What Albertans need to know about voting in the referendum
Referendum day in Alberta is on Monday.
The provincial referendum has 10 questions about immigration policy, constitutional reform, and whether Alberta should remain in Canada or hold a binding, second referendum on quitting the country.
Advance voting locations opened Tuesday and close Saturday night.
Over 1,400 polling stations will be open Monday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Here's what to expect when you go to vote:
How long will it take?
Get familiar with the ballot questions ahead of time, which are on the Elections Alberta website. Officials say it will help avoid confusion and delays.
They say they're expecting a record turnout of between 80 and 85 per cent of Alberta's nearly three million electors.
You have as much time as you want to fill in the 10 ballots, but officials estimate it will take most people about two minutes.
What identification is needed?
You should get a "where to vote" card in the mail ahead of time if you're registered. Otherwise, visit Elections Alberta’s website to find out where to vote.
You must vote in your electoral division during advance voting or at your assigned location on Monday.
You’ll need one government-issued ID with your correct name, current address and photo, such as a driver's licence. You can use two pieces of ID that both have your full name, with one showing your current address.
There are 50 forms of acceptable ID listed on Elections Alberta’s website that can be one of those two pieces, from a library card or a hunting licence to a bank statement or vehicle registration.
Elections Alberta says it will accept expired forms of ID, including a certificate of Indian Status Card, provided it still has the correct name.
Another option, in special circumstances, is to bring an attestation form signed by an authorized person such as a First Nation band manager or a student housing staffer.
What if I’m not registered to vote?
A voting officer will ask you to sign a declaration that confirms your eligibility — including that you are a Canadian citizen, at least 18 years old and that you normally reside in Alberta.
How many ballots are there?
There are 10 ballots, in different colours for easy identification. You can mark some of them, all of them or none. Your choice.
The ballots go into separate boxes to make it easier to count them and to lessen the chances of a mistake spoiling one long ballot.
What if I’m still in line when the polls close at 8 p.m.?
Stay in line. Don’t leave. You will be allowed to vote.
How long before I know the results?
By law, the votes need to be counted by hand within 48 hours.
Question 10 — about separation — is to be counted first. Officials say early results are to be released after 8 p.m. Monday, with the final count announced in the early hours Tuesday.
The results of the other nine questions should be completed and announced by Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2026.
Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Quebec sovereigntists see fundamental rift with Alberta separatists
With just days before Alberta’s vote on an independence referendum, longtime Quebec sovereigntists are distancing themselves from the western province's separatists.
Question 10 of 10 on Monday’s referendum ballot asks whether Alberta should remain in Canada or if the government should start the legal process to hold a subsequent, binding referendum on separation.
Advance polls opened Tuesday and run until Saturday.
Quebecers may have a sense of déjà vu after voting on a similar question in 1980, when René Lévesque’s Parti Québécois asked whether the province should begin negotiations to leave Confederation. Nearly 60 per cent of Quebec voters were against Lévesque's proposal.
A second referendum followed in 1995, narrowly won by the "No" side. But ardent sovereigntists see profound differences in the two movements.
Marie-Anne Alepin, president of the Société St-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, a prominent Quebec nationalist group, believes Alberta is using the threat of separatism as leverage in negotiations with Ottawa. She sees the referendum as a means of pressure rather than a genuine desire to form a country.
“They want a bigger role within Canada and we want to leave,” she said. “They want more control over their oil and gas … we don't want pipelines.”
But that hasn't stopped some leaders in the Alberta separatist movement from claiming common cause.
Quebec elected the PQ — which has promised a third independence referendum — to a minority government on Oct. 5, leading figures in the Alberta separatist movement to rally behind premier-designate Paul St-Pierre Plamondon and declare him a possible ally.
"Quebec rejected the status quo today," wrote columnist Cory Morgan — a founding member of the Alberta Independence Party in 2001 — on social media after the PQ's victory. "Alberta can do the same in two weeks by choosing to send a message with Option 2 on Question 10.”
Alberta separatist Jeffrey Rath also took to social media the day after the provincial election, saying that "for the first time in history, Alberta Independence will have the support of the elected government of Quebec." He also congratulated St-Pierre Plamondon and "the country of Quebec."
