Elections Alberta is urging better behaviour when people are interacting with citizen initiative and recall campaign canvassers around the province after it said it’s seen a marked increase in reports of harassment.

This problem isn’t new, as the non-partisan office said it has observed and addressed harassment on these campaigns since the “Forever Canadian” petition, organized by former deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, was approved last June.

“It is not unique to any group,” Elections Alberta said via email.

“We have received reports of canvasser harassment being experienced by nearly every citizen initiative and recall campaign since they began in June 2025.”

Elections Alberta said the reports it has received detail abusive, derisive, threatening, insulting, offensive or provocative statements, gestures and actions toward canvassers.

It also said it has received reports of canvassers falsely portraying themselves as Elections Alberta staff or demanding access to businesses to collect signatures.

Elections Alberta says canvassers are not required to be given access to public or private facilities.

Wave of recall and citizen initiative campaigns

Since June, other citizen initiative petitions have included campaigns on private school funding, Alberta independence and banning coal mining in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Nearly 30 campaigns to recall sitting MLAs have also been organized around Alberta since last fall.

Ethan Disler, a lead organizer on the campaign to recall Calgary-Shaw MLA Rebecca Schulz, said it was nice to see official recognition of what his canvassers have experienced. He describes verbal harassment, including people screaming at volunteers while driving by or arguing with them directly, as some issues his campaign has faced.

Disler said the response has resulted in some volunteers feeling intimidated about collecting signatures and made the team more hesitant about door-knocking.

“You never know who’s going to be on the other side of the door whenever you’re out knocking and soliciting for our petition. But it made plenty of us very anxious to be out there,” said Disler. 

“This is something that’s occurring across all the petitions, and it needs to be addressed.”

Don Bandet, a canvasser on the campaign pushing for a referendum on Alberta independence, said in the three weeks he’s volunteered with the campaign, he’s received plenty of encouragement, but his campaign has also felt similar pushback to Disler’s.

“People driving by yelling obscenities at us, calling us traitors,” Bandet described. “Nobody has approached us physically yet to harass us; it’s just been vocal.”

Not all campaigns are facing as negative of a reception thus far. Corb Lund, the proponent behind a campaign calling for no new coal mining in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains, said in the few weeks his volunteers have been canvassing, most have had “really good experiences.”

“People shouldn’t be jerks to each other, but like I said, it hasn’t really affected us.”

The most persistent misinformation and disinformation Elections Alberta says it’s getting reports of include claims of fraud in petition verification, and claims of staff being involved in campaigns, and endorsing or sanctioning individual petitions.