Prime Minister Mark Carney expressed his concerns regarding the leak of a provincial electors list during a meeting with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in Ottawa on Friday, according to his office.
The unauthorized sharing of millions of Albertans' personal information has drawn widespread condemnation from leaders at both federal and provincial levels. The meeting between Carney and Smith focused on outstanding issues related to the energy deal signed in November, with Smith in Ottawa to speak at an annual conservative networking conference.
“As the prime minister stated, the breaches of the personal privacy of millions of Canadian citizens are deeply concerning. The prime minister expressed this concern directly with the premier this morning,” said Audrey Champoux, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister’s Office, on Friday.
Champoux added that Alberta’s information and privacy commissioner has launched an investigation into the allegations, alongside Elections Alberta and the RCMP. “Following these independent investigations, the prime minister expects appropriate action will be taken against those responsible,” she stated.
Elections Alberta sought a court injunction and initiated an investigation after it learned that an Alberta separatist group known as the Centurion Project had obtained a copy of the provincial list of electors without authorization. The group later shared the list, with 568 people having accessed it. The list had originally been provided to the Republican Party of Alberta, a registered political party advocating for a vote on independence.
The data breach has sparked significant concern, with former Alberta premier Jason Kenney recently telling The Canadian Press that he has enhanced his security measures due to the possibility that his personal information may have been compromised. Kenney is a member of Postmedia’s board.
This incident follows an announcement earlier this week by leaders within Alberta’s separatist movement that they had collected over 300,000 signatures as part of a petition to force a vote on independence—surpassing the 178,000 threshold required for the petition to succeed.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Canada Strong and Free Network conference on Friday, Premier Smith pointed to the ongoing investigations when asked whether she would support a public inquiry into the breach. “At some future point, we may want to do a review of whether there needs to be any changes to the legislation to ensure that the investigative arm has all the powers that they need and all the resources that they need to do these kinds of investigations, but not right in the middle of an investigation,” she said.