The two, along with lawyer Keith Wilson, lamented that Quebec’s quest for independence is seen as legitimate while they say Alberta separatists are sneered at.
During a visit to Calgary last year, St-Pierre Plamondon said he would recognize an independent Alberta should the province vote to separate. Rath said he met with the PQ leader during that visit.
But while they believe in the democratic process of a referendum, many Quebec sovereigntists do not identify with the Alberta separatists.
Former PQ leader Jean-François Lisée did not mince words when asked about Monday’s referendum.
"It's mostly a waste because defeat is certain," he said. “There's really nothing much to gain from watching the Alberta independence movement, except maybe negative lessons."
It’s a feeling shared by other sovereigntists.
Louise Harel, who was a PQ minister during Quebec's 1995 sovereignty referendum and later served as interim leader of the party, agrees with Lisée. Both say the Quebec and Alberta sovereigntist movements are fundamentally different.
In their view, Quebec sovereigntists are motivated to preserve their cultural and linguistic identity, while Alberta separatists are motivated by the economy and political libertarianism. They also see a desire for Alberta to get closer to the United States, while Quebecers are wary of talk of assimilation.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has repeatedly said she is against secession, while PQ leaders have openly called for sovereignty.
"In Quebec, the idea is to give a unique historical nation in North America, which … has valiantly resisted assimilation, the powers it needs to survive in a globalized world,” said Harel. “But there is no such issue of identity or culture in Alberta.”
While sovereigntist Quebecers also feel economically disadvantaged within Canada, Lisée said, the sentiment isn’t at the core of the movement. He also stressed that Quebec's sovereigntist parties have historically been social-democrat, while the movement in Alberta seems tied to conservatism.
Daniel Turp, a Université de Montréal law professor who represented both the Bloc Québécois and the PQ, sees differences in the referendum process itself. Quebec’s two independence referendums included a single question on sovereignty.
As a result, there were mass mobilizations from both federalist and sovereigntist factions for weeks.
Public support for independence also varies widely between the two provinces.
On the eve of the 1995 referendum, public opinion was split evenly in the polls. Three days before Quebecers cast their ballots, Canadians from across the country made their way to Montreal to urge them to vote against independence.
Poll aggregator 338Canada shows less than 25 per cent support for Alberta to leave Canada as of Oct. 11.
“There hasn’t been a love-in in Alberta yet,” Turp said. “Maybe we’re not as worried because the polls show the option to remain will win.”
More than 90 per cent of registered voters cast a ballot in the 1995 referendum, which federalists won with 50.58 per cent of the vote.
“That’s the kind of voter turnout you see in countries where voting is mandatory,” said Harel. “I would be extremely surprised if voter turnout in the Alberta referendum were the same.”
But the sovereigntists do not reject the Alberta separatist movement entirely. All four said they sympathize with the desire for autonomy and self-determination.
"If Alberta were to vote yes, and then Ottawa would say, 'well, you can't leave,' we will be on the side of Alberta," said Lisée.
Harel added that while she does not see ideological similarities between separatists in Quebec and Alberta, the democratic process must be respected. She said that the Alberta referendum can give legitimacy to the one promised by the PQ.
Asked if they worry that a no vote on Monday could affect the PQ's promised referendum, all four said no.
Alepin believes the two movements are too different for Albertans to influence Quebecers’ appetite for sovereignty.
Meanwhile, Lisée predicts that “the defeat of the yes side in Alberta will be a negative but very insignificant factor in (Quebec's) referendum debate.”
If Alberta stays within Canada, Turp believes the province may be inspired by Quebec’s approach to negotiating more autonomy with Ottawa.
“And then they can organize a second referendum, like we did,” he added.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2026.
By Erika Morris | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
National Ballet School, divinity college students among those affected by OSAP pause
A recent pause on financial assistance payments to private post-secondary institutions in Ontario is affecting divinity schools, Canada's National Ballet School and many others, with students feeling unfairly swept up in what they describe as a trawling net-like policy.
Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn announced last week that the province had tasked KPMG with auditing Ontario Student Assistance Program usage at career colleges, and that preliminary findings were of such concern that he referred the matter to the Ontario Provincial Police.
While the audit is ongoing, Quinn said, OSAP payments to private post-secondary institutions would be paused. Quinn said he is "working on" securing low-interest loans for affected students at financial institutions, but he has not indicated a timeline.
