Second First Nation files suit against Alberta independence referendum

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation wants a judicial review of the Chief Electoral Officer of Alberta’s decision to approve a petition aimed at spurring an independence referendum.

“It appears the Government seeks to facilitate a referendum triggered by a private citizen on a matter that is existential to the Treaty relationship, heedless of the Crown’s honourable obligations and without consulting or engaging with First Nations at all,” reads the application filed by the First Nation.

The First Nation names Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure, King Charles III and Mitch Sylvestre, the proponent of the independence referendum as respondents.

This is the second legal challenge from an Alberta First Nation to be issued this week, following Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation’s claims that the petition is aided by political interference from U.S. President Donald Trump and that the Alberta government “willingly conspired” with separatists.”

The United Conservative Party has said that it won’t comment on matters before the courts, but that it does respect Treaty rights.

Located near Fort Chipewyan, 733 km northeast of Edmonton, the First Nation has been part of Treaty 8 since 1899.

In its claim, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation stated that a Dec. 5, 2025 court decision from Justice Colin Feasby warned that creating new international borders through established treaty-protected land would contravene the Constitution Act.

“Provincial boundaries and Treaty boundaries each have constitutional significance and neither is more important than the other,” reads the claim. “The Province of Alberta is constitutionally intertwined with the numbered treaties, and as founding partners in the creation of Alberta, First Nations signatories to those treaties cannot be ignored or bypassed as Alberta contemplates its future within or without Canada.”

The First Nation contends that Sylvestre’s second attempt at a referendum petition is “substantively identical” to the first, which was rejected by McClure after the court decision.

“As a consequence, the CEO has sanctioned a procedure to decide – by simple majority vote – the question of whether or not the Government of Alberta should violate Treaty 8,” reads the claim. “Yet precisely that proposal had been found by the court to contravene the Charter and Section 35 only a few weeks earlier.”

The First Nation would like the province’s Citizen Initiative Act changed so the Chief Electoral Officer is not given the power to approve petitions that courts have ruled would be unconstitutional.

The First Nation is represented by Olthuis Kleer Townsend LLP, a firm that specializes in defending the rights and claims of Indigenous peoples across Canada.

The petition, which is championed by the Alberta Prosperity Project, reads: “Do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?”

The application will be heard Jan. 16 at 10 a.m. in Alberta Court of King’s Bench.

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