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This is my first provincial referendum, five years after I moved to Canada. And I’ll be one of likely tens of thousands of new Canadian citizens in Alberta filling out the same ballot on October 19, 2026.

I’m told the ballot will arrive in ten separate pieces, one per question. The first five questions are about whether people who hold work permits, study permits, or refugee claims should keep the access to schools and health care they have now. The next four are about whether Canada itself should be redrawn so an Alberta provincial cabinet can pick its own judges, override federal law, and keep the money attached to federal programs it isn’t interested in running. And the last one is on whether Alberta should begin the legal process to leave Canada.

The immigration questions ask me to vote on people who arrived in Canada the same way I did, just under different rules. The constitutional and separation questions ask me to help rewrite the rules of the country whose passport I am still getting used to carrying, or to leave it.

A few days before Andrew Pohlod, born and raised in Alberta and currently the Chief Operating Officer of Brix Real Estate Group, and I sat down to write this, Justice Shaina Leonard of the Court of King's Bench quashed a separate citizen-initiated petition that asked whether Alberta should secede from Canada. Smith said her government would appeal. But eight days later, the Premier added the separation question to the October 19 referendum.

The temptation with most referendum coverage is to turn it into a list; question one says this, question two says that, vote yes or no here, or here’s what the parties say. It’s probably okay for folks who grew up with conversations about Section 96 of the Constitution Act or the 7/50 amending formula at Thanksgiving dinner tables. But not for immigrants who are just getting used to being a Canadian citizen. 

So the goal here is to do two things:

We aren’t telling you how to vote. However, our hope is that after reading this piece, you’ll be able to approach the ballot on your own terms. I should also say, as the editor of The Newcomers, that this is not an exactly neutral piece. I have views about the referendum, and they show up in what follows.

First off, an important piece of context for the immigration questions. Under Order in Council 110/2026, the results are explicitly non-binding on the government. This means a yes vote doesn’t require the provincial government to do anything but you could say it increases the political pressure to act.

One other thing worth knowing is the ballot uses a phrase called 'Alberta-approved immigration status' that has no current legal definition. The province has said the criteria will be developed with industry input.

“Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritising economic migration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities?”

The first question makes three claims:

Let’s start with the first premise. In January 2024, on the Shaun Newman Podcast, Smith called for 'an aggressive target to double our population' to 10 million by 2050." She also said Alberta should be 'that bastion of liberty' newcomers would want to come to and that the province should embrace them."

The Alberta Is Calling campaign, which ran for years across Ontario and the East Coast, was part of a broader push that grew Alberta's population by 202,324 in 2023, the largest annual increase on record. About two years after that pitch, the same government changed tack on immigration. Now, reversing course is great, but the pivot also comes after Alberta’s projected $9.37 billion deficit for 2026-27, which the premier has publicly tied to oil prices and immigration.

The legal reality is that Alberta already has meaningful provincial control. Section 95 of the Constitution Act makes immigration a shared federal-provincial jurisdiction. The Alberta Advantage Immigration Program, established in 2007, gives the province authority to nominate economic immigrants whose skills match its labour market. The federal government still controls who is eligible to come to Canada at all, but within that, Alberta has a real say on who arrives.

Then there’s Alberta’s non-permanent resident population which has fallen every quarter since early 2025, including a drop of 10,605 in the third quarter alone. The trend Smith says she needs a mandate to reverse is already reversing.

It gives the province no new authority over immigration levels as the Immigration Levels Plan, set by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, determines the annual numbers. But a yes vote gives Smith the public backing and political capital to keep pressuring Ottawa on numbers and selection criteria. The numbers will still probably go where Ottawa takes them.

The model Smith has named is the 1991 Canada-Quebec Accord. Ahead of announcing the referendum, she said she wants Alberta to have more control over the type of immigrants coming to the province, similar to what Quebec has had since 1991. Alberta won’t be the first province to make this request. Multiple provinces have asked for Quebec-style authority, including Saskatchewan and a joint 2018 request from Canada's Council of the Federation. No federal government has yet to grant that request.

“Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law mandating that only Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and individuals with an Alberta-approved immigration status will be eligible for provincially funded programs such as healthcare, education, and other social services?”

The second question is dependent on a phrase that doesn’t yet exist in law. Voters are being asked to endorse a category ("Alberta-approved immigration status") the province has not yet created and could yet define however it wishes after the vote.

Put another way, it’s asking voters to approve the principle of provincial gatekeeping on top of federal immigration status without setting any boundaries on what that gatekeeping could look like.

Constitutionally, the problem is Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It guarantees every individual equal protection under the law. The Supreme Court has held since 1989 that "individual" means any person physically present in Canada, not only citizens or permanent residents.

The province does have a workaround. Section 33, the notwithstanding clause, lets a legislature pass laws that override certain Charter rights for renewable five-year periods. 

The current UCP government has already invoked the notwithstanding clause four times in the last legislative sitting. One of those uses forced striking teachers back to work under a contract they had rejected. It's possible that a yes vote on this question gives the province advance permission to use Section 33 again.

There's also some recent precedent here. On January 7, 2026, the province quietly removed health coverage from temporary foreign workers on International Experience Canada permits, which cover working holiday and young professional visas. The change was paused a month later after public backlash. The government called it a premature decision. Ten days after that pause, Smith announced the referendum.

The people the question affects are also taxpayers. Non-permanent residents pay income tax from their first paycheque and contribute to the same funding pool that runs the programs a yes vote aims to lock them out of.

It gives the government the political room to legislate a new category of provincial immigration approval and condition access to provincial services on it. The legislation will likely be challenged. But given the government's record, the notwithstanding clause is the likely defence.

The people most likely affected are international students, family members of temporary workers, refugee claimants, and workers on closed permits tied to a specific employer. None of them would automatically qualify for whatever the province ends up calling 'Alberta-approved.’

“Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for social support programs as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring all individuals with a non-permanent legal immigration status to reside in Alberta for at least 12 months before qualifying for any provincially funded social support programs?”

The third question is the one most likely to survive a Charter challenge. Section 6 of the Charter permits reasonable residency requirements for publicly provided social services. And Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia each impose waits of up to three months on new residents for provincial healthcare.

However, question three is proposing slightly different rules. The wait is 12 months, not three. And it applies only to people with non-permanent immigration status. Citizens and permanent residents face no wait. The existing provincial waits apply to all new residents equally, including Canadian citizens moving from another province.

Then there’s what it means for the people it covers:

We should also consider the human cost. Imagine a temporary foreign worker who arrives in Alberta to fill a job the province recruited for, with two kids in tow, and one of them breaks an arm in their third month. The family has been paying into the system through every paycheque, but the support their child needs is still nine months away.

It enables the government to legislate a 12-month residency requirement on people with non-permanent status before they qualify for provincially funded social support programs. Which programs the rule would cover and which exemptions would apply are decisions the province would make after the vote.

The phrase 'provincially funded social support programs' covers a wide range of programs in Alberta, including Income Support, Alberta Works, subsidised child care, AISH, and the dental and optical benefits available to low-income residents.

“Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for public health care and education as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta charging a reasonable fee or premium to individuals with a non-permanent immigration status living in Alberta for their and their families' use of the healthcare and education system?”

Two undefined words here are doing a lot of work. What is a “reasonable” fee? Because what’s reasonable to you might be unreasonable for me. Does a premium mean a monthly fee, a co-pay, or an annual one-time cost? The question has none of those answers or a hint of what’s to come yet it’s asking voters to endorse the principle. 

There’s also the Canada Health Act of 1984 that ties federal transfer payments to five principles for provincial healthcare:

Under the Act, coverage is based on provincial residency, not citizenship. A non-permanent resident who lives in Alberta is entitled to the same insured services as anyone else who lives there.

Provinces that allow user fees or extra-billing for insured services can face reductions in federal transfers. However, Quebec runs a more permissive private tier than any other province and has continued to receive its full Canada Health Transfer.

