By Bruce Anderson

June 21, 2026

Between Jun 7-12th Spark interviewed 777 adults across Alberta. Here’s what we found:

• On the simple question “do you want Alberta to separate from Canada” 15% said yes, 73% said no and 12% said they were not really sure. In April we found very similar numbers.
• Separatist sentiment is more concentrated among federal Conservative Party voters. While 58% of them are committed federalists, 27% want Alberta to separate and another 16% are unsure.

  

• On the question that Alberta Premier Smith will table this fall, 21% say they will vote to start the process of a binding referendum, and another 9% are unsure how they will vote. Two thirds will vote to remain in Canada.

• Most Albertans believe that separation would be bad for Alberta’s economy, would drive up taxes and the cost of provincial government, bad for education and health services, and bad for them personally. Negative impacts may be up marginally from our April measurement – but the difference is close to a margin of error.
• If there were a referendum down the road on separating, only 32% of Albertans think the threshold for separating should be 50% plus one vote -62% say it should require a higher number of votes. Another 5 % say Alberta should not separate under any circumstances. Conservative voters are somewhat split on this question – with 43% saying the threshold should be 50% plus one and 52% saying it should be higher.

Little has changed in the last couple of months. Separatist sentiment has not gained momentum, and remains at a level that would lead to a pretty strong repudiation of the idea in October. The debate among federal Conservative voters is the crucial battleground – at least for now. Interventions by federal Conservatives like Stephen Harper and Pierre Poilievre will be important, especially as several retired Reform politicians are staking out ground in favour of separation.

Policy Contributor Bruce Anderson is Founding Partner and Chief Strategy Officer of Spark Advocacy. He has been a pollster, strategy and communications advisor for more than 40 years and is a regular on The Bridge podcasts. He was an active supporter of Mark Carney during the Liberal leadership campaign and federal election.