Many career college students have said they are worried about the pause, with no clear end in sight and with some students relying on that financial aid to cover not just tuition but living expenses while they study.
The broad nature of the pause affects all private post-secondary institutions, including private universities, chiropractic and naturopathic medicine colleges, and performing arts schools such as Canada's National Ballet School.
Alessia Di Palma is in her last year of the ballet school's five-year joint teacher training program with York University, and said she does not want to have to leave school when she is so close to finishing, but at the moment doesn't know how she will pay her rent, even though she works two jobs while going to school.
"I'm heartbroken," she said. "My heart sunk when I found out because it's unfair that I've had this funding for four years and then the fifth year it's just gone now because of something that didn't even have anything to do with me."
Initial concerns stemmed from activity at a few schools, Quinn's office says, but evidence of "systemic issues" has come up in recent weeks.
“At this time, we do not have assurances from the audit team that the issues are not more widespread, leaving us with no choice but to pause OSAP payments to all private institutions to protect taxpayer dollars and hold bad actors accountable," spokesperson Bianca Giacoboni wrote in a statement.
"We understand this is creating uncertainty for students and are working quickly to develop options for low-interest, third-party loans facilitated by financial institutions to help students through this period of transition.”
At the ballet school, programs are mostly at the secondary level, but it does have a post-secondary teacher training program that is affected by the OSAP pause. About half of those students rely on that aid to pay their tuition, said executive director John Dalrymple.
The government has chosen the bluntest and most harmful way of dealing with the root of the problem, he said, and it is especially disappointing that Quinn enacted the pause before securing those third-party loans.
"The fact that now all of these students who are working multiple jobs to make ends meet, who are at the very beginning of their career, are now left holding the bag to figure out how to finance something that the government had already assured them they qualified for and they were going to receive, I think is unconscionable," he said.
Theological schools like McMaster Divinity College, affiliated with McMaster University, are also affected by the pause. Ambrose Thomson, the school's registrar and director of student services, said students are beside themselves.
About 10 per cent of the non-profit institution's revenue is dependent on OSAP-paid tuition, he said. McMaster Divinity College is relatively well-positioned to weather that storm, Ambrose said, but not all schools are so lucky.
"The impression I get is that the government knows full well what the impacts are," he said.
"They're not stupid. All I can assume is that at the highest levels where these decisions were made, they're actually willing to allow career colleges and other schools to shut their doors ... I think they're trying to look like they're doing something in the face of 300-whatever million dollars that they were not smart enough to pay attention to."
Data obtained by The Canadian Press through a freedom-of-information request showed large increases in OSAP usage at a relatively small number of career colleges from 2020-21 to 2024-25.
The seven career colleges that had the highest OSAP usage in 2024-25 received $385 million in provincial grants – the same amount that went to students at all of Ontario's publicly funded colleges that year.
Career Colleges Ontario has raised concerns since 2023 about what it calls potentially "suspicious activity" with OSAP usage at a few schools.
Deanna Hutten, a second-year master's student in McMaster Divinity College's counselling and spiritual care program, is borrowing money from family and working 10 more hours per week at her marketing job to make up for her OSAP being on hold.
The single mother to a one-year-old daughter who hopes to work in hospital chaplaincy said it is frustrating to be lumped in with some suspected bad actors.
"It definitely feels very unfair," she said.
"They had known about this since 2023 that there were people kind of (allegedly) fudging the system, and now we as private career – not even career colleges, but private institutions – are kind of being swept into that field or that group of people, even though we're not a part of that."
At the Toronto Film School, there is also "tremendous uncertainty and anxiety" for many students, said president Andrew Barnsley. He is calling for prompt reinstatement of OSAP for eligible students, or at least a clear, expedited timeline to resolve the pause.
"The OSAP pause is deeply disappointing, and our greatest concern is the impact on our students who made significant commitments to their education with the reasonable expectation that financial assistance would be available," he wrote in a statement.
"Many students have rearranged their lives, reduced or left employment, made child-care arrangements and, in some cases, relocated to Toronto in order to pursue their studies. They need to know whether they can meet their financial obligations, including life essentials like rent or food, and continue the programs in which they have already invested time, money and effort."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2026.
By Allison Jones | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.