The fiscal case for question four is also looks wobbly when you look at the numbers behind it:

Bill 11, the provincial law that opened the door to expanded private healthcare options in Alberta, is already under legal review for potential conflict with the Canada Health Act. A yes vote here could also add another legal battle, this one with the explicit goal of excluding a group from the universal system based on immigration status.

A yes vote authorises the government to charge a fee on healthcare and education for non-permanent residents. The ballot does not say what the province counts as "reasonable" or "premium." Quebec charges international students roughly $1,000 to $1,500 per year for healthcare access. So maybe we’ll see something of that nature or maybe not.

The federal transfer payments tied to Canada Health Act compliance could also be reduced if Alberta's structure is found to violate the Act. Though given how Quebec has handled its own private tier, one can assume this might never happen.

“Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship such as a passport, birth certificate, or citizenship card to vote in an Alberta provincial election?”

Question five sounds great until you look at what already exists. Non-citizens cannot vote in Alberta provincial elections. Section 3 of the Charter restricts the right to vote in federal and provincial elections to Canadian citizens. There is no documented evidence of non-citizens voting in Alberta at any meaningful scale.

To vote in Canada, you have to be on the voter list. To be on the voter list, you have to be a Canadian citizen. The current system was designed to make voting accessible for eligible citizens. 

Elections Alberta accepts more than 50 types of identification at the polling station. A few examples of what counts include:

Question five is looking to narrow the options down to three documents: a passport, a birth certificate, or a citizenship card. The list is identical to the one in the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, the US bill known as the SAVE Act, which passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on February 11, 2026. Alberta announced this referendum on February 19, eight days later.

American states that tried similar laws ended up blocking tens of thousands of eligible citizens from voting while catching almost no ineligible voters in the process. 

In Kansas, the state passed a proof-of-citizenship law in 2011 and implemented it in 2013. Between 2013 and 2016, more than 35,000 eligible Kansans were blocked from registering, about 1 in 7 new applicants. 

In the same period, the state could only identify 127 non-citizens who had ever tried to register over the previous 17 years. Of those, just 11 had actually voted. Federal courts struck down the law in 2018, and the Supreme Court refused to hear Kansas's appeal in 2020. A separate audit in Utah of more than 2 million registered voters found one non-citizen registration and zero non-citizen votes.

If Alberta passed a version of this rule, the voters most likely to be affected would be:

Question five differs from the other questions on the ballot because Section 33, the notwithstanding clause, cannot be used to override Section 3, the right to vote. If a court strikes down the resulting law, the government has no fallback. 

A yes vote grants the government the political backing to legislate a narrow documentary requirement for voting. The Kansas and Utah evidence does show that the law is likely to block more eligible citizens than ineligible ones.

The four constitutional questions ask voters to support changes to the Constitution of Canada that Alberta would pursue with other ‘willing provinces,’ as none of the changes can be done by Alberta alone.

Three of the four require seven provinces representing at least 50% of the population to agree. Question seven, on Senate abolition, requires unanimous consent from every province and the federal Parliament.

Alberta has been here before. In 2021, 61.7% of Albertans voted to remove the principle of equalization payments from the Constitution.  Before the vote, then-Premier Jason Kenney told voters, "A yes vote on the principle of equalization does not automatically change equalization, it doesn't remove it from the Constitution. We cannot do that unilaterally." 

The legislature passed a ratifying motion, but the federal government replied that no province can amend the Constitution alone. No other province joined Alberta, and two years later, the equalization formula was renewed unchanged.

“Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution so that judges for provincial courts of King's Bench and Appeal are selected by the provinces in which they sit rather than by the federal government?”

The federal appointment of superior court judges (federally appointed judges who sit on Alberta's Court of King's Bench and Court of Appeal, the two highest trial-level courts in the province) is not an accident of history. 

