Global News Edmonton has reported:

Some Alberta families and friends are preparing to navigate tense conversations over Thanksgiving as the province’s Oct. 19 vote on separation approaches. In Airdrie, north of Calgary, music teacher Sarah Batchelor plans to keep politics off the dinner table so relatives do not argue over the vote. She intends to vote to remain in Canada.

“At the end of the day, when we sit down, we’re not that far apart on a lot of the concerns,” Batchelor said. “We’re just very divided on where the blame should be placed.” She said the debates have become overwhelming, adding: “I’m feeling more dysregulated just because of the extra stress and having to navigate those conversations carefully at (my work) and even within my home.”

Albertans are scheduled to vote in person in nine days on 10 questions. The 10th, and most debated, asks whether voters want to stay in Canada or have a second, binding referendum on leaving Confederation. The separation debate has turned personal and, in some cases, ugly among co-workers, relatives and friends.

Kathy Bradshaw, a 64-year-old resident of Sylvan Lake in central Alberta, has already voted to remain in Canada. As the vote nears, she says she is choosing her words more carefully. “It’s a little tense,” Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw has noticed greater strain in her office, where some colleagues she has worked with for decades plan to vote to leave. “I love my work and I love my colleagues, so I sense their discomfort when it comes up,” she said. She described what she sees as a contradiction in some colleagues’ position: “People say to me, and this I find the most ridiculous, ‘I don’t want to separate, but I want to send Ottawa a message,'” she said. “And I keep saying to them, ‘If they know the gun is fake, why do you think the teller is going to hand over the money.'”

In Edmonton, 71-year-old Sheree Zielke said she has felt similar tension with a neighbour she has lived beside for decades. Zielke wants Alberta to become independent, while her neighbour’s family holds a different view. “(We) don’t talk as much, let’s put it that way. There’s no arguments,” she said.

The vote has sparked disputes in communities since Premier Danielle Smith ordered it in May. In June, a rodeo parade in Sundre, northwest of Calgary, was cancelled after threats and abuse followed organizers’ rejection of a float covered in Alberta flags. Organizers feared the float would be seen as a political statement.

That same month, a pro-separation billboard in Taber, in southern Alberta, drew attention. Cory Morgan, a separatist who paid for the billboard, refused to remove it after the town issued an order calling it a public nuisance.

Smith has said she supports Alberta staying in Canada and plans to vote that way in the referendum. She has also said hundreds of thousands of people have signed petitions both for and against separation, and that it is time to put the issue to rest. Critics cite long-standing opinion polls showing massive support for Alberta remaining in Canada and accuse Smith of calling the vote to appease separatist hardliners in her party.

Lara Descartes, a family studies professor at Western University in Ontario, advised Albertans who are anxious about rising tension with loved ones to lower their expectations for difficult discussions. “Lower your expectations,” she said. “Don’t expect it to be perfect.”

“People are their own individuals with their own histories and beliefs. Some of them may never mesh with our own, but it’s part of life,” Descartes said. “Accepting this can let us take responsibility for our own emotional state.”

Archbishop of Edmonton Stephen Hero joined four other Catholic bishops in Alberta in a recent letter urging parishioners to vote and consider how the outcome could affect vulnerable people. The letter, dated Oct. 1, referred to questions about immigration, including whether the government should have more authority to impose limits and financial guardrails on some newcomers.

The bishops wrote that Catholics may reach different conclusions about what serves the common good, but “whatever the outcome, our responsibilities to one another will endure.” In a recent interview, Hero acknowledged that the referendum has become polarizing in families, workplaces and churches. He urged people to respect one another’s decisions and listen carefully, saying: “(To) love one another, and not let it divide us, whatever happens.”

The Canadian Press report was first published Oct. 10, 2026, with files from Lisa Johnson.