His pro-separation Centurion Project having essentially doxxed the entire adult population of Alberta, it would seem some of David Parker’s political allies don’t want to be associated with him just now.
“Neither Stay Free Alberta or the Alberta Prosperity Society are affiliated with the Centurion Project or David Parker,” the ubiquitous separatist Jeffrey Rath said on social media yesterday. “Neither SFA or APS have had access to any lists in the possession of either the Alberta Republican Party or David Parker or the Centurion Project.”
Mr. Parker’s former wedding guest Danielle Smith has apparently never even heard of the guy. “We are aware of the situation involving a potential data breach of electors’ personal information,” Alberta’s premier said on the same social media platform.
“Protecting the personal information of Albertans is of the utmost importance, and those responsible should be held accountable under the law,” Ms. Smith continued piously. “We understand both Elections Alberta and the RCMP are looking into this matter thoroughly and we will wait for the results of those investigations before commenting further and assessing whether any future legislative changes need to be considered.”
This sure sounds to me like the premier is getting ready to throw someone under the bus.
As for the separatist Republican Party of Alberta, whence came the copy of List of Electors used by the Centurion Project to create an online database according to Elections Alberta, all Leader Cameron Davies seems to have had to say about the imbroglio is that it rescinded access to its copy of the List of Electors to contractors doing party business when it learned of the Centurion Project’s activities.
Now, I recognize that this may be an unpopular opinion, but I think Mr, Parker has done all Albertans a huge favour by exposing the inexcusably sloppy way the Government of Alberta has protected confidential personal data about nearly three million of us.
Likewise, what may turn out to be the largest data breach in Canadian history has revealed the incredible irresponsibility of Ms. Smith’s United Conservative Party, which seems to have paid no attention at all to Elections Alberta data security while focusing instead on ensuring that a separatist referendum question proposed by someone else makes it onto a ballot this fall. The breach also exposes the amateurish conduct of Elections Alberta, albeit after being defanged by the UCP in the party’s effort to make things easy for Ms. Smith’s separatist allies.
Notwithstanding stating in a news release that it found out about the Centurion Project’s use of the List of Electors only last Monday, it turns out Elections Alberta was told about it by conservative commentator Jen Gerson at the end of March.
“The public record deserves to be corrected here,” Ms. Gerson told independent journalist Jeremy Appel in a videocast published Friday. “They chose to lie by omission by not including the fact that they had received a complaint a month earlier.”
Or, as she put it in the lead of the right-wing Substack she contributes to, “Elections Alberta had reasonable grounds to know that separatists had access to the province’s voter file at least a month ago, and as far as I can tell, they did sweet fuck all about it.”
Mr. Appel broke the story on Wednesday night after he showed up at a Centurion Project meeting in Edmonton at the same time as an Elections Alberta official and several police officers arrived with a letter saying the group was under investigation for improperly accessing the province’s List of Electors.
Since it is not a registered political party, the Centurion Project cannot legally hold the data on the List of Electors. But in Alberta, any political party can – even if it has no seats in the Legislature or any prospect of ever holding any. Chances are, therefore, that other copies of the list are also in the wind.
For its part, Elections Alberta pleads innocence on grounds of necessity – insisting in its “message to Albertans” Friday that its reluctance to investigate Ms. Gerson’s tip was the government’s fault because of legislation passed in May last year.
“The legislation requires that we must have ‘reasonable grounds to believe an offence has occurred’ to start investigations,” the Elections Alberta statement complained. “‘Reasonable grounds’ is a much higher standard than ‘grounds to warrant’ (the previous standard in the legislation), or ‘what might seem obvious’ based on a complainant’s suspicions or beliefs.”
Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi has called for Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure to be summoned to testify before an emergency meeting of the Standing Committee on Legislative Offices. “The UCP Government must reverse Bill 54’s provisions that came into effect in 2025 and weakened Elections Alberta’s investigative powers,” he said. Everyone should understand that the UCP is unlikely to allow any of this to happen.
This is still a developing story, of course, but if history is a guide, most of the effort expected by official bodies from now on will be to find a fall guy to take the blame and ensure that no consequences stick to them.
Meanwhile, it’s starting to sink in that the serious consequences of the Purloined List of Electors being scraped by Artificial Intelligence go beyond the personal and financial safety issues identified on Friday when the story first broke.
