Albertans will answer ten referendum questions on October 19, and the last one asks whether Alberta should remain a province of Canada or whether its government should “commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.” A poll done for CBC News with that exact wording found 72 percent would choose to remain, 23 percent would choose to start the process, and 4 percent were unsure.
Janet Brown Opinion Research surveyed 1,200 Albertans at random from September 8 to 21, with a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Brown’s April poll asked a different question, whether respondents would vote for or against separation, and found 27 percent for and 67 percent against. The share of Albertans who said they feel mainly attached to Alberta fell from 33 percent in April to 23 percent, while the share mainly attached to Canada rose from 34 percent to 40.
“There’s a slight decline in people who are interested in the separatist option, but these numbers have been very consistent over time,” Brown told CBC News. The divide runs through the governing party. Among respondents who would vote for Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party, 53 percent chose the separation option and 40 percent chose to remain. “The premier has taken the ‘stay’ side,” Brown said. “That’s making her job very difficult at the moment.” She expects the last three weeks to turn on turnout: “The game will be about both sides trying to make sure they get their voters out to vote on this referendum.”
The question will not decide separation on its own terms. The provincial order that put it on the ballot directs that the result is not binding, and the second option asks only that the government begin the constitutional process toward a later, binding referendum. Five of the nine questions ahead of it, on immigration and eligibility for provincial programs, are non-binding under a separate order. The other four ask whether the government should work with other provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution, including one that would give a province’s laws priority over federal laws where the two conflict.
Albertans have asked to vote by mail in numbers the province has not seen before. Elections Alberta had received 673,000 requests for mail-in ballots by the afternoon of September 24, the day before it closed applications, according to The Canadian Press. For the 2023 provincial election, 59,589 Albertans requested one. Completed ballots must reach Elections Alberta by 5 p.m. on October 16, and advance voting runs October 13 through 17.
The agency is still hiring the people who will run the vote. As of September 17 it had received about 48,000 applications and hired 25,000 election officers, and it named rural divisions from Peace River to Taber-Warner that still needed qualified applicants.
Alberta called this vote under its own Referendum Act and wrote the question itself. On October 19 the answer belongs to Albertans.
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