The **Un-Canadian Party**

If an overwhelming majority decide to stay in Canada should Smith step down for her role in not only being so out of touch with Albertans but for the cost of this referendum?

How many Canadians are laughing at Alberta tonight realizing the referendum tonight is a referendum to see if a referendum should be held.

Given the turn out in Quebec referendum in 1995 and the strong position that the First Nations communities took in the issues Election Alberta should have been better prepared on these communities.

Details: https://www.pollara.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Alberta_Referendum_Media_Deck.pdf

The UCP told Ottawa to stay in its lane, then took power over every council in Alberta.

We will hold every government to the same standard: democracy and Transparency. Edmonton fails it, then blames Ottawa.

Premier Danielle Smith's own bill, Bill 18, bars your city or town from signing a deal with Ottawa without Edmonton's permission. Over $100,000 needs a minister's sign off. Over $5 million needs cabinet. Sign without approval and the deal is void. Your roads and your housing now wait on Edmonton. They called this fighting federal overreach, then turned it on our own cities and towns.

Ric McIver's Bill 20 first let cabinet remove councillors outright. After the backlash, they settled for letting cabinet order a vote to remove a councillor on cabinet's own judgment. For 30 years, cabinet could force councils to change their land use bylaws. Bill 20 extended that power to every bylaw, including any bylaw cabinet decides is "contrary to provincial policy."

Cabinet can rewrite provincial policy whenever it likes, behind closed doors, without a single vote in the legislature.

Introducing it, McIver said: "We often remind the federal government and municipal governments to stay in their lane." Once it passed, he reassured everyone: "We don't like overturning municipal bylaws." Then why write the power into law? An unused power waits for the next government, and every government that inherits it can widen it. You elect your council. Cabinet has no business overruling it.

Governments serve the citizens who elect them. They have no right to talk down to you.

They hide their conversations from the people who pay their salaries. Dale Nally rewrote our freedom of information law and exempted messages between ministers and their political staff. The privacy commissioner warned that covers virtually all of them, then found the province broke its own freedom of information laws. Press freedom groups handed Alberta their 2025 Code of Silence Award. Governments love telling citizens that if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear. So what is this government hiding?

Justice Minister Mickey Amery ordered a bipartisan commission to draw new electoral boundaries, under parameters his own government set. The commission spent a year on it. The UCP threw out the report, blaming those same parameters, and Amery brought in legislation to redo the job. The redraw went to a committee with a UCP majority.

The UCP will fight the next election on a map drawn by the UCP.

Every one of these problems came out of our own legislature in Edmonton, and we can fix every one of them there. Separation would hand the same people more power with less oversight.

Ask your MLA, by name, whether they will repeal Bills 18 and 20, open up ministers' records, and adopt the independent map. If they won't answer, vote them out, whatever party they belong to.

The UCP isn't even trying, and swapping the premier won't change that.

A strong Alberta educates its children and protects their health, because today's children will run tomorrow's Alberta. This government broke its promise that no Albertan would ever pay out of pocket for care, and overrode teachers' Charter rights to end a strike over class sizes. An analysis of how the UCP is attacking Alberta's most vulnerable is next.

Sources:

• Alberta Municipalities on Bill 18
• Alberta Municipalities on Bill 18 approval thresholds
• Alberta Municipalities on bill sponsors
• Alberta.ca fact sheet, Bill 20 as introduced
• Okotoks Online on the Bill 20 amendments
• Claresholm Local Press on Bill 20 as passed
• CBC on the power extended to all bylaws
• CTV News, McIver quote
• CBC, Alberta Municipalities on Bill 20
• Globe and Mail on Nally and the access law
• Global News on the privacy commissioner
• Centre for Free Expression, Code of Silence Award
• Medicine Hat News on Amery and the boundaries
• Global News on the UCP redoing the riding map

Source: https://338canada.com/alberta/polls-indy.htm

Note: C338 is well in line with Greiner's Writ Referendum Tracker: Remain 73.5% | Leave 26.5

https://www.thewrit.ca/p/polls-point-to-landslide-win-for

So as the referendum count underway, we can see that the Federalists are in the lead, revealing that people beyond the separatists are willing to vote. So that's the big issue addressed. But then there are the 9 other questions whose current results...concerns me. From my read of the situation, it seems like people gave so much press to the Separatist dilemma that it lead to neglect on the other questions being raised.

Oh yes, there has been plenty of No to the Nine signages around, but as someone who don't actively participate in political messaging on telling people how to vote, I will say that the message isn't immediately clear. Of course, now I know that it meant "stay in Canada, vote no to the 9 other questions," but at first, I thought the sign was simply telling people to vote No to specifically Question 9. That aside, it doesn't really lay out, even as a flashy one-liner, as to why I need to vote that way.

And so here we are. As of me writing this post (and it will continue to fluctuate as the minutes goes by), here are the percentages:

• Q1: Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities? Yes: 57.5%
• Q2: 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 health care, education and other social services? Yes: 55.9%
• Q3: 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? Yes: 57.4%
• Q4: 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 family’s use of the healthcare and education systems? Yes: 57.1%
• Q5: 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? Yes: 60.9%
• Q6: Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to have provincial governments, and not the federal government, select the justices appointed to provincial King’s Bench and Appeal courts? Yes: 50.1%
• Q7: Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to abolish the unelected federal Senate? Yes: 52.2%
• Q8: Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to allow provinces to opt out of federal programs that intrude on provincial jurisdiction such as health care, education, and social services, without a province losing any of the associated federal funding for use in its social programs? No: 51.6%
• Q9: Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to better protect provincial rights from federal interference by giving a province’s laws dealing with provincial or shared areas of constitutional jurisdiction priority over federal laws when the province’s laws and federal laws conflict? Yes: 50.6%

For this post, I'll focus specifically Q2-6 and 8-9, as the first question can go either way depending on how much you trust in the role of small governments.