“Separatists have been gathering signatures,” observed Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt in an interview posted to social media yesterday. “Did they actually acquire signatures or did they just use this to identify people as signatures and they had other people sign it off on them? So that’s one possibility and I think that is hugely problematic.”
That question is sure to be asked again tomorrow when the Stay Free Alberta petition calling for an unconstitutional separation referendum question on the ballot is brought to Elections Alberta for verification. That’s now going to require a heck of a lot of phone calls to do right!
NOTE: This story has been updated to include a reference to the RPA leader’s comment to a far-right online publication that your blogger missed this morning. DJC
Notwithstanding the author’s diligence keeping to the bit (which makes me smile every time) the UCP’s corruption makes me sad
Vote people. Vote
Once the toothpaste has been squeezed out of the tube, it cannot be put back in. All that personal information is out there, and who knows what hands it went into, and what could be done with it? Lots of shady things can happen with it, for sure. Elections Alberta has a much power as a soldier preparing for battle using a child’s toy water pistol to fight the enemy soldiers. They can’t do anything about this, because the UCP has stripped them of their ability to enforce the regulations. David Parker and Take Back Alberta still owes massive fines to Elections Alberta for contravening the rules. When the UCP were involved with the Kamikaze affair, $230,000 in fines were levied against various UCP members, as well as a UCP MLA, from Elections Alberta. Jason Kenney was in the United States (Texas), and sacked the (previous) Alberta Elections Commissioner, Lorne Gibson, and all of his staff, who were looking into the Kamikaze affair. Danielle Smith and the UCP will never take this seriously, because these people have close ties to the UCP. The weak and compliant media doesn’t seem to be talking this matter seriously either. NHL hockey made the front page of The Sun, yesterday, as per usual with them. Serious repercussions have to happen here, but it will have to involve law enforcement agencies. Danielle Smith will have to step aside, and allow a totally hands off investigation into this, where the UCP can’t interfere, but it’s unlikely that will happen. There are people who don’t care about this, but they certainly should. It is extremely bad. Unfortunately, there were Albertans who refused to listen to people who said that the UCP weren’t good from the beginning, and this is where we are now. It’s disgusting.
Conspiracy theorists mostly of the right have blathered for years about the dangers of Big (Mostly Left) Government prying into citizens’ lives. It is a sad irony that Big (Right) Political Party made it real.
Randy: Projection. Always projection. DJC
We become what we hate.
Perhaps a complete list of the names and home towns of those who are purported to have signed the separatist petition should be posted on line by Elections Alberta. Then we can all see if our names have been stolen.
Caron: An intriguing idea. I mean – at this point – why not? DJC
Agreed!
Did you see the “1,000 signatures” message posted to social media, purportedly by Jeffrey Rath? I would like to hear an explanation for that. Apparently there is no way for any of us to find out if our names, personal information and “signatures” are on that petition, due to the rules laid out in the legislation that facilitates fraud in our backwards, hillbilly hell of a province. Apparently even if we know this happened, there is no way to address it or correct it under the rules. I am an Albertan whose family has lived here since the early 20th century. This is the worst of Alberta of all time.
This reminds me of partition, and how common folks were treated by their colonial masters back then. Should I be surprised, since some of those overlords escaped the folks that tried to lynch them by fleeing to Calgary? They ingratiated themselves into the upper echelons of society, in the same circles from whence the current corruption flows like the muddy Bow River during spring runoff. No doubt they spent the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders. Ça ira, ça ira. Allegedly.
We all know how this will play out, that being the RCMP will take years to finish investigating with no charges being laid because it’s Dingy Smith’s buddy. Likewise, Elections Alberta has had their power stripped so they will not do anything. As a result it will be another UCP “nothing to see here” and Smith will play this out until it becomes another distant memory, or as those with a little bit of memory another in the long list of unethical garbage from this government. Given the breach and release of private information, I believe Elections Alberta should completely strike down the separation petition, saying it was completed using illegal means. While there are those that might argue otherwise, to me that is the only proper punishment for this gang. While it more than likely not happen, I think Parker should be locked up and fined.
This may be politically much worse than Smith’s private facilities health scandals, which are somewhat convoluted and intentionally made opaque. It is easy to understand the harm in the breach of personal information of millions of Alberta voters.
