CALGARY—An independent out-of-province Crown prosecutor will be appointed to advise police investigating allegations of voter fraud in the 2017 United Conservative Party leadership race.

Sarah Langley, acting head of the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service, released a statement Thursday saying that recent information has pushed the organization to make this decision. The prosecutor wouldn’t oversee the investigation, but instead would provide advice to the police at their request on anything that might arise during the investigation.

“The ACPS will not be involved in this matter. Accordingly, the ACPS will not have further comment on this matter,” Langley said in the statement.

The investigation is looking into whether UCP leadership candidate Jeff Callaway’s 2017 campaign was orchestrated by Jason Kenney’s team to attack their main rival to lead the party, former Wildrose Party leader Brian Jean, as well as allegations of donation and voting irregularities in the contest.

The RCMP’s investigation into this case — independent of government and the prosecution service — is ongoing, Langley said.

The Alberta NDP had requested a special prosecutor to supervise the investigation earlier this month, which was denied.

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Rachel Notley, the Alberta NDP leader, was concerned about conflict of interest in the investigation now that Premier Jason Kenney and Solicitor General Doug Schweitzer have statutory authority over the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service and the RCMP. Both Kenney and Schweitzer were candidates in the leadership race.

On Thursday, Schweitzer told reporters that the decision to seek an outside prosecutor was made independent of him or the influence of any other elected official.

“As I’ve said all along, Alberta has independent police investigations and an independent prosecution service. Public trust and confidence in the police, the prosecution and the justice system as a whole is a core of our democracy,” Schweitzer said.

Earlier this week, Schweitzer said he was questioned by RCMP in this investigation, but that he himself isn’t under investigation by the RCMP.

Notley said she was happy to see the decision was made to bring in an independent prosecutor, as her party had requested, but criticized how long it took for this to happen.

“There’s been no significant change in the investigation from when we first called for it to now. And it took over a month for them to ultimately get to the point of making the right decision. So while they have made the right decision, and that is good, we had to bring a significant amount of pressure to bear for that to happen,” Notley said.

In the Alberta legislature on Wednesday, Notley asked Kenney if Schweitzer had informed him about the substance of his RCMP interview. Kenney confirmed Schweitzer had spoken to his staff about it.

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Notley criticized this move, saying Schweitzer shouldn’t have said a “single, solitary thing” to Kenney about the investigation, and that this was an indication of Schweitzer acting inappropriately.

“We should not have been in a position where the attorney general was being interviewed as a witness while people who are subject to his direction were in charge of the conduct of the investigation. That was a mess. The whole thing has been a mess. We pointed it out over four weeks ago,” Notley said.

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