EDMONTON – While Albertans roundly rejected separation in Monday’s referendum, results were decidedly closer in early returns on nine other questions.
Premier Danielle Smith also polled Albertans on five questions on immigration and four about seeking a mandate to work with other provinces to change the Constitution and wrest more power from Ottawa.
The immigration questions asked whether Alberta should have more say on who comes to the province to work and whether it’s time to put more limitations — and perhaps introduce fees — on some who seek access to health care and education.
Smith has said immigration is a benefit but must be economically sustainable. Critics have called the questions anti-immigrant dog-whistling.
Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack said Monday that not only does Alberta need to move on from separation, it should also ditch the immigration questions.
“Edmontonians are the ones most directly impacted by those five questions, and I don’t want our neighbours to feel like they’re not welcome in our city,” Knack said.
“They are welcome in our city no matter who they are, no matter what they believe in, no matter any of that.”
At a polling station in Calgary, voters were split.
Jamie Fisher said she supports all nine. “I don’t think it’s been fair (to Alberta) for a really long time, and I think a lot of people need to really hear that message,” she said.
Amneet Mann characterized some of the questions as anti-immigrant.
“I just don’t think that’s what this country stands for,” she said. “I think it’s crazy that we’re here and we have to make that known.”
The constitutional questions asked Albertans for a blessing to pursue talks with other provinces on gaining control from Ottawa and abolishing the Senate.
Smith said those issues are pressing. Critics have called them posturing.
Smith said she voted to stay in Canada but needed a yes to the nine questions to get a mandate to bargain with Prime Minister Mark Carney. Her government commissioned a $4-million advertising campaign urging Albertans vote yes to the nine.
The nine became a passive-aggressive dance between Smith and Carney as the campaign wound down, with each publicly poking the other in the eye.
Last week, Carney barnstormed the province to rally support for federalists and was mobbed by cheering, back-patting selfie-seekers. On Thursday, he leveraged the opportunity and popularity in Smith’s metaphorical backyard of Calgary to publicly urge Albertans to reject the nine questions.
Smith scrambled to pivot the narrative. A day later, at a joint event in a Red Deer brewery, she pointedly handed Carney her government’s explanatory referendum booklet to get him get up to speed on the nine issues.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 20, 2026.
— With files from Dayne Patterson in Calgary
