitution Act, 1982. The same legislation shifted some decision-making power from the chief electoral officer to the minister of justice and added transitional rules for petitions already before the office. Removing the written constitutional-compliance test did not make every separatist petition lawful: in May 2026 the Court of King's Bench still quashed approval of an independence petition on treaty-rights and consultation grounds. The change matters because it lowered one statutory barrier while leaving constitutional limits enforceable through the courts.
Evidence
The government's Justice Statutes Amendment Act 2025 fact sheet states that amendments removed the requirement that a citizen initiative proposal cannot contravene sections 1 to 35.1 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
Government of Alberta (Justice Statutes Amendment Act fact sheet, PDF)
CBC reported that Bill 14 also transferred court-referral powers from the chief electoral officer to the minister of justice and discontinued court proceedings the chief electoral officer had started.
In May 2026 Justice Shaina Leonard quashed the chief electoral officer's approval of a separatist independence petition, finding consultation failures and errors in applying the amended act's transitional provisions.
Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP (court quashes independence petition)