Poll suggests slight majority of UCP voters favour separation as party stares down ‘tough days’ ahead
As part of her latest round of polling, Janet Brown sought to understand the factors driving support for separatism in advance of Alberta's Oct. 19 referendum.
She found most support wasn’t found amongst people who live outside the major cities.
It wasn’t the majority opinion of people with a certain level of education.
Nor was it of those who work a certain type of job or make a certain amount of money.
The group where the highest levels of support for Option 2 was found? Supporters of the United Conservative Party.
“It is a hot potato for the UCP and Danielle Smith. It is that part of the voting public that is split on this issue,” she said.
On Oct. 19, voters will be asked whether Alberta should remain a province of Canada, or whether the Government of Alberta should hold a second, binding referendum to separate from Canada.
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Among those polled who said they would vote for the United Conservative Party, 53 per cent said they’d vote for the separation option. Forty per cent said they’d vote to stay in Canada.
That trumped all demographic groups studied by Brown and her team.
Compared to the 53 per cent of UCP supporters in favour of the separation option, 25 per cent of respondents in small centres said they’d vote for Option 2 on Oct. 19.
Twenty-eight per cent of those with a high school education or less supported the separation option, while 30 per cent of those with college or some university said the same.
At 98 per cent, nearly all respondents who said they would vote for the Alberta NDP if an election were held today said they wanted to stay in Canada.
“I’m a little bit surprised to see them that high in the UCP, very admittedly,” Travis Toews told CBC News of the numbers.
Toews was Alberta's minister of finance from 2019 to 2023. He’s one of the signatories to the federalist initiative known as Lead Not Leave.
He sees “lingering scar tissue” in the party tied to former federal policy.
“I think many of us were disillusioned during those years,” Toews said.
But he argued conditions have improved under Prime Minister Mark Carney.
“It’s a different day. We now have … the majority of Canadians supporting energy development and pipelines,” he said.
“Over time, we can agree with a majority of Canadians on key economic issues that not only will affect Alberta's prosperity down the road, but quite frankly, the whole nation's.”
Still, Toews sees the political clouds swirling. The divide between the two camps in the party poses challenges in advance of the next election, in his view.
“I think if we continue to have a preoccupation — if right of centre provincial political parties continue to have a fixation with separation and independence — I believe it will make it very difficult for those parties to form government provincially,” he said.
“These are tough days for Premier Smith politically, for sure.”
On Tuesday, Red Deer-South UCP MLA Jason Stephan confirmed to CBC News he has voted in favour of proceeding with a legally binding referendum on whether the province should leave Canada.
“I've always supported having a referendum on independence because I want Ottawa to be compelled to fix the things that are broken," he said.
He added, “I've never said that I want Alberta to separate."
Last month, the Alberta NDP flipped a conservative stronghold with a win in Calgary-Shaw.
Later that week, a UCP riding association in southern Alberta formally urged a party vote to review the premier’s leadership.
“Here’s the reality: this kind of an issue is very divisive. And it’s divisive within communities, within businesses, within families and certainly within constituency associations,” Toews said.
“We need to get through this, past this referendum. I believe that we as Albertans need to rally around the principle of leading, not leaving.”
Warring flanks of United Conservatives
It was Highwood, a riding south of Calgary, that was first out of the gate calling for a party vote of the premier’s leadership. Forcing such a vote would require the support of a total of 22 associations.
Tanya Clemens, co-leader of the separatist group Let Alberta Decide, is part of the Highwood association.
She told CBC News that while she tends to doubt conservatives are accurately represented in polling, she believes there is a “large, silent group” of members that are in support of separation but who fear backlash should they vocalize that opinion.
She said she supported the leadership review given Smith’s stance that Alberta should remain in Canada.
“I just want to ensure that, as much as I love and respect her, that if we win Option 2 on Oct. 19, that she is then accountable to the people to deliver on that mandate,” Clemens said.
“And that would be to then call the independence referendum for the spring of 2027.”
There may be more constituency associations that similarly endorse a leadership review, UCP president Rob Smith wrote in a comment on Facebook.
“But it’ll never make 22. I bet my house on it!” he wrote.
“There’s also a movement of constituency associations writing letters of support for Premier Smith. That number will exceed 22 within a week or two! And it’ll get much, much higher!”
It’s within the two flanks of her party — those who feel she has not sufficiently supported their efforts to separate and those frustrated that the referendum is taking place at all — where Smith faces her biggest challenge, in pollster Janet Brown’s view.
“Both sides … are agitated right now,” she said.
Premier says discussions will follow referendum
Lisa Young, a professor of political science at the University of Calgary, noted that the poll also suggested that Smith’s personal popularity dipped as her party found itself tied in support with the Opposition NDP.
While the premier has consistently said she supports a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada, voters may perceive her as being on the other side of the issue, Young said.
Over the longer term, she sees a real challenge for the UCP, given that separatist movements typically want to have a political party that can further their objectives.
“I think what we’re going to see over the coming weeks and months is a fight over whether the UCP becomes an overtly separatist party,” Young said.
“If it does, it cedes potential support, because there are conservative-minded voters who wouldn’t vote for an explicitly separatist party.”
At an unrelated press conference on Wednesday, Smith was asked about the poll’s findings and how she planned to manage fissures in her party.
“It'll all be decided on Oct. 19. So at that point, we're going to ensure that we have a very robust discussion with Albertans about accepting the results and what it means, as well as how we're going to continue to pursue greater autonomy for Alberta," Smith said.
“So that is going to be a discussion to have with Albertans, and also a discussion to have internally in our party.”
In a statement responding to the poll results, a UCP spokesperson said “Albertans have real frustrations with Ottawa,” and the party is working to prove that Canada can work for Albertans.
“That means getting a pipeline built to the West Coast, scrapping the production cap, the net-zero electricity rules, and holding Ottawa accountable for implementing the energy agreement,” Dave Prisco said in an email.
“There's still more work to do and we will continue defending our economy and constitutional rights while restoring hope for all Albertans.”
When it came to all respondents to the poll, 23 per cent said they’d vote to start the legal process to hold a binding referendum, while 72 per cent said they’d vote to remain in Canada. Four per cent said they were unsure.
The CBC News random survey of 1,200 Albertans was conducted using a hybrid method between Sept. 8 and Sept. 21, 2026, by Edmonton-based Trend Research under the direction of Janet Brown Opinion Research. The sample is representative of regional, age and gender factors. The margin of error is +/- 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. For subsets, the margin of error is larger.
The survey used a hybrid methodology that involved contacting survey respondents by telephone and giving them the option of completing the survey at that time, at another more convenient time, or receiving an email link and completing the survey online. Trend Research contacted people using a random list of numbers, consisting of 30 per cent landlines and 70 per cent cellphone numbers.
Telephone numbers were dialled up to five times at five different times of day before another telephone number was added to the sample. The response rate among valid numbers (i.e., residential and personal) was 11.3 per cent.
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