Separatist leader behind voter list leak unco-operative: Elections Alberta

EDMONTON – The man at the centre of a massive public data leak isn’t co-operating with an investigation by Elections Alberta, says the agency.

Chief electoral officer Gordon McClure said Tuesday that David Parker, leader of the Centurion Project, has so far refused to comply with a cease-and-desist letter sent last week. 

The letter required Parker to sign a sworn statement declaring he would stop using the official voter list — containing the names and addresses of close to three million Albertans — but Elections Alberta says he hasn’t done so.

Late last month, a judge ordered Parker’s group take down an app it created that made the list publicly accessible. Elections Alberta has said it traced the Centurion Project’s database to an official voter list provided last summer to the pro-independence Republican Party of Alberta.

Third-party groups like the Centurion Project are prohibited from using voter lists. Elections Alberta has said it’s not clear how the list changed hands. The Republican Party of Alberta has denied any wrongdoing. 

Parker has said the goal of the app was to more easily identify and keep track of those who support separatism ahead of an expected fall referendum on the issue. The group has claimed an unnamed third party provided it with the data.

Elections Alberta, RCMP and the provincial privacy commissioner are all separately investigating the leak.

In a statement late Tuesday, lawyer Chad Williamson said Elections Alberta was “circulating a fictional narrative regarding David Parker’s legal posture,” and that the agency has no right to demand a sworn statement from his client during an investigation.

“In plain terms, the state is attempting to use civil proceedings to compel sworn evidence from a citizen while a penal investigation is actively underway,” said Williamson.

“Asserting fundamental constitutional rights against state overreach is not defiance — it is the bedrock of our justice system. We do not advise clients to walk into unconstitutional traps.”

Parker, a longtime political organizer in the province, has had a combative history with Elections Alberta.

Last year, the agency gave a $120,000 fine to another political activist group run by Parker called Take Back Alberta for breaching electoral financing rules, including knowingly making false statements on financial reports.

At the time, Parker called the penalties politically motivated “lawfare” and denied any wrongdoing.

And on social media last month, before the investigations into the Centurion Project were announced, Parker called Elections Alberta an “evil institution.”

“I will not rest until everyone responsible for the lawfare being waged out of that den of evil are brought to justice,” he said.

Most of Take Back Alberta’s fines have been sent to debt collection. Elections Alberta’s website says one penalty has been referred to Crown prosecutors.

Michelle Gurney, a spokesperson for Elections Alberta, said in an email that the agency couldn’t provide further details on Parker’s non-compliance and what options it has moving forward.

The agency said last week that it sent 568 cease-and-desist letters to those the Centurion Project identified as accessing the list while the website was active. It had said 23 were given full copies of the list.

On Tuesday, Gurney reduced that figure to 21, saying Elections Alberta sent two duplicate letters.

Gurney didn’t say how many others have failed to sign and return the declaration to stop using the voter list. She said further updates would be provided when available.

The leak has been a key point of debate in the legislature, with Premier Danielle Smith facing questions about when she learned of the breach and whether her government would retreat on legislation last year that increased the amount of evidence Elections Alberta needs before launching investigations. 

The agency blamed the change for why it didn’t act to shut down the Centurion Project’s app sooner, saying the higher threshold was equivalent to police having enough evidence to make an arrest.

The government has denied that its legislation served as a roadblock, despite Elections Alberta saying it couldn’t act on a tip about the voter list app that was received a month before the agency officially started investigating.

An affidavit from Elections Alberta filed in court late last month says it received another tip on April 21 but again it determined there wasn’t enough evidence.

Smith defended the legislation again Tuesday, after Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said it amounted to an “evisceration” of Elections Alberta’s enforcement arm.

‘There’s been no evisceration,” Smith said. “(Elections Alberta) has the powers that they need because they have gone to court, they have demanded the names, they have issued cease-and-desist orders.

“We all want to get to the bottom of this.”

Nenshi told reporters he wants to see Smith take accountability.

“These friends of the premier, who’ve been empowered by the premier, have no respect for the law and they operate in a world without any consequences,” Nenshi said. 

“That’s because the premier’s empowered them to do that.”

Parker has ties to the United Conservative Party government.

With Take Back Alberta, he helped organize UCP members in casting ballots to unseat former premier Jason Kenney in a confidence vote. The group later helped galvanize support to help Smith win the party race to take Kenney’s place.

Smith also attended Parker’s wedding. But two years ago, the pair had a public falling out and the premier said she no longer considered him a supporter.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 12, 2026.