Alberta separation referendum ‘not very likely’ new poll shows

Less than one-quarter of Albertans support proceeding to a binding vote on separation, but support for the other nine questions on Monday’s referendum may be higher, a new survey shows.

An Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News suggests seven in 10 Albertans say they plan to vote for Alberta to remain a province of Canada in the upcoming referendum, holding steady from previous polling conducted in September.

The proportion of voters who said they would vote for Alberta to begin the legal process of holding a binding referendum vote on separation increased three percentage points from September to 23 per cent.

That support is highest among men (27 per cent), those aged 35 to 54 (27 per cent) and those living outside Calgary and Edmonton (29 per cent).

“We’re seeing only about a quarter of people in Alberta saying they give support for this, but there’s a fair amount of diversity in the opinions among the people that we interviewed depending on where they lived and what their demographic background is,” Darrell Bricker, chairman of Ipsos Canada, told Global News.

Ipsos conducted online interviews with 801 Albertans between Oct. 13 and 16.

Only five per cent of voters remain undecided and two per cent say they will not vote, but Bricker said even if all of those respondents ultimately voted yes on referendum day, it would not be enough to trigger a separation vote.

“Whether or not it is only a quarter of the population that decide that they’re going to vote yes. Still not a small number. That’s a pretty big number,” Bricker said.

Premier Danielle Smith has said that if voting goes the way polling suggests, she expects everyone to accept it and move on. Leaders of the independence movement contest that.

But the premier has also asked Albertans to vote yes to the first nine questions, saying it would give her more leverage to negotiate for the province with the federal government.

“What we’re seeing is that the status quo relationship with the rest of the country is not something that’s particularly popular in Alberta at the moment,” Bricker said. “They don’t see the solution to that status quo situation as being separating from the country. But I expect that some of those other questions might get themselves majorities on election night.”

The first nine questions are related to immigration and the constitution.

A previous poll conducted for Global News in September found a strong majority (76 per cent) of Albertans were aware there were several questions in the upcoming referendum. Eighty-one per cent of Albertans said they planned to vote in the referendum with 62 per cent saying they will vote on all 10 questions.

How do I watch the results?

Global News will have in-depth team coverage on both broadcast and streaming online.

Anchors Dallas Flexhaug and Carole Anne Devaney will be joined by veteran political reporter and Ottawa bureau chief David Akin for results analysis, along with insights from a political panel hosted by anchor Blake Lough, and reporters on the ground.

From 8 p.m. MT to midnight, our Decision Alberta Referendum 2026 coverage will air on Globalnews.ca, as well as on YouTube and our Global TV app that is available on streaming services Prime Video, Apple TV, Roku, and select smart TVs.

Starting at 9 p.m., the special will also begin airing live on all Global News stations in Alberta.

The precision of Ipsos polls containing online data is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the overall poll of 801 Albertans is accurate to within +/- 4.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all adult Alberta residents been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.

– With files from Global News’ Jace Maki and Karen Bartko