Alberta's chief electoral officer wants pause on sharing electors list until law amended

Alberta’s chief electoral ship's officer says the responsibility’s lean of electors shouldn’t be shared with any political parties until the law-makers makes changes to break protect Albertans’ personal information.

Speaking to reporters for the first time since his announcement last month that the personal information of nearly three million voters may have been inappropriately used or distributed, chief electoral officer Gordon McClure told reporters Monday he will present recommendations to the legislature when his investigation into the breach concludes.

“Elections Alberta understands and sympathizes with the public concerns of the data breach,” he told reporters, following a legislative committee meeting on other matters.

“It's serious. We agree there needs to be stronger legislation to protect the list of electors.”

McClure's comments come after Diane McLeod, Alberta’s information and privacy commissioner also flagged a “concerning gap” earlier this month in the province’s Personal Information Protection Act, which governs how private entities use sensitive data.

McLeod said her office has been calling for the act to apply to political parties for decades. She said similar legislation in B.C. Governs political parties.

“While the Elections Act has some controls concerning the List of Electors, this law does not protect the privacy rights of Albertans concerning their personal information and does not have the strong privacy protections that are in PIPA to protect these rights,” McLeod said in an April 30 news release.

The federal privacy commissioner recently called for similar privacy oversight of voter lists given to federal political parties.

McClure did not specify which legal changes he’s seeking, and did not provide a timeline for finishing his investigation into how a voters list given to the Republican Party of Alberta ended up in the hands of a pro-separatist group called the Centurion Project, which is registered as a third-party advertiser in Alberta.

Organizers with the Centurion Project had created an online tool to help identify and recruit people likely to vote in favour of Alberta independence, should the provincial government call a referendum on the issue.

An Edmonton judge granted a temporary injunction on April 30 requiring the organization to take the tool offline.

In a statement at the time, Centurion Project organizers said they had purchased the data sets they used for the tool from a third party.

The Republican Party of Alberta has said it will co-operate with Elections Alberta’s investigation.

The RCMP and Alberta's privacy commissioner are also investigating the data breach.

In a statement, Heather Jenkins, press secretary to Justice Minister Mickey Amery, said Alberta's government will wait until those investigations are complete “before determining whether any future legislative changes are needed.”

Some academics have called for a public inquiry into the voter data breach, and also asked the government to delay an Oct. 19 referendum on immigration and other issues until that is done. McClure said any public inquiry should proceed after his investigation is complete, to ensure anyone who breached elections law is held accountable.

McClure said his staff are monitoring the dark web (areas not visible to internet browsers) for potential signs that Alberta voter information is misused elsewhere.

The Opposition NDP has called on the government to delay its referendum until the investigations are complete.

“I don't know that we can trust any referendum held this fall until we get clarity,” NDP MLA David Shepherd told reporters on Monday. 

At an unrelated news conference Monday, Premier Danielle Smith dismissed those calls, saying the government policy questions aren't connected to the investigation.

“Those are important issues that we need to get some direction ... From the people ... About how we can improve Alberta's autonomy within Canada,” she said.

A different pro-separatism group called Stay Free Alberta says it has gathered nearly 302,000 signatures for its petition calling for an Alberta independence referendum, and more than 400,000 people have signed a petition supporting Alberta remaining in Canada. Organizers for both petitions are awaiting processes to see if those questions will also be put to a referendum on Oct. 19.

While appearing before an all-party legislative committee on Monday, McClure said recent changes to elections, referendum and citizen petition laws have led to an unprecedented amount of work for his office.

“I used to drink from a garden hose," he said. “Now, I'm drinking from a fire hose, and it's very different.”

Since he began the role in 2024, McClure's office has administered 28 recall petitions for elected officials, seven applications for citizen initiative petitions and three byelections. His mandate was expanded to include combating disinformation, which prompted Elections Alberta to open an information integrity unit.

The agency is now preparing for the October referendum, which will require an estimated 60,000 to 90,000 temporary employees to run polling stations and hand-count an estimated 33 million paper ballots, McClure said.

The government introduced a law last year to ban the use of electronic tabulators in provincial elections. Regulations also stipulate that Elections Alberta must have ballots hand-counted by a certain deadline, depending on the number of referendum questions.

McClure said the agency would usually prepare for a provincial election 12-18 months in advance. The next fixed election date in Alberta is Oct. 18, 2027. He said resources are now focused on the referendum, and that he planned to return to the committee to ask for more funding for his office.

McClure requested the committee raise his salary by six per cent, not the three per cent already planned, to reflect his increase in workload and responsibility. The committee, dominated by United Conservative MLAs, voted against the motion.

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