So yes, Smith will be looking for a scapegoat or likely more than one. Elections Alberta officials who said they were just following the poorly designed rules set by the UCP are probably on the list. Not only was that tone deaf, but also annoying to their political bosses. I feel the UCP did not learn much from their last wrongful dismissal law suit.
Fortunately for Smith she seems to be talented in finding scapegoats so far and getting the gullible to believe her. Most Albertans know there are serious problems with health care and education, which are mostly run by the provincial government, under Smith. However she has managed to convince a lot of people that somehow all our problems are because of the Feds.
Problem after problem with our provincial government and its administration of things. Yet the same message will be repeated again. The problems are never Smith’s fault. Always someone else is to blame. Will Albertans continue to buy this?
Something that has not been mentioned in the limited news coverage of this SNAFU that I have read is what is done in other provinces, and federally for that matter? Do political parties in other jurisdictions have access to the information voters have entrusted to their election officials?
Bob: A very good question, one that you would think would have been picked up on by one of those news organizations with multiple reporters and research resources. DJC
Someone has pointed out that when Kevin J. Johnston ran for Calgary city council in 2021, no voter’s list was given out to anyone because nobody wanted him to have one. I don’t know how that affected the election.
Hi Bob, that is a good question. Myself and probably others will have second thoughts about ticking that box on our CRA tax return to allow elections Canada, and maybe whoever else, access to our personal information. Why not? I always thought. Well this is why not. Elections Alberta says there are significant fines and incarceration penalties for contravening the rules – I hope so.
Elections Alberta also says these voter’s lists “can be obtained by registered political parties, MLAs, candidates, election officers and constituency associations…” So if I run as a candidate in say a by-election I can get this information? I know this is to facilitate the democratic process but that seems problematic in this day and age.
Anyone else remember when the voter’s list with names, addresses and occupations were posted on neighborhood power poles? I was a kid but it made interesting reading.
The CRA tick box only applies to the federal permanent voters’ list, not to provincial lists of electors. Each province is responsible for maintaining its own voters’ list according to the applicable legislation in that province.
Not sure what your point is jerry? What are the rules around use of the federal voters info?
It seems like Elections Alberta exists only to provide sinecures for UCP supporters.
The trust is gone. If these people can get their hands on Alberta’s voters’ list through the back door, do they have people on the inside at the federal level, too? Alberta, though, rolled out the red carpet for every Tom, Dick and Harry to invade our privacy, especially the Dicks.
You don’t need to run for office to get your mitts on this information. A person who got a four-month jail sentence for his key role as a spokesperson at the Coutts border blockade was fined by Elections Alberta for irregularities during his time as chief financial officer for Take Back Alberta. The fine apparently hasn’t been paid. Yet somehow this person who played a central role in the border blockade and TBA found his way onto the Calgary-Acadia UCP constituency association. Therefore, this person may have had access and may still have access to the voters’ list if he is still on the board, after going to jail. Of course, anyone, anywhere in the world had access to it for a month.
How can anyone trust in the electoral process now?
I do remember passing one, as a 7 year old in St Albert. I distinctly remember the front cover was torn off.
I’m sure the UCP approval ratings sill soar from all this protecting of Albertans.
Republican Party leader Cam Davies released a statement to the Western Standard Friday night. Don’t worry that you missed it. I’m sure most people did. Who the hell bothers to read the WS? Useless rag. Anyway, Davies admitted in his statement that he gave the Alberta voters list to a third party. He claimed it was so the third party could do work on behalf of the Republican Party. Nothing to see here, folks. Just routine stuff. Paraphrasing, Davies also said that when he learned the dataset was being used in the Centurion Project, he revoked access. He did not disclose the identity of the third party or explain how this mysterious entity transferred the dataset to the Centurion Project. Or how he revoked access when the dataset was already online. This is the equivalent of two little boys playing with rocks beside a large window. “OK, maybe I picked up a few rocks but I didn’t throw any. I gave them to Davey and he broke the window. Not my fault.” Meanwhile, time’s a ticking on the UCP elite’s drive to get a separation referendum question on the ballot in October. If the injunction won by the Indigenous groups is extended, then it could be months before Elections Alberta has permission to deal with the separatists’ petition sheets. Verifying names and signatures will be another lengthy process – given that their staffing levels were cut by the UCP and there are so many questions surrounding the validity of the petition following the voters list doxxing. We could be looking at August, September or ???? before EA is finished. Then, the question goes to the Justice Minister, who under Bill 14, can make any changes he wants to the wording of the referendum question. If I was a separatist, I’d be miffed. I might even be ticked off a bit.
