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A key organizer with the pro-separatist Centurion Project isn’t co-operating with Elections Alberta’s investigation into alleged misuse of the province’s list of electors, the agency says.
“I can confirm David Parker is not co-operating with the investigation and he has refused to sign a statutory declaration confirming that he will comply with my direction to cease and desist with respect to the list of electors,” chief electoral officer Gordon McClure said in a statement on Tuesday.
In emails and videos posted online, Parker, an experienced political organizer, has promoted the Centurion Project as a powerful tool to identify Albertans who are in favour of separating from Canada and recruiting campaign volunteers.
Supporters hope that an independence question will be added to an Alberta referendum vote on immigration and constitutional questions scheduled for Oct. 19.
Elections Alberta, Alberta’s privacy commissioner and the RCMP are all investigating allegations that the Centurion Project obtained and misused a list of electors provided to the Republican Party of Alberta.
McClure told reporters on Monday that Elections Alberta has issued 566 cease and desist letters to people who created accounts to access an online database that contained personal information of nearly three million Albertans.
He said the agency asked 21 people identified as receiving the voters list from the Centurion Project to sign a statutory declaration that they are complying with an order not to use the list.
In a statement on Tuesday, Republican Party of Alberta Leader Cameron Davies said the party is assisting in the investigation and, “to my knowledge no such letter has been issued by Elections Alberta to anyone who had permitted access to the electoral list in our party.”
The Elections Act says anyone found guilty of misusing information in the list of electors could be fined up to $100,000, be sentenced to serve up to a year in jail, or both.
Parker’s history with Elections Alberta
Parker, who is best known as the founder of a conservative grassroots political group and third-party advertiser Take Back Alberta (TBA), has a disciplinary history with Elections Alberta.
Last year, Elections Alberta levied more than $120,000 in fines against TBA and Parker for violations of election finance law. The violations include failing to report income from fundraising activities, circumventing election advertising limits and knowingly making a false statement to the chief electoral officer.
The Elections Alberta disciplinary webpage says the fines have been referred to debt collectors, that TBA has appealed some findings, and some matters have been referred to the Crown for prosecution.
On May 1, Parker posted on the social media site X that he was “completely complying with Elections Alberta.”
Three days later, Parker posted that any allegations that he personally received or distributed any unauthorized voter data are false.
After a court ordered the Centurion Project to take down the tool containing voters’ personal information, the group also issued a statement April 30 saying it had removed the application and was co-operating with the investigation.
The group said it purchased data from a third party, and that volunteers were using the app to identify people they know.
After the personal information of millions of Alberta voters was made public by the separatist group the Centurion Project, legal experts are calling for provinces to hold political parties accountable by reporting breaches under privacy law.
Before complaints about the Centurion Project and Elections Alberta’s investigation became public, Parker had made social media posts critical of the agency.
On April 21, Parker posted on X, “Elections Alberta is waging lawfare on Take Back Alberta, The Alberta Prosperity Project, and Stay Free Alberta. They are using the power of the State to suppress democracy. This must be stopped.”
The Alberta Prosperity Project is another group promoting separation from Canada. Stay Free Alberta is a group that gathered more than 302,000 signatures on a petition requesting a referendum on independence.
On April 20, Parker shared a link to a media story about Elections Alberta with the comment, “I warned you all about Elections Alberta. Corrupt to the core.”
In an April 19 post, he referred to the agency as “an evil tool of evil people.”
Neither Parker nor his lawyer immediately responded to emailed requests for comment on Tuesday morning.
Political reaction to the investigation
At the legislature on Tuesday, Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said he believes Premier Danielle Smith has been emboldening citizens to thwart the law by criticizing judges and some of their decisions.
He said it’s worrying that a person who allegedly has access to the voter data won’t commit to leaving it alone.
Parker was a leader of a grassroots movement to remove former premier Jason Kenney as the inaugural United Conservative Party leader in 2022. Smith won a leadership contest to replace him.
Nenshi said Smith has Parker to thank for becoming premier.
“She should not just condemn him, but condemn these actions, and condemn the separatist movement, which she has never, ever done,” he said.
Nenshi criticized the government and UCP MLAs serving on committees for amending elections law to limit Elections Alberta’s investigative threshold and timelines, and denying some of the chief electoral officer’s requests for increased funding.
In response to Nenshi’s related questions in the legislature, Smith said Elections Alberta identified the likely source of the voters list, launched an investigation and contacted police.
“This, in fact, looks to me like a process working exactly as it should,” she said.
Smith said she didn’t want to prejudge the outcome of any investigation, and that her government would consider any recommendations for legislative changes once the investigations are complete.
