Wexit Saskatchewan to hold petition-signing drive this month

The Saskatchewan branch of the western separatist movement Wexit is planning a campaign at multiple locations in the province over the next few weeks.

The aim is to garner signatures for its petition to give the western provinces — mainly Alberta and Saskatchewan — their own sovereignty.

One of the locations chosen for the pop-up registration booths in Saskatoon on Sunday is Princess Auto on Idylwyld Drive. The other is the Canadian Tire at the Confederation Mall.

“Basically what we are trying to do is just find a busy location. We know the support is there for the Wexit stuff here, so we are just trying to find a busy location with some organic traffic of people going in and out,” said Eric Wall, one of the organizers of Wexit Saskatchewan.

“For example, (on Sunday) we had two different booths set up outside the stadium for (the CFL’s West Division final in Regina). I’m just being told that they collected in the hundreds (of signatures) and most of that is coming from people just seeing the sign.”

However, the issue for these pop-up booths is that none of the businesses were contacted with the movement’s plans to use their property.

“We sent it to the corporation to contact the mall to make sure they are not out in front of our store,” said Dave Palmer, manager of Canadian Tire. “They’re not allowed as far as we’re concerned.

“Confederation Mall controls the parking lot but we are going to make sure that they are not in our area and set up at all. They didn’t contact us, nobody from their group has let us know (and) they haven’t let the mall know. I think they are just planning on stopping in the mall parking lot and setting up.”

The property manager of the mall took the same stance as Palmer, saying there will be added security on that day to make sure the movement isn’t set up anywhere on the property.

Wall said Wexit Saskatchewan never reached out to the businesses in their chosen locations, but the intention is not to be disrespectful to any of the businesses.

“As for Canadian Tire and Princess Auto, we have not reached out,” he said. “If they don’t want our vehicle on their property because the sign is on it, sure we’ll move. We’ll go to a sidewalk or whatever.”

Wall said the petition-signing campaigns have already been effective. He believes as more start happening, the movement will start to pick up steam throughout the month.

“We’re just in the early stages of it right now but I do expect that as we push through to the end of November here, we’ll start seeing a lot more locations. And (with) the time people are committing to manning these petitions, I think it’s going to bring in more than enough signatures that we need,” he said.

“We haven’t heard anything from (Premier) Scott Moe yet, but we are going to keep pushing on here so we’ll see what he does.”