Support for Alberta remaining in Canada steadily rises ahead of Oct. 19 referendum: Leger poll

As the Oct. 19 referendum approaches, there is a rise in the number of Albertans supporting Option 1 — for the province to remain in Canada, according to a Leger poll.

The new October poll by Leger shows support for remaining in Canada has increased from 65 per cent in August to 74 per cent this month. Support for voting in favour of Option 2 has decreased from 23 per cent in August to 21 per cent in the latest poll.

Andrew Enns, executive vice-president at Leger, said those campaigning in favour of Option 1 have consistently driven the message about the benefits of Alberta remaining in Canada and have done an effective job at communicating to people the importance of voting despite earlier concerns about voter apathy.

“They’ve done a very good job of ensuring and communicating to people the importance of Alberta remaining in Canada and voting Option 1, but also, they’ve been fairly aggressive in terms of making sure people get out to vote,” Enns said.

On the other side, those campaigning in favour of independence were falling short in comparison, said Enns.

According to the poll, those who were previously undecided or had no opinion have now begun to choose sides. The latest numbers show only four per cent of respondents expressed no opinion, down significantly from the 12 per cent reported in August.

“I think it’s safe to say that the remain campaign got more of those individuals to say they’re gonna vote remain versus the option two campaign — they just didn’t do enough to convince those fence sitters who I would argue probably were somewhat convincible to either argument,” Enns said. 

Among decided voters, 78 per cent intend to vote in favour of Option 1 — remaining in Canada — and 22 per cent are in favour of Option 2 — beginning the legal process of holding a binding referendum on separation.

According to the poll, since June when the two-part separation question was put on the Oct. 19 ballot, there’s been a steady rise in Albertans who are choosing to vote against separation. Leger says in June, 64 per cent of respondents indicated they’d vote for Option 1, October’s number show a 10 per cent increase since then.

In comparison, the number of people choosing to vote for Option 2 has gone from 24 per cent in June to now 21 per cent in October.

The poll was conducted from Oct. 14 to 16 among 1,000 adult Albertans.