Donna Kennedy-Glans: The more important ballot questions in Alberta are the ones no one’s talking about

Voters line up to vote in the advance poll for the 2026 Alberta referendum, in Calgary on Tuesday. Photo by Gavin Young/Postmedia

Article content

I have voted in Alberta’s referendum. My mail-in referendum ballot arrived last week. I am one of more than 658,000 Albertans who asked for a special ballot, hoping to skip the lineups on Oct. 19. Advance polls are open this week.

Article content

Ten ballots: it was a thick packet. The one that got all the attention asked whether Alberta should remain a province or start the formal process toward a binding vote on separation. I marked remain. The other nine were just sitting there. Hardly anyone has been talking about them. That quiet is the part that interests me.

Article content

Article content

Article content

Five of the questions are about immigration and who gets what from the province. Should Alberta take more control over immigration numbers, favour people coming to work and put Albertans first for new jobs?

Article content

Article content

Should health care, schools and social programs be limited to citizens, permanent residents and people Alberta itself has approved? Should temporary residents wait a year before they qualify for supports? Should they pay a fee for health care and schooling? Should people be required to provide proof of citizenship to vote provincially?

Article content

Quebec has long selected its own economic immigrants and set its own criteria under the Canada-Quebec Accord. When Quebec cuts levels or prioritizes economic migrants, almost no one calls it scapegoating. Alberta is now asking for a larger voice in the same conversation. The difference in how the two are received is striking.

Article content

The other four questions are constitutional. Should provinces pick the judges for the Court of King’s Bench and the Court of Appeal instead of Ottawa? Should the Senate be scrapped? Should provinces be allowed to opt out of federal programs and keep the money? Should provincial law take priority when it collides with federal law?

Article content

Article content

We’ve already talked about the constitutional ones. I sat on then-premier Jason Kenney’s Fair Deal Panel in 2020, which canvassed those options. Premier Danielle Smith’s Alberta Next panel revisited the same ground and added the immigration questions in 2025. Some of the immigration items have majority support in the polls; the constitutional ones don’t.

Article content

Article content

Smith has said yes on the nine, and “remain” on separation. She’s basically telling people not to treat the independence ballot as a way to complain about Ottawa. If you want the message sent — stay in your lane, stop taking the West for granted — use the other nine.

Article content

There are vocal No campaigns. Political strategist Stephen Carter has pushed the “No to the Nine” campaign. The Calgary Alliance for the Common Good is running a “Vote for the Common Good” campaign, with its co-chair calling the immigration items “fundamentally dehumanizing.”

Article content

Ordinary talk among friends has been thinner, as the separation question has largely swallowed the coverage. Some of the nine, which are more specific and in several cases more immediately actionable, have been treated as radioactive.