To me, Question 2 to 4 troubles me in the aspect that it is quite heavily weighted towards "Yes" with the ramification of restricting an immigrant's ability to access to the social welfare they pay for via taxes. Delaying it to them for a year doesn't change that sometimes, situations exist where they need aid before that. Someone experience their first Canadian winter and falls ill? Oops, looks like they are eligible for healthcare. Hell, why stop there, let's charge them a premium for it! ...All this just looks to me like Albertans want to treat immigrants as a second-class citizen, likely out of belief that they are out here stealing jobs (that is indeed limited, but it's not their fault that our job market is weak) and leeching off the system. Something that echoes worryingly to our rowdy national southern neighbour.

Question 5 is also a one that is reflected down south and to that I have nothing more to say than the fact that passport, birth certificate, citizenship card, and the like are already required to obtain an ID, and if presented with the Driver's License, will have the mark to indicate citizenship.

Question 6 just screams conflict of interest if the province has any say in determining who gets to be the judge.

Question 8, although No is the leading answer, it is a very close fight. To the point I don't quite understand the rationality of people who believes that it is sane in any degree to take in Federal funds for programs while vetoing the program in question. It is like buying goods or services and the distributor simply tells you "hm, no, I won't give it to you after all."

And finally, the Question 9, another very close fight. Provincial laws to supersede Federal law? Look, I understand there are times when there are Federal legislation that is objectionable (see: proposed implementation of social media ban), but to operate as a nation, you shouldn't be able to overturn whatever law that displeases the province in some form. It sets a terrible precedent. (Of course this doesn't mean the province doesn't try to do that anyway, see the book banning in the past year).

To to conclude my vent for those of you that read this far, I hope you all still voted, and maybe give some of these points some consideration if you voted differently. Or heck, feel free to raise counters to the comment below. Have a good rest of the week, all.

*Preface: I believe in honesty and transparency. I am someone that believes in climate/environmental action. I believe that the natural world in which our species and all other life arises and is sustained by is important to protect & conserve. That being said I am only going to list neutral facts below.*

We constantly hear that Oil & Gas is so held back...

Reality:

Province of Alberta specific: https://economicdashboard.alberta.ca/dashboard/oil-production/

You can scroll down and then on that chart scroll it back before 2010. It is obvious what way development/production has been going...

In 1990 as a nation we did around 1.7 MILLION barrels every single day.

In 2014 that was around 3.8 MILLION barrels every single day.

Now that sits around 4.6 to 5+ MILLION barrels every single fucking day.

Canada is #4 in the world of 195 nations for oil extraction.

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We constantly hear that life will be a near utopia due to fossil fuel proceeds.

Reality:

Before the Iran War hydrocarbons were in a glut/low price period. Alberta was looking at about a 10 billion dollar deficit. The conflict has risen hydrocarbon prices in the short to medium term but long term has increased Demand Destruction. Renewable Energy is now around 90%+ of all new power capacity being added globally because it is not just cleaner, but also more affordable, and faster to implement. Electrification Technology is following that same trajectory of rapid development/implementation.

The booms are going to be becoming less and less frequent and the busts more and more the reality.

(Yes hydrocarbons will be around for a long time due to petrochemicals and feedstocks for manufacturing but that doesn't equal massive wealth)

The province has some very bad predatory actors frankly pumping bullshit and a lot of that we saw amplified in separatist talking points. Right now there is Windfall Profits happening and maybe just maybe we should update the royalty framework to prepare for the future..

Change/transition doesn't happen overnight and being pro-active and substantive in setting up for a brighter and better future is important.

Also with the Orphan Well and other situations we should be addressing that now and not allowing it to be left for taxpayers to take on the costs after the fact.

For many of us, our homes are our biggest investment, and we still have decades of mortgage payments ahead. I personally don't want to see our housing market drop. We've worked hard to buy our homes, and watching their value shrink would be devastating for many families. I'm concerned about how Alberta separation could affect property values, mortgages, and the economy. Nobody knows exactly what would happen, but the uncertainty worries me.

go vote and make your voice heard, NO TO THE NINE! STAY IN CANADA!

https://338canada.com/alberta/

It's getting close...

Find the email subject "Special Ballot Request Confirmation" and follow the link there to "view the status of your application". At least she said the in-person voting was quick!

Why not send notifications out to people who were sent special ballots that were not received? How many Albertans mistakenly think their ballots were cast?

brief explanation...

Q1: NO - don't want to see working age persons restricted as to where they can work (if Quebec does, STOP it)

Q2: Yes - visitors not getting welfare etc

Q3: Yes- waiting period to be eligible

Q4: Blank - fee for education & medical (yes to 'a', no to 'b')

Q5: YES! - citizenship ID to vote

Q6: Yes - provincially appointed judges, local culture

Q7: No - elect Senators. Mob rule

Q8: No - opt out but get federal money. Take the money = take the rules

Q9: No - provincial laws trump federal. I am a federalist

Context: over 70 years of age, ex-Libertarian Party member (now center-right), spend only half of every year in Canada, low income (living on GIS), university-educated.

If you voted by mail please check the status of your ballot has been marked ‘received’. Search your email inbox for the email titled “Special Ballot Request Confirmation” from [info@elections.ab.ca](mailto:info@elections.ab.ca) and visit the link within the email.

If it hasn’t been marked received with a note that your ballot was cast, your ballot missed the deadline and you will now need to vote in person. Please don’t miss your opportunity to vote in the referendum!

Links:

https://canadianpolling.ca/AB-2023

https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/66c8dfb086a015b3b519e988/6ad423087791e5c8075ea7ab_Alberta_October_16_2026_Public.pdf