Warehouse

The Chief Electoral Officer would then review the signatures and determine if the petition has been successful. Successful legislative and policy initiatives would then be referred to a committee of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for consideration. If the committee does not support a legislative initiative, a public vote would be held.

So it sounds like this passing doesn't necessarily lead to a referendum. Which, again, leads to the "heads I win tails you lose" scenario.

It's more so that there are 10 Albertans, 3 want to leave, and they need signatures from 2 to add it to the ballot for a referendum.

https://angusreid.org/smith-shapiro-sovereignty/

There would certainly be enough people to get 177 thousand signatures within 4 months.

https://www.alberta.ca/system/files/custom_downloaded_images/jsg-citizen-initiative-act-fact-sheet.pdf

It can, but maybe not. Unless I'm reading it wrong, a referendum vote isn't actually needed.
Though if I am reading it right, it seems like a "heads I win, tails you lose" sort of scenario.
If the "leave" petition passes, it seems like they could just state "Yep that's what Alberta wants now, no vote needed."
I doubt that a "stay" petition would get such a benefit of the doubt.

Thomas Lukaszuk certainly could be lying about the reasons why he submitted the petition. He was the Deputy Premier of the PCs after all, so, there's that.

The question from the petition that the Alberta Prosperity Project is proposing is "Do you agree that the Province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?" which is currently being held up in the courts, while the Forever Canadian's currently ongoing petition is "Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?"

There is currently no ongoing petition where signing it indicates a desire for Alberta to leave Canada.

She's closer to the Wildrose portion of the party in terms of the merger.

In the sense that she was the actual leader of the Wildrose party.