In March 2026, we launched our electronic petition. Over 5400 people signed it. Then, the rules changed, and our petition was no longer admissible.
At the end of the spring Legislative session, changes were made to how petitions would be accepted in the BC Legislature going forward. Electronic petitions, accepted as part of a temporary provision since October 2021, would no longer be. No public notice was posted, and no previous guidelines stated an expiry date for this provision. The change just appeared on the legislature’s official petition guidelines website sometime in April.
Before launching our petition, we checked with the Legislature’s Office of the Clerk to ensure admissibility, explicitly stating our petition was electronic.
Given our situation, the Office of the Clerk forwarded us to the procedural clerk to inquire about our options. They informed us electronic us petition rules are being revisited and revised and electronic petitions are part of revisions being considered. But as of right now, there is no way to submit our 5400 electronic petition. We haven’t heard the timeline around when these revisions might be implemented.
However, we can present a hybrid petition of signatures gathered physically in-person, as well as electronically. Then, when presented, the physical signatures will be on the permanent record, but the entirety of the petition numbers will be on the Hansard record.
As such, we are working on setting up a way you can mail us your signed petition signatures (and potentially grab some more from family, friends and neighbours!). However, given we are now in a provincial election, this is on hold until legislature sits again.
The previous petition guidelines.
A screenshot of instructions for electronic petitions on the official BC Legislature website until the end of April 2026.
Guidelines on the BC Legislature website now:
