Most Albertan voters have sided with the province on its questions relating to immigration, but have rejected constitutional reforms in a controversial referendum this week.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative government asked citizens nine questions, outside the one related to separation, with all five immigration-related questions getting majority approval from voters.
Elections Alberta said in a Sunday afternoon statement that the count had been completed Saturday night, about three days later than the agency had aimed to complete the count and publish the results in order to meet the 48-hour deadline set under Alberta’s referendum regulations.
Elections Alberta said it had hand-counted 20,574,612 ballots, which the agency said was the highest number of ballots ever counted by hand in any Canadian electoral event.
Results will be made official on Oct. 29.
The question with the highest “yes” vote share was Question 5 — requiring proof of citizenship to vote in provincial elections — which garnered 58 per cent support.
Results show about 55 per cent of voters said yes to Alberta’s pitch to take greater control of immigration, in part to decrease the number of newcomers.
The three questions that suggest different methods for limiting public and social services to some non-permanent residents garnered 52.6-, 53- and 52 per cent support.
Smith says she will ‘proceed with caution’
As results were still trickling in on Wednesday, Smith told reporters she will prioritize adjusting Alberta’s approach on economic migrants. On the rest of the immigration questions, she said the province will “proceed with caution.”
“I think that people who came here and had certain expectations under one set of rules, it’s always very difficult if you change things midstream. So I want to be very cautious about that and try to interpret a little bit of the result that we got back.”
Lori Williams, Mount Royal University political scientist, doesn’t believe these results are the strong mandate Smith wanted. The government ran a $4-million advertising campaign advocating for Albertans to vote “yes” to the other nine questions.
“The fact that she has … got the results that she does on the nine questions is, I think, a bit of a problem,” Williams said.
“It doesn’t give her the mandate she wanted. It doesn’t give her the authority to move forward and sort of detract from the issues that were raised by separatists because we have this very close division on all of the questions.”
With the referendum questions being less popular in Calgary and Edmonton, Smith told The Calgary Eyeopener’s Loren McGinnis on Thursday that conservatism across the country needs to figure out how to appeal to urban voters.
‘I think that’s something all conservative leaders are going to have to be thoughtful about,” she said. “The bread and butter conservative issues that matter in rural Alberta are just different than the ones that matter in urban centres.
All 5 immigration questions pass
The five questions concerning immigration included proposals for the province taking more control over immigration from Ottawa, requiring residents to have an “Alberta-approved immigration status” to be eligible for public and social services, and showing proof of citizenship before voting in elections.
If all five of the successful proposals become law, Alberta could require some temporary residents — such as international students or temporary foreign workers — to have lived in the province for at least 12 months before they can qualify for some provincial social supports such as childcare subsidies, and charge a “reasonable fee or premium” for their use of the public health care and education systems.
Smith has floated the idea of charging temporary residents a $1,900 fee for access to public health care, akin to a premium charged by the United Kingdom.
There are five referendum questions for Albertans to consider on immigration. CBC’s Rukhsar Ali breaks down each one to look at what happens if you vote ‘yes’ or ‘no.’
Calgarian Camille Katigbak, who owns the marketing agency Katigbak Technologies, is one of the more than half of voters who supported immigration changes. She is also the daughter of immigrants from the Philippines.
To her, the proposed changes make sense. She worries about too many people putting pressure on the system.
“I think if we just limit and kind of pre-qualify, we make sure okay, these people are here for the right reasons, I think that would really help our system be more streamlined and we’re not overwhelmed,” she said.
“I do know that we have to help our neighbours too. Like we have to think about helping others, but at what cost, right?”
The question about requiring proof of Canadian citizenship to vote in provincial elections was also something she supported.
Albertans may have overwhelmingly rejected separating from Canada, but referendum results show significant support for more provincial control over immigration. CBC’s Lyndsay Duncombe examines what that means for relations with Ottawa, and the concerns it raises for newcomers in the province.
But not everyone feels as positively about the results as Katigbak does.
Calgarian Dozie Anyaegbunam, who came to Canada from Nigeria in 2021, has been critical of the referendum and had hoped the immigration questions would fail.
While they did pass, the host of The Newcomers podcast said he’s encouraged by how many people voted against them.
“I think it’s good to kind of see that it is not an overwhelming majority,” he said. “Even if the government says they have a mandate, they don’t have a full mandate. And that gives me some hope in terms of how we move forward from here as a community.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters Tuesday that he and Smith had discussed “other priorities” facing Canadians, namely, immigration.
“Constitutional change is difficult, it’s long,” Carney said. “I believe, for example, on the issue of immigration and co-operation between the federal government and the provinces for sustainable immigration … that we can accomplish that without constitutional change.”
Voters reject all 4 constitutional questions
All four Constitution-related questions were rejected, including the proposals relating to the province selecting its own judges for certain courts, abolishing the federal Senate, opting out of some federal programs, and prioritizing provincial laws over federal laws in some areas where they conflict.
Gerard Kennedy, University of Alberta constitutional law professor, said getting the public interested in constitutional amendment has never been easy, and this referendum has not proved to be an exception.
But on the matter of selecting judges, Smith isn’t the only premier who has shown interest in a constitutional change.
Saskatchewan, Quebec and Ontario also have an appetite for selecting their own judges, but Kennedy said the odds of a constitutional amendment “I would think are very, very low.”
“What we could have is agreements from the federal government to change the system to give the provinces more of a weight, but it will ultimately be the decision of the federal government to decide whom to appoint.”
Campaigning less noticeable on the other 9 questions
Amongst third-party advertisers, campaigning on the nine non-separation questions was noticeably less prominent in much of the referendum conversation.
Perhaps the most notable, “No to the Nine” became a memorable slogan on the federalist side, based on signs erected by longtime political strategist Stephen Carter’s campaign Alberta’s Voice.
As early results came in, Carter said he still considered his campaign a success, though the five immigration questions being passed was “a significant blow.”
“Immigrants come to Alberta to do two things: create jobs and do jobs,” he said. “They don’t come to take advantage of our healthcare system, they don’t come to take advantage of our education system.”
On the flipside, the separatist group Alberta Prosperity Project recently encouraged supporters to “decline” marking an answer on the other nine questions, writing on social media it “would not lend its name to bogus referendum questions.”
A lesser-known group called Alberta Women for Independence was one of the few organizations whose blue pro-separation signs also encouraged yes votes for the nine questions.
When could changes happen?
On Friday, the United Conservative Party laid out its plans for legislation in the upcoming fall sitting, but said Albertans shouldn’t expect to see new laws tied to how they voted in the referendum.
When it comes to new immigration policies, Evan Menzies, vice president at Crestview Strategy, suspects some policies, like requiring non-permanent residents to pay for social services, could take longer to implement.
“That could be too disruptive too fast, there might need to be some sort of transition phase,” said Menzies, who was also formerly a political staffer with the UCP.
“And especially considering that there’s an election 12 months away, I don’t know how much the province has an appetite to push too hard too fast with that respect.”
