Elections Alberta wants court injunction to review independence group's finances

If approved, the injunction would force the Alberta Prosperity Project to disclose financial records, including its expenses and donors to disprove allegations it breached advertising laws.

X (Alberta Prosperity Project)

Author: Quinn Patrick

Elections Alberta has requested that the judge presiding over its hearing with the Alberta Prosperity Project adjourn without setting a future court date while it seeks an injunction.

The injunction would force the APP to disclose records related to their finances, including its expenses and donors, in response to allegations that it breached third-party advertising laws.

Elections Alberta claims exceeded the province’s $1,000 limit for public messaging by non-registered groups. The government agency first filed for an injunction application last month.

The APP is governed by the Alberta Prosperity Society, which registered as a non-profit in 2022, receiving more than $1 million in donations in 2022 and $103,000 in donations in 2023.

Elections Alberta first launched an investigation into the APP after CEO Mitch Sylvestre and the group’s legal counsel, Jeff Rath met with the U.S. State Department last year.

Both men have maintained that while their message has been communicated with Washington, they aren’t engaging in diplomacy on behalf of Alberta, nor do they receive any funding from U.S interests.

B.C. Premier David Eby called the meetings tantamount to “treason.”

“Now I understand the desire to hold a referendum to talk about the issues you want to talk about in Canada, we got free speech that’s important, but to go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that, and that word is treason,” Eby told reporters in January.

Rath and Sylvestre are also involved with Stay Free Alberta, the group responsible for collecting the nearly 178,000 signatures required to force an independence referendum.

Earlier this month, the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation sought an emergency injunction with the Court of King’s Bench to halt the campaign, claiming the push for separation is allegedly an “unconstitutional” threat to Treaty rights. Lawyer Orlagh O’Kelley will represent the nation.

The legal challenge focuses on whether the courts can stop a petition, a tool used by citizens to express their democratic will to their government, before a vote even happens.

However, if this challenge should fail, the province will go ahead with holding a referendum on independence in October.

Elections Alberta’s director of compliance and enforcement Ryan Tebb wrote in an affidavit that there was evidence suggesting the APP exceeded legal limits regarding an advertisement on an unhitched trailer on the side of the road outside Edmonton that reads “Say Yes to an independent Alberta.”

Hi-Way Ads, the company supplying the trailer, charges roughly $700 per month for ad space, with the APP ad surpassing a month.

In February, the group was asked to present records of its online contributions and webpage donations from Jan. 2 to Jan. 31 as well as receipts for advertising about an Alberta independence referendum.

However, the APP failed to meet the Feb. 17 deadline.

According to Rath, the APP shouldn’t be required to register as a third-party advertiser because the group is “a loose affiliation of individuals,” adding that it’s “not a legal entity.”

Election Commissioner Paula Hale does not agree with Rath’s arguments.

“At best, your response to date has been misinformed; at worst, it has been obstructive,” wrote Hale in a March letter to Rath.

Hale then extended the deadline for the APP’s financial records to March 12 but the group did not comply.