Who else besides Danielle Smith is saying 'yes to the nine' in Alberta's referendum?
It’s long appeared that the pro-unity side in Alberta’s referendum would prevail; polling suggests the separatists will lose by a three-to-one margin next week.
Polling is closer on the other nine questions, but Danielle Smith put them to voters, believing she had sure winners.
While she has repeatedly advocated for the “stay” option when asked, she’s focused most of her rhetoric — and the $4 million government advertising campaign — on the referendum’s proverbial undercard, the questions proposing immigration and constitutional reform.
But aside from that taxpayer-funded push, there’s been little public advocacy for Questions 1-9.
Contrast that with the more visible “No to the Nine” campaign that has cropped up alongside maple leafs on many federalist lawns to push against Smith’s questions and the premier herself.
Though Smith designed the questions to be easy wins among her base and the general public alike, they’ve become a target of both the premier’s anti-separatist detractors, as well as prominent separatists, who treat the questions with either scorn or indifference.
Senior officials in Smith’s United Conservative Party privately say they’re concerned that voters could reject at least some of the questions. If it’s a really bad night, they could lose all of them.
Smith announced the nine questions back in February, months before she added the 10th — the referendum to hold a referendum. She’d crafted them based on some of the most popular ideas from her Alberta Next panel in 2025, which was created to suggest future referendum topics that weren’t stay-or-leave.
Opposition to the nine immigration and constitutional questions has become a central part of some pro-Canadian referendum campaigns. (Jason Markusoff/CBC)
In provincially commissioned polls and an online survey last year, the Smith government found wide support for wresting more control over immigration from Ottawa, denying non-permanent residents access to provincial programs, and trying to amend the Constitution to tilt the scales toward the province — and higher opposition to an Alberta-only pension plan, police force or tax collection agency.
“We think we've done that initial culling of the questions to make sure that we found the ones that are likely to get majority support,” Smith told reporters in April.
Translation: the premier crafted these questions because she believed they’d arm her with fresh ammunition against Ottawa, and that voters would rally around her tough-on-immigration stance.
But aside from her own government’s TV ads, billboards and booklets, there have been scant few voices trying to push the nine into the winner’s column. That said, the $4 million spent amounts to more than double the combined $1.8 million raised as of last week by the various pro- and anti-independence groups, according to Elections Alberta disclosures.
Few prominent conservative Albertans, on either side of that stark independence divide, echo Smith’s call to endorse action on immigration and constitutional measures.
The lesser-known group Alberta Women for Independence is one of the few organizations whose blue pro-separation signs also encourage yes votes for the nine questions.
But after its leader Kathy Flett treated a pro-independence town hall in Medicine Hat to a detailed slide presentation on the merits of all nine referendum proposals last week, the more prominent separatist leader Keith Wilson brushed off their importance.
“These other nine questions are — I’m sorry, they’re a political gimmick. They mean nothing,” Wilson said, before later noting he’d vote yes to them, anyhow.
One of the few pro-independence signs that also urges yes votes on the other referendum questions. (Jason Markusoff/CBC)
Some separatists are frustrated because they don’t like the abstract nature of the independence ballot question, or that Smith diluted the referendum with questions that she didn’t have to put directly to voters.
Jeffrey Rath of Alberta Prosperity Project is urging people to “decline the 9” entirely — even as APP itself is trying to educate voters about what those other questions are.
“The nine questions are a deflection from the independence question,” Rath wrote last week on social media. “They are Smith’s built in excuse not to pursue independence!”
Many conservatives have focused exclusively on Question 10, including Alberta’s federal Conservative MPs and former cabinet minister Monte Solberg’s group Vote to Stay.
Former premier Jason Kenney, one of the unity side’s most active conservative voices, has questioned whether the nine questions needed to be referendums, and said some of them even confused him, a former federal immigration minister.
Contrast all that to the array of people pushing against the nine questions, particularly the ones seeking to restrict the social services that non-permanent residents receive.
In a rare show of bipartisan unity, former Progressive Conservative premiers Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford joined NDP counterpart Rachel Notley in a newspaper op-ed Wednesday urging “no” votes on the immigration ballots, warning they’ll harm Alberta’s economy and ability to attract workers.
The Calgary Chamber of Commerce has also been highlighting immigrants’ contributions to society, while its CEO Deborah Yedlin has warned Smith’s suggested $1,900-per-migrant health care fee would be a burdensome “extra cost” for employers.
Christian leaders have taken the unusual step of weighing in, albeit without directly telling parishioners how to vote.
A joint letter from Alberta’s Catholic bishops called on people to “respect human dignity and avoid making any segment of our population the object of resentment or blame," while a letter from Anglican bishops reminded supporters of Scripture’s “call to welcome and care for strangers and sojourners in their midst.”
Labour unions have also argued for “no” votes down the line, including CUPE Alberta’s “no to scapegoating” video that emphasizes how little services for temporary residents cost the provincial treasury.
“It just reinforces that these questions were not wanted by anyone except Danielle Smith,” said Stephen Carter of Alberta’s Voice, the third-party advertising group behind the “No to the Nine” signs.
“She wrote them. She promoted them. And everyone else opposes them.”
Stephen Carter's group Alberta's Voice is behind one of the most visible opposition campaigns against the immigration and constitutional ballot questions. (Sam Martin/CBC)
As much as Smith believed they were winners, the nine questions haven’t been slam dunks in the polls.
Last month’s Janet Brown Opinion Research poll for CBC News said 52 per cent of respondents oppose limiting access to health and education to temporary immigrants, while 45 per cent agree. There was moderately more support for Alberta taking more control over its immigration (54 per cent agree, 42 per cent disagree) and for constitutional changes (49 per cent agree, 45 percent disagree).
A Research Co. survey in late August, meanwhile, found that support for the five immigration questions ranged between 58 and 66 percent, while views on the constitutional questions were more tepid — between 39 and 46 per cent support.
WATCH | Do Albertans know what they're being asked to vote on?:
Many Albertans unaware of 9 other ballot questions
September 30|
Duration
2:03
Less than three weeks ahead of Alberta's referendum on whether to seek a vote on separation from Canada, many Albertans seem unaware of the nine other questions on the ballot that involve thorny issues around immigration and constitutional reform.But undermining those numbers is what appears to be widespread confusion and uncertainty about what those wordy questions are asking of Albertans. Brown’s poll suggested that close to half of Albertans didn’t know how they’d vote or weren’t familiar with the referendum ballot’s lesser-known nine.
As if to prove this confusion and lack of familiarity, the United Conservative Party issued its first message last week to its mailing list trying to explain and promote all nine questions. It was 1,708 words long. (It also didn’t tell the party’s backers how to vote on Question 10, perhaps unsurprisingly because of how split UCP ranks are on separation.)
The governing party doesn’t appear to have engaged in any door knocking or get-out-the-vote campaigns on the referendum. The opposition NDP, meanwhile, have been trying to activate pro-unity voters, with flyers that say “Vote to remain. No to the rest.”
The general lack of non-taxpayer-funded, on-the-ground campaigning may have already cost Smith. The Janet Brown poll showed that among Albertans who do know how they’ll vote on the nine, half will follow the “no the nine” mantra, while some will vote no to some and yes to others.
Only about one in 10 planned to fulfil Smith’s request and mark nine yeses.
Given that nearly half of committed voters would choose the UCP, that means a sizable contingent of Smith’s own political backers are not readily following her wishes into the ballot box.
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