Thanks, Highwood. I try not to read the WS, if only for the state of my blood pressure, although from time to time one must. I will incorporate this data at some point.
DJC
Sweet F.A. is the defining attribute of both the current Premier and her loyalist cadre, in fact it would be an ideal UCP motto. And SNAFU correctly defines this most current failure of oversight and legal breach of trust (That is, a failure to act responsibly by someone entrusted to keep information confidential and/or acting in a way that violates the ethical or professional confidence placed in them.) by this government, the Premier, and her representatives.
Noting that DJC has already clearly referenced above the failure to act in a responsible and timely manner:
https://www.readtheline.ca/p/scoop-jen-gerson-elections-albertas
“They had “compelling evidence” that there was inappropriate use — at least potentially inappropriate use of the data files — as early as March 31.”
It is the case that:
Upon becoming aware of any loss, unauthorized access, use, or disclosure of the list of electors, the following steps are mandatory.
1. Conduct a physical search for the lost list of electors at the location where it went missing and make every reasonable effort to retrieve the missing data.
2. Contact the person appointed to be responsible for safeguarding the list of electors by the registered political party, constituency association, MLA, or candidate who provided access to the list of electors and advise them of the details surrounding the lost data.
3. Contact Elections Alberta immediately and provide
a. the date, time, and place of loss
b. details of circumstances leading up to the loss
c. contents of list information that is missing (electoral division, polling subdivision
information) and format (either printed list or electronic media)
d. details of actions taken to retrieve the lost list of elector information before
reporting loss
e. the name and contact information for the individual who was responsible for
safeguarding the list
4. Take any action the Chief Electoral Officer shall direct. This may include notifying the local police authority.
https://www.elections.ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/Alberta-Voters-List-Access-Guidelines.pdf
Further: “Section 163 of the Election Act of Alberta makes it an offence for a person to use information obtained from the register of electors for a purpose other than for conducting general elections, byelections,referendums and plebiscites; for compiling or revising lists or registers of electors under the authority of the Election Act, the Canada Elections Act and the Local Authorities Election Act, and for contravening the restrictions placed on the use of voter information authorized for registered political parties, constituency associations, MLAs, candidates and election officers. The penalty for any of these offences is a fine of not more than $100,000 or imprisonment for a term of not more than one year or to a fine and imprisonment.”
Squaring this circular sideshow will involve the usual talking out of both sides of one’s mouth at the same time, passing the buck, and finding an appropriate scapegoat (It’s the fault of Ottawa, the Laurentian elites, Trudeau, the previous NDP government, a politicized judiciary, ect., ect.)
Finally for the two smiling clowns in the picture:
I believe that Danielle Smith already knew that the separatist’s secession question was in jeopardy when she stated recently that the Forever Canada question may be used in the upcoming October referendum. Smith knew full well what was coming down the pipe and it certainly wasn’t oil.
The separatists have bungled their objectives spectacularly, which is not surprising considering the caliber of their membership. The unanimous consensus is that there is no way that separatist petition can be trusted at this point. It’s a rooting-tooting Wild West rodeo complete with clowns and bull riders.
The question now is whose butt is going to get the horns from the steer? I think that the UCP has Elections Alberta squarely behind their red cape!
This is what always happens in this province
‘This is still a developing story, of course, but if history is a guide, most of the effort expected by official bodies from now on will be to find a fall guy to take the blame and ensure that no consequences stick to them. ‘
This is what I meant in the previous post.
I thought the Conservatives were all about supporting the rule of law? They have it all backwards.
The Conservatives support law and order if it works for them.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
I think that Caron is right. I would certainly like to know if anyone forged my signature on this awful petition. If the name and address of everyone who supposedly signed it are public, then, we can find out.
Due to Danielle’s tight control over anything Elections Alberta is doing, I don’t believe for a minute that she (or Mickey Amery) wasn’t aware of the information shortly after it was received at the end of March.