Section 96 of the Constitution Act gives Ottawa the authority because Canada's founding constitutional negotiations placed judicial appointments deliberately outside provincial reach. In a February 2026 statement responding to Smith's proposal, the Canadian Bar Association and its Alberta branch defended the non-partisan federal appointment process as foundational to judicial independence and warned that the change would "fundamentally compromise" that principle.

Alberta does already have a say through informal provincial advice on regional needs and provincial representation on the independent advisory committees that evaluate judicial candidates.

In January 2026, on her weekly radio show, Smith responded to a caller's complaint about Canada's bail laws by saying she wished she could "direct the judges." She said she was writing to Prime Minister Carney about a joint appointment process for federally-appointed judges so that "we start choosing judges in Alberta that reflect the values of how we want them to operate here." Three days later, the chief justices of all three levels of Alberta's court system issued a joint public statement defending judicial independence.

This is also the same premier whose government invoked the notwithstanding clause four times in the last sitting to shield legislation from court review.

A yes vote enables the government to pursue a constitutional amendment that would put provincial cabinets in charge of selecting judges who rule on provincial laws. The amendment requires the 7/50 formula, and no other province has publicly committed to it. Alongside the referendum, Smith has threatened to withhold provincial funding for new judicial positions if Ottawa does not agree to her demands. The Canadian Bar Association has called that threat unconstitutional.

“Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to abolish the Senate of Canada?”

Question seven does hit a nerve. Alberta has six Senate seats out of 105. The four Atlantic provinces, which together have about half of Alberta's population, share 30 of those seats. So, Albertans have plenty of reasons to be frustrated about it.

The problem is in what it takes to abolish the Senate. Unanimous consent means one province refusing is enough to scuttle the change. There are at least three already standing in the way.

A yes vote hands Smith a line to use in future conversations with other premiers and Ottawa. The Senate itself does not change either way.

Senate reform is one of the longest-running unfinished items in Western Canadian politics. Don Getty, Alberta Premier from 1985 to 1992, championed a Triple-E Senate (elected, effective, equal). The Charlottetown Accord tried to deliver Senate reform along those lines and was defeated in a national referendum in 1992.

Stephen Harper, then Prime Minister, later tried to introduce term limits and consultative elections, and the Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that those changes required substantial provincial consent. One could say question seven is the latest attempt in a 40-year sequence.

“Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to provide that provinces may opt out of any federal program in an area of provincial or shared jurisdiction without losing their share of the federal funding for that program?”

Yes it’s cliche, but there is really no such thing as a free lunch. Everything, including some federal money comes with conditions. The Canada Health Transfer, the largest federal contribution to provincial health spending, requires the recipient province to operate a system that meets the five principles of the Canada Health Act. Alberta received $6.6 billion through the Canada Health Transfer last year, about 28% of provincial health spending. 

The same applies to the Canada Social Transfer, through which Alberta received about $2.1 billion for post-secondary education, social assistance, and early learning. One of its conditions blocks provinces from imposing residency requirements on social assistance for people who recently moved from another province.

Question eight is asking voters to support a constitutional change that would let Alberta keep the federal money while running its healthcare system on different terms. The same principle would apply to federal funding for education, social services, settlement, and labour market programs.

In its simplest form, this is a vote on whether to keep all of the money and none of the conditions. Federal money comes with conditions because Ottawa uses it to maintain national standards across the country. 

There’s also the 7/50 formula plus no other province has indicated interest. It’s also fair to assume that no federal government would send conditional money without conditions.

“Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to provide that provincial laws prevail over federal laws when both deal with matters in areas of provincial or shared jurisdiction?”

Federal paramountcy is one of the foundational rules of Canadian federalism. When a federal law and a provincial law conflict in a way that makes it impossible to follow both, the federal law wins. 

The rule exists because Canada is one country with 13 provinces and territories. Without a tiebreaker, every province could write its own version of a federal law and the country would lose the ability to act as one. Of course, provinces already run their own healthcare, education, and most labour rules. 

