As referendum looms, 70% of Albertans want province to remain in Canada

In three and a half weeks, the Alberta referendum will ask residents if they want to hold a formal vote on whether to stay or leave Canada — and most have their minds made up.

An Ipsos poll exclusively for Global News conducted online interviews with 1,500 Canadian adults between Sept. 18 and 22, including 600 Alberta residents.

Seven in 10 Albertans said they plan to vote for Alberta to remain a province of Canada in the upcoming referendum on Oct. 19 — a statistically insignificant drop of two per cent from similar polling conducted between May 28 to June 1.

Among the 20 per cent who said they would vote for Alberta to commence the process of holding a binding independence referendum, support was highest among men (25 per cent), the Gen Z demographic born between 1997 and 2012 (28 per cent) and Albertans outside of Calgary and Edmonton (28 per cent).

“It’s not really surprising that rural Albertans, older Albertans and male Albertans are more likely to say that they want to go,” said Ipsos Public Affairs senior vice-president Gregory Jack. “Younger Albertans, more urban Albertans in Calgary or in Edmonton are more likely to say that they’re going to want to stay.

“The numbers on who wants to go or who wants to stay haven’t really changed throughout the campaign.”

Voter turnout will be key, however.

“I think in this particular referendum, it’s going to be more important than usual because the ‘no’ side — the side that wants to stay — is not as motivated as the ‘yes’ side is,” Jack said.

“The ‘yes’ side are the ones that want to ask the question, they’re the ones who want to be having this conversation. So if they have a high voter turnout and the ‘no’ side stays home or doesn’t vote, you might see a higher level of ‘yes’ than you would see if the entire population had voted.”

Ipsos found a strong majority (76 per cent) of Albertans are aware there are several questions in the upcoming referendum, and 62 per cent plan to vote on all 10 referendum questions.

The ballot contains 10 government-initiated questions dealing largely with immigration and constitutional reform.

The referendum, announced Feb. 19, initially contained nine questions pertaining to immigration and the Constitution.

Then on May 21, Premier Danielle Smith announced a 10th question was being added, putting the issue of Alberta separatism in the hands of voters.

Since then, public and political attention has largely focused on that final question asking Albertans whether they want to remain in Canada or proceed to a second, binding referendum on leaving Confederation.

“For the ‘yes’ side, they’re going to want to suggest that this is not a final referendum — there’s going to be another referendum, and it’s an opportunity to send a message to Ottawa,” Jack said.

“For the ‘no’ side, they’re gonna suggest that this the time to put this issue to rest.”

In January, an Ipsos poll found about three in 10 residents supported independence, but a deeper dive revealed that when faced with the costs and consequences of doing so, only half of those interested in separatism are truly committed to following through.

While the polling data continues to suggests the separatist momentum isn’t powerful enough to move past the initial referendum in October, Ipsos asked Albertans what their intentions would be if that binding referendum were to somehow still happen.

In that hypothetical situation, the “stay” crowd remained firmly entrenched in their position: 74 per cent would opt to stay — with 90 per cent of those people saying definitely. That’s an increase from when Ipsos asked the same question in June, when 72 per cent said they would vote to stay.

Those most likely to say they would vote to stay include Boomers (80 per cent), university grads (80 per cent), women (79 per cent) residents of Edmonton (79 per cent) and Millennials born roughly between 1981 and 1996 ( 75 per cent.)

Meanwhile just 14 per cent of the 600 people polled would vote to still leave and 69 per cent of them felt strongly about their position. That’s down from June, when 18 per cent of Albertans would vote to leave Canada.

Those who felt strongest about their view included men (20 per cent), Gen Z (18 per cent) and Gen Xers born roughly between 1965 and 1980 (18 per cent).

Those outside of the major city centres were more likely to be undecided: 12 per cent, compared to seven per cent in Alberta as a whole.

Jack believes many Albertans picked a side months ago and have stuck with it.

“We should see perhaps some more movement in the next couple of weeks as the referendum gets closer, but a lot of people have a position on this,” Jack said.

“I think both campaigns are going to want to get their supporters out as much as possible, because people have made up their minds, to a large extent, on issues like this.”

The overall poll of 1,500 Canadians is accurate to within +/- 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all adult Canadian residents been polled. Questions asked of Albertans only (n=600) have a credibility interval of +/- 4.9 percentage points. Questions asked of Canadians outside Alberta (n=900) have a credibility interval of +/- 4.0 percentage points.

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.