It’s pure coincidence that she is meeting @the Chatham house in London while the story is breaking.
I have questions….
1. why was Devin Dreeshen being so coy about why the RCMP were raiding the legislature offices? ( Thur or Fri)
2. Emmott Kelsey of the Centurion Project is on SM saying they’re in contact with the white house over their “feature app”, and Parker was on Tucker’s show discussing this. So who did he pay the $45k to and for what exactly?
3. Since all voters private information has been compromised ( you can’t get that genie back from the black hole, especially after a month on the web)….
…if voters registration numbers are no longer secret, will Elections Alberta have to re-issue new ones to all voters ??
And if this is the case, how long would that take for 2.8 /.9 million people? Long enough to delay any calls for an early election?
To all the victims of violence whose safety is now compromised, if it would help I would be writing the Federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser; as well as any witnesses due in upcoming court cases who are worried about their safety.
There’s also the matter of information on Judges, lawyers, police etc.
As for the regular public, do not answer any unknown callers, do not open any emails not verifiable, and be prepared for future scams. As was pointed out, names/ numbers are sold on the dark web, usually in blocks of up to 1000 (?) so you can believe that with a minimum 3 wk headstart, they will be chomping @ the bit with this little nest egg.
Just as a sidebar, I am of the opinion that Parker and company seem very confident that they are not going to be suffering any consequences for the data breach and as per the Maggats are playing the poor victims and making light of the data breach.
Operation Secure Independence
Hosted by Mandeep Bal , (who also coincidentally was campaigning for PP in the by-election in BRC ) sounds pretty “separtist” to me.
But with friends like Marty up North and others, one shouldn’t be surprised by anything this crew gets up to.
I’m waiting for the first ‘incident’ to happen and then I’m also hoping that we hear of the class action lawsuit next. There must be someone in the Canadian Bar Association that will go pro bono for their fellows along with a huge portion of the Alberta electorate.
Privacy breaches like this have serious consequences. There’s a story out of Edmonton this morning that a city councillor, Aaron Paquette, has had to provide relocation assistance to a woman and child fleeing an intimate partner violence situation after this disclosure. It’s the seven lead paragraphs in this article headlined “Mark Carney calls alleged privacy breach in Alberta deeply concerning”.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/alberta/mark-carney-calls-alleged-privacy-breach-in-alberta-deeply-concerning/article_813fc1d7-98b2-5e20-9156-2eef9d157fea.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-city-councillor-concerned-about-domestic-violence-survivors-after-private-voter-information-exposed-9.7186338
A different article, not under a paywall.
I’ve said this before, Edmonton and Calgary need to begin a push for separation from the Republic of Alberta, since the separatists are clearly cheating and may, as a result, be successful. Just as First Nations will still be part of Canada, the cities need to push for independence from Alberta and maintain provincial status (or the like) within Canada. That is the only way they can fight back against the well organized and well financed separatist movement.
I am already experiencing fallout from this leak. I received 2 emails last week from Alberta separatist groups seeking support and donations. One was the Stay Free Alberta Strategy. There is no reason they should have my name and email. Elections Alberta does not have my email. The UCP does and I believe the UCP has handed their member list to the separatist parties.
Would convicted criminals normally be allowed access to a voters list? Because it looks like Tamara Lich signed up for the Centurion Project.
https://x.com/VinnyR16687452/status/2051077830000414866
If Elections Alberta can follow the distribution of specific Electoral Lists by the “cookies” (false names) imbedded in given list, are they also able to remove names?
Each organization with access to the list gets a different set of “salted” names. Elections Alberta absolutely must check the referendum petition for all the flavours of salt, not just Republican Party of Alberta salt. If they find a name that was salted on another party’s list, for example, we have a much bigger problem than the Republican Party of Alberta, the Centurion Project and the mystery third party that was their intermediary. We need to know if there are any salted names from lists held by the party in power.
It’s too late for anyone who might have used salted names and spicy forged signatures of non-existent people to walk it back, now that the petition is in the hands of Elections Alberta. To whom it may concern: are your snouts clean? Even a random warehouse break-in won’t stop this train wreck now.
Duane Bratt is of course absolutely right.
I propose we have a referendum on whether or not to deport Danielle (yankee doodle Dani) smith. Apparently you only need like 300k fake signatures and the approval of the deranged orange king.