But in the areas where federal law applies, paramountcy is what lets the country operate as a single legal and economic space. Without it, a business operating in more than one province would face thirteen different versions of the same federal rule, and any policy that crosses provincial borders would be litigated province by province before a single product or worker moved across one. 

Question nine means provincial law would win any conflict over shared jurisdiction like environment, immigration, and natural resources.

Smith's government already has a way of pushing back against federal laws. The Alberta Sovereignty Within United Canada Act, passed in December 2022, lets the provincial cabinet refuse to enforce federal laws it considers unconstitutional or harmful to Alberta. However, the Sovereignty Act still operates inside the existing constitutional framework, which means the courts can review it. Question nine removes that limitation.

A yes vote means the government can pursue a 7/50 constitutional amendment that would upend one of the most basic rules of Canadian federalism. As with all the other constitutional questions, no other province has committed to it. Plus, no federal government would pass the resolution required to make a rule that automatically overrides its own legislation.

It gives the government a political mandate to pursue a 7/50 constitutional amendment that would invert one of the most basic rules of Canadian federalism. No other province has committed to it. The federal government of any party has no incentive to agree to a rule that automatically overrides its own legislation. As doing so would mean its ability to act nationally on issues that cross provincial borders, from carbon pricing to immigration to interprovincial trade, would be subject to provincial veto.

“Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”

Smith added question ten to the ballot on May 21, 2026, two months after the original nine were approved. She has said she'll vote for Option 1 (Alberta should remain a province in Canada) herself.

Question ten has a longer backstory than the date suggests. On December 5, 2025, Justice Colin Feasby ruled that the original separation petition violated Charter and Treaty rights. The government passed Bill 14, which amended the law so the next petition would not face the same check. The citizen group filed a revised petition under the new rules, and Leonard's May 13 ruling blocked that one too.

What that question can do is also limited by a 1998 Supreme Court ruling. In Reference re Secession of Quebec, the Court ruled that no province can unilaterally separate from Canada. Separation would require constitutional negotiations with the federal government, the other provinces, and Indigenous peoples whose treaty rights cover the land in question. And a vote for Option 2 doesn't even begin the negotiations.

It begins a provincial process to set up a binding referendum on separation itself. If that binding referendum eventually passes, then the constitutional negotiations begin. These could take years.

The referendum itself is expensive. Elections Alberta's budget for 2026-27 doubled from $26 million to $52 million to accommodate the October referendum. The 2023 provincial election cost $36.7 million to run. And the province is running a projected $9.37 billion deficit.

A vote for Option 2 doesn't separate Alberta from Canada and does not authorize a separation vote. It directs the provincial government to begin a legal process that could lead to a binding referendum on separation years from now. Alberta would then spend that time in constitutional limbo.

The years in between could be costly as constitutional uncertainty makes investors nervous. 

Quebec went through this in the late 1970s and again in 1995. Sun Life moved its head office from Montreal to Toronto in 1978, taking 800 employees with it. According to the Quebec Employers Council, 263 head offices left Montreal in 1977 and 1978 alone.  Bank of Montreal kept its headquarters in Montreal but relocated most of its operations west. The Montreal Stock Exchange merged with the Toronto Stock Exchange after the 1995 referendum, ending Montreal's role as Canada's financial centre. 

Alberta's economy depends on long-term investment decisions in energy, infrastructure, and real estate. Any investor in any of those sectors wants to know which government is writing the rules.

Treaty-rights litigation is another issue we’ll have to deal with. Both Feasby and Leonard found the separation process violates Treaties 6, 7, and 8. Question ten isn’t going to resolve that and years of court action between the province and First Nations could follow. This would mean every major resource project, pipeline, or consultation-dependent development would be affected by that conflict.

Almost every question on this ballot faces a wall. The immigration questions invite Charter challenges the province would likely lose. The constitutional questions need a 7/50 majority or unanimous consent that no other province has shown any interest in joining. By the province's own framing, the results are non-binding.

So why put the questions in front of voters when the obstacles are this clear? Or was this always about the tenth question, the separation question Smith added to the ballot later?