Danielle Smith’s reform is nudging Alberta separation vote from ‘if’ toward ‘when’ [Video]

One hundred and seventy-seven thousand people.

That’s roughly 3.5 per cent of Alberta’s population. It’s also the number of signatures that will be needed to force a separation referendum designed to take those five million people and their land out of Canada.

Alberta independence groups had already been gathering online registrants who were keen to add their names to a petition drive when the law required far more Albertans — around 600,000 — to sign up to trigger a constitutional referendum.

And then, the day after the federal election delivered a fourth consecutive Liberal government, Premier Danielle Smith’s government tabled electoral reform legislation that suddenly made it far, far easier for activists to put Alberta’s existence within Canada on the ballot for voters.

Alberta Prosperity Project, a group that was already plotting a referendum petition drive before the Mark Carney Liberals’ win, claims that it now has a sufficient number of people registered online to become …