Global News Edmonton has reported:

Only 23 per cent of Albertans say they would vote to begin the legal process for a binding referendum on separation, while about seven in 10 plan to vote for Alberta to remain part of Canada, according to a new Ipsos poll. Support for the separation question rose three percentage points from September, while support for remaining a province was unchanged from the earlier survey.

The poll was conducted exclusively for Global News through online interviews with 801 Albertans from Oct. 13 to 16. Support for beginning the legal process was highest among men, at 27 per cent, people aged 35 to 54, also at 27 per cent, and residents outside Calgary and Edmonton, at 29 per cent.

“We’re seeing only about a quarter of people in Alberta saying they give support for this, but there’s a fair amount of diversity in the opinions among the people that we interviewed depending on where they lived and what their demographic background is,” Darrell Bricker, chairman of Ipsos Canada, told Global News.

Five per cent of respondents were undecided and two per cent said they would not vote. Bricker said that even if all of those voters ultimately chose yes, it would not be enough to trigger a separation vote.

“Whether or not it is only a quarter of the population that decide that they’re going to vote yes. Still not a small number. That’s a pretty big number,” Bricker said.

Premier Danielle Smith has said that if the vote follows the polling, she expects everyone to accept the result and move on. Leaders of the independence movement dispute that position. Smith has also urged Albertans to vote yes on the first nine questions, which concern immigration and the constitution, arguing that doing so would give her more leverage in negotiations with the federal government.

“What we’re seeing is that the status quo relationship with the rest of the country is not something that’s particularly popular in Alberta at the moment,” Bricker said. “They don’t see the solution to that status quo situation as being separating from the country. But I expect that some of those other questions might get themselves majorities on election night.”

The referendum has 10 questions. An Ipsos poll for Global News in September found 76 per cent of Albertans knew the upcoming referendum included several questions. In that survey, 81 per cent said they planned to vote, and 62 per cent said they would vote on all 10 questions.

Global News said it will provide in-depth coverage on broadcast and online streaming. Anchors Dallas Flexhaug and Carole Anne Devaney will be joined for results analysis by veteran political reporter and Ottawa bureau chief David Akin. Anchor Blake Lough will host a political panel, with reporters also covering events on the ground.

The Decision Alberta Referendum 2026 coverage is scheduled to run from 8 p.m. to midnight MT on Globalnews.ca, YouTube and the Global TV app. The app is available through streaming services Prime Video, Apple TV and Roku, as well as select smart TVs. The special is also scheduled to begin airing live on all Global News stations in Alberta at 9 p.m.

Ipsos measures the precision of polls that include online data using a credibility interval. For this survey of 801 Albertans, the overall result is accurate to within plus or minus 4.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, if all adult Alberta residents had been polled. The interval is wider for population subgroups. Ipsos said surveys and polls can also be affected by other sources of error, including coverage and measurement error. The report included files from Global News reporters Jace Maki and Karen Bartko.