While the question about Alberta’s future place in Canada has dominated discussions about the province’s October referendum so far, there are another nine questions on the ballot that so far have been subject to little public debate.
They were announced two months before Premier Danielle Smith said a 10th question on separatism was being added.
Five of the nine questions deal with issues of immigration reform — including whether the province should have increased control over immigration and whether it should be able to withhold health care, education and other social services from people who aren’t Canadian citizens, permanent residents or who have an “Alberta-approved immigration status.”
The other four questions deal with Constitution changes: giving the province more control over the appointment of judges, abolishing the Senate, giving provinces the ability to opt-out of federal programs on health care, education and social services, and changing the Canadian Constitution to give provincial laws priority in areas of shared jurisdiction with Ottawa.
To Edmonton lawyer Avnish Nanda, who helped create the pro-immigration group “Our Alberta Advantage,” the questions about immigration are “harmful, racist” and “unnecessary.”
“As they dig deeper into the questions and the ramifications, (it’s) just confusion. We don’t need this,” said Nanda, who added that his organization is “pushing back against this anti-immigrant, anti-Canadian narrative that this government is peddling through this referendum initiative.”
“As more people learn about it, they become angry over the amount of money being spent on this unnecessarily.”
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has defended the questions aimed at immigration reform by saying “not every newcomer is a net contributor” to provincial coffers.
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According to Statistics Canada, Alberta’s population surged by 202,324 residents in 2023. That’s the largest annual increase in the province’s history, the equivalent of 550 people moving to Alberta every day.
While the bulk of the growth came from international migration, Alberta also shattered a national record for interprovincial migration, most of which came from Ontario and B.C.
In 2022-23, the province ran a $4.95 million “Alberta is Calling” campaign aimed at attracting skilled workers to the province from other parts of the country.
The province’s population growth peaked in the third quarter of 2023 and dropped off significantly in 2024 and 2025, according to the most recent Statistics Canada data.
Smith blames the former Justin Trudeau Liberal government for Alberta’s population woes, saying that over five years, almost 600,000 people moved to Alberta, pushing the population over five million people.
Despite the number of immigrants to Alberta slowing recently to just a fraction of what is was a few years ago, Smith has also blamed immigrants for putting a strain on provincial resources.
Brendan Boyd, associate professor of political science at MacEwen University in Edmonton, said while the provincial government may have been hoping Albertans would have a meaningful debate about all the issues on the referendum ballot — so far that doesn’t seem to be happening.
“If you look at some of the polling over the last couple of months, I don’t know that any of these things are sort of top of mind for Albertans,” Boyd said.
“It tends to be affordability. It tend to be concerns about health care and the economy and none of those things are really on the ballot in this referendum.”
With the question about Alberta’s place in Canada dominating the debate so far, Boyd said he wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people answer one question, then move on.
“I could see that definitely happening where these other questions don’t get as good of a turnout or good responses on those — (it) totally wouldn’t surprise me,” Boyd added.
“I guess that’s one of the things I would say is why that sort of direct democracy in these referendums maybe aren’t the best forum to discuss these things. It sort of assumes that it’s going to spark this great, fulsome and useful debate that we have and sort of start the process of deliberative democracy. But as we’ve kind of seen, that’s not happening.”
Asked by Global News about what the province is doing to ensure a debate on the questions does take place, a spokesperson in the office of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith provided an emailed statement that says:
“Alberta’s government will use various channels to communicate with Albertans on the implications of the fall referendum questions including online, TV, radio, and social media. The Premier also travels across Alberta every summer and will continue speaking directly with Albertans through town halls, public events, media interviews and more.”
The statement also encouraged Albertans to visit the website albertareferendum2026.ca where the 10 ballot questions and information on these issues is posted.”
The referendum takes place on Oct. 19.
Voters will be provided with a stack of colour-coded ballots, one for each question, and will be free to mark an X on as many ballots as they want, or leave them blank.
Elections Alberta said a total of 38 million ballots will be printed.
No, it isn’t any of that nonsense. Alberta will always need immigration. What we don’t need are the millions imported by the LPC that bring zero skills to the table. This is what this referendum is about. No free ride here in Alberta.
Here is a tid bit for people to think on.
Immigration isn’t bad, I would love to move to a place like Japan without issue but I would need to respect their culture and country, learn customs etcetera.
But the question is, do you not think that bringing in the the brightest and hard working from a third world country harms that third world country? Because now that’s an architect that could’ve improved his/ her country by staying, or a teacher, scientist, welder etc etc.
If the third world is to every improve, they need to improve themselves before they can really do anything.
How much money over the years since ww2 had africa gotten in aid? And how much has the country improved?
I think humanity needs to rethink immigration for humanity to progress
Oh, and there’s one more thing: racism can go both ways. Why is it always racist if it affects the coloured but it’s never racist when it affects the whites?
It’s not racist to expect an immigration system that actually enriches the province. However, it is racist to expect Canadians to support the people, regardless of their skin colour, who come here for the benefits and don’t even want to become Canadians.
That’s right, let the radical left call the shots rather than the majority of the citizens….. Nenshi egg this character on?
Yes, a socialist lawyer crys out, “unfettered democracy can be dangerous unless tightly controlled by a proper socialist government like the NDP.
Imagine trying this hard to make a claim that more democracy is a bad thing. Never hard to spot the cult members.
this whole referendum is all about danielle smith’s personal ideology. nobody asked for any of this.
A whiny nobody given a platform by some lazy journalists
Pretty standard for Global.News
Ahhh,Yes, there it is ,the “racism” blanket. Primarily used as a Liberal gaslighting technique to cover up any nefarious activity that is likely occurring within the system. Easily applied to any situation whether valid or not ,with “not” dominating the averages.
I agree with Ron Johnson, but I will take it much further. Let’s start with the foreign students…. Came here to study, once that is done they were supposed to go back home to their countries. Instead they claim asylum. Others came on student visas only to not go to school, but to work (send money back home), claim asylum or were part of a criminal group. Immigrants should ONLY be those that we need in Canada. We don’t need more fast food workers. We don’t need economic migrants. We don’t need other countries problems being brought to Canada! We have enough of our own. And enough with immigrants that are elderly! You’re not working or contributing anything tangible, however you are adding to the healthcare problem. Immigrate to Canada, leave mom, dad, uncles, aunts and grandparents in the country you are leaving!
English pro below.
But blame the immigrants.
I think the questions are valid. For example do the majority of Albertans want health care tourism where foreigners come to Alberta for free health care? If the majority are fine with this then it shapes the future UCP policies.
Foreigners ship there money abroad not much stays for the economy and loose jobs for the canadian people