Thomas Lukaszuk led with the corn.
"TABER, your corn is the best, but this billboard that you donated to #ForeverCanadian is even better," the former deputy premier posted over the weekend. "Thank you for showing your support for Canadian unity."
Two months ago, people were threatening to boycott it.
What happened in June
Cory Morgan paid about $1,100 for a digital billboard just off Highway 3, one of two along that stretch, on land leased from the Town of Taber. Three metres tall, six wide. It showed the Alberta shield above the words "Send Ottawa a Message! Choose Alberta," with a line identifying it as authorized by Pathway to Independence.
Morgan runs that group, a third-party advertiser registered with Elections Alberta to promote one side of the referendum's tenth question. He has said he chose Taber for an unglamorous reason: there was billboard space available at a price he could afford.
On June 3 the town posted a statement saying its digital signs are privately owned, and that it does not approve, review, select or control what appears on them. Online, people began threatening to boycott the town's signature crop.
That same day, according to a letter obtained by The Canadian Press, the town's chief administration wrote to the billboard's private owner. Morgan says it demanded the ad come down by the following Saturday on the grounds that it had drawn complaints and become a nuisance under land use rules. He says the town also raised the owner's contract.
Morgan called it interference
"We're a registered third-party advertiser with Elections Alberta. We followed the compliance," he said. "It wasn't anything, you know, crazy or offensive or something like that."
His characterization was blunt. "This is what looks to be a pretty clear-cut case of electoral interference by a level of government, which is very serious and very problematic. It's not a case of a private company refusing to put up an ad."
The Saturday deadline passed. The sign stayed up. Morgan bought two more smaller signs in Taber, the third going up that Sunday.
He also said the fight helped him. "It was going to be a quiet billboard in one spot, part of a bigger campaign," he told CBC. "It morphed into a whole pile of attention, which only brought in more supporters and more donations."
Town officials declined to speak publicly about it.
What residents said
The people CTV spoke to in Taber didn't line up the way the online argument did.
Anna Friesen, who supports independence, didn't think the sign should come down. Kandis Howells, undecided on separation, said much the same. "I don't necessarily think it needs to be taken down. I think people can take it for what it's worth. Either you agree with it or you don't."
Another resident who had signed the separation petition said it was a political opinion, people are entitled to those, and the town shouldn't intervene.
Morgan acknowledged the other side of it. He said he'd heard from federalists hurt by the movement, and that he'd struggled to find places elsewhere in Alberta willing to put his signs up. "I understand people are upset maybe on both sides."
What the rules cover, and what they don't
Both sides keep invoking Elections Alberta, so it helps to know what the legislation actually reaches.
Anyone spending above a threshold on referendum advertising must register as a third-party advertiser, which brings contribution limits, spending limits and a requirement that ads name their sponsor. That's the "Authorized by Pathway to Independence" line on the Choose Alberta sign, and it's a legal obligation, not a courtesy.
What the legislation doesn't govern is where a sign goes. Placement falls under municipal land use bylaws and whatever contract exists between a billboard owner and the landlord.
That gap is the whole fight. Morgan's compliance argument is about election law. Taber's nuisance argument is about land use. Neither answers the other, which is why both sides can be telling the truth at once.
Whether a town can use a nuisance provision against political speech on land it leases out hasn't been tested in court here.
The billboard that went up this weekend
Neither Lukaszuk nor his campaign has named the Taber business that donated the space, or specified which sign it is.
Forever Canadian is led by Lukaszuk, a former Progressive Conservative deputy premier from St. Albert. Its petition gathered roughly 456,000 signatures, verified by Elections Alberta, exceeding the legal minimum by more than 100,000.
His original goal wasn't a referendum. He filed under a provision allowing the legislature to vote on a question directly, arguing a majority of MLAs would reject separation. "She can call a referendum, but I would advise her against that," he said of Premier Danielle Smith. "Referenda on cases like this are too divisive."
Smith called one on May 21. Forever Canadian launched two days later with a red-and-white Unity Bus and an order of 15,000 lawn signs that Lukaszuk was close to having to reorder within weeks. "They're sort of the crack cocaine of Alberta," he said. "Everyone wants one."
The dispute over who counts as a campaign
The separatist side's position is that Forever Canadian has been campaigning openly for months and spending substantial money without being classified as a referendum campaign, which they describe as a loophole.
Lukaszuk's answer is specific. He told CBC his campaign complies because it isn't taking a position on the separation question appearing on the October ballot. It's promoting its own question, the one its petition asked for: do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada. That question isn't on the ballot.
Elections Alberta hasn't publicly resolved it.
A town of 10,000 with signs on both sides
Taber sits 195 kilometres southeast of Calgary, in country where the independence movement has found its strongest support.
It's also where a business just donated advertising space to the other side, in a town that spent June in a fight over a sign it says it never approved and doesn't control.
On October 19, Albertans vote on ten questions. The tenth asks whether the province should remain in Canada or begin the process toward a second, binding referendum on leaving.
Sources:
Thomas Lukaszuk, public social media post, August 2026
CBC News, "Alberta town orders removal of pro-separation billboard, calling it a 'nuisance'": https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-taber-cory-morgan-billboard-separation-9.7229092
Town of Taber public statement, June 3, 2026
Elections Alberta, third-party advertiser registration requirements
Elections Alberta, verification of the Forever Canadian petition
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