Nobody in Alberta is being asked to leave Canada today. They are being asked whether to start asking.
Albertans vote today on ten questions, and the one the world is calling an independence vote does not ask about independence. The final question asks whether Alberta “should remain a province of Canada, or should the government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate.” Pick the second option and you have ordered paperwork for a second vote. You have separated nothing.
The three polls taken Oct. 16 to 18, as listed on the referendum’s reference page, put the stay side at 74% (Research Co.), 74% (Leger) and 70% (Ipsos), with the start-the-process side at 22%, 21% and 23%. Averaged, that is 73% to 22%, a 51-point gap. Premier Danielle Smith cast her advance ballot to stay and told voters “Canada can still work. We just need to make some changes.”
The Nine Questions Nobody Is Headlining
Here is where the ballot gets interesting. Five questions ask whether Alberta should write its own rules on immigration, who can use provincial health care and schools, and proof of citizenship to vote. Four more ask Alberta to “work with other willing provinces” to amend the Constitution: provincial picks for the courts, a leave-with-your-money opt-out from federal programs, provincial laws that beat federal ones, and abolishing the Senate.
Read that last verb carefully. The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that abolishing the Senate requires the consent of all ten provinces. Alberta is asking its voters to endorse a goal it cannot reach alone, and the results are not binding in any case.
We think that is the design. A premier who votes to stay, urges a yes on the other nine, and describes them as a compromise that could gain leverage with Ottawa has built a ballot where a landslide for Canada still delivers a pile of yes votes to wave at the federal government. If you want to know who won tonight, ignore the question the headlines fixated on and watch the nine margins. Those are the numbers Smith will carry into the next call with Ottawa.