Albertans — some sporting Canadian flags on their clothes — trooped to the polls Tuesday to decide whether the province should still be a part of Canada.
Elections Alberta opened the doors at just over 300 polling stations for the first of five days of advanced voting ahead of the official Alberta referendum polling day on Oct. 19.
It was a day of long lineups, short lineups, a few tech glitches and, for comic relief, a face full of stickers.
In Edmonton, one downtown polling station saw a lineup that stretched almost half a block after doors opened at 9 a.m., with voters spending anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour to cast their ballots.
Some Edmonton voters wore their vote on their sleeves by donning hats or sweaters with the Canadian flag. One of them was Christopher Hashmi.
“It is obviously a bad idea,” Hashmi said of separation, adding that he thought Alberta would only be more vulnerable to the interests of the United States and oil and gas companies if the province went its own way.
Lizzy Somerville said it was patriotism that inspired her to vote to stay in Canada. “Canada works better together,” she said.
For Samara O’Hagan, the issue of separation comes down to concerns over who has the rights to the land.
“I’m Indigenous, so it’s very important to me,” she said.
“It would just be totally wrong, essentially stealing land from Indigenous people. Alberta should not be able to do that.”
Premier Danielle Smith has put 10 questions to a vote, including whether Alberta should remain in Canada or hold a second, binding referendum on quitting Confederation.
Smith is urging Albertans to vote yes for the remaining nine questions that call for Alberta to take more control of immigration and to work with other provinces to wrest more power from the federal government through changes to the Constitution.
Somerville said she voted against all but one of the premier’s proposals. She voted yes to lobbying other provincial governments to garner support for abolishing the Senate.
She said the upper house was “useless” and that if abolishment wasn’t an option, she’d like to see the seats be subject to elections rather than the current appointment process handled by the prime minister.
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Hashmi said he voted “no to the nine” — a slogan used by critics and third-party advertisers pushing against Smith’s referendum proposals. Hashmi said he would have considered voting yes to that but felt doing so would be a sign of support for Smith’s government.
“Is the unelected Senate bad? Yes, it sucks. It is an archaic and broken part of our Constitution,” he said. “But Danielle Smith and her government are a broken and archaic part of my day-to-day life.”
In Calgary, there was no line for voters in the afternoon at a northeast polling station.
Chris Pichette said outside the polling station that she voted for Alberta to have a binding separation referendum and that she hopes the majority of voters do the same.
Pichette said she’d like to see Alberta stop sending money to Ottawa. “We get nothing in return for it,” she said.
Another Calgary voter, Kevin Chow, decorated his face with “I Voted!” stickers in hopes that it would encourage others to cast a ballot.
Chow said no country was perfect but that everyone was trying their best to make Canada succeed.
“I’m happy for what it is,” he said.
Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi cast his vote in Calgary on Tuesday and encouraged all Albertans to vote to stay Canada and reject the premier’s other nine proposals.
Nenshi said he was concerned about voter apathy on the pro-Canada side and said motivated separatists would benefit from a low voter turnout.
“They will crawl over broken glass to vote, and I don’t want pro-Canada voters to see a long line and go, ‘Oh, we’ve got it in the bag,'” Nenshi said.
Smith’s office said the premier will vote at advance polls later this week and will vote to stay in Canada.
Michelle Gurney, a spokesperson for Elections Alberta, said the first day of advanced voting was going well, but that there were minor delays at 17 polling stations due to technology issues (see list below.)
The agency said in a news release that the issues were fixed and that affected polling stations would stay open later to make up for it.
The start of advanced voting comes after Elections Alberta saw record interest in special ballots for the referendum. Roughly 658,000 Albertans requested to vote by mail.
Gurney said that as of Monday evening about 60 per cent of those ballots had been returned ahead of the Friday deadline.
Elections Alberta list of 17 advance voting locations with extended hours on Tuesday
| Electoral Division | Voting Location Affected | Will remain open until |
| ED12 – Calgary-Foothills | Glacier Bay | 8:27pm |
| ED33 – Edmonton-Gold Bar | Twin Atria | 8:20pm |
| ED35 – Edmonton-Manning | Smart Centre | 8:07pm |
| ED47 – Airdrie-Cochrane | Bow Valley Baptist Church | 8:20pm |
| ED49 – Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock | Westlock | 8:15pm |
| ED54 – Cardston-Siksika | Tanners | 8:15pm |
| ED56 – Chestermere-Strathmore | The Track Golf Course Banquet Hall | 8:25pm |
| ED57 – Cypress-Medicine Hat | Irvine | 7:18pm |
| ED60 – Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche | Stonebridge | 8:58pm |
| ED71 – Lethbridge-East | Westminster | 8:18pm |
| ED72 – Lethbridge-West | German Canadian Club | 8:10pm |
| ED75 – Morinville-St. Albert | Gibbons | 8:15pm |
| ED80 – Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre | Buck Lake Rimbey | 8:42pm 8:20pm |
| ED82 – Spruce Grove-Stony Plain | Best Western | 8:15pm |
| ED85 – Taber-Warner | Foremost | 7:25pm |
| ED86 – Vermilion-Lloydminster-Wainwright | Lloydminster | 8:13pm |
| ED87 – West Yellowhead | Jasper | 8:17pm |
More information about what to expect when voting can be found here.
— With files from Karen Bartko, Global News and The Canadian Press reporter Bill Graveland in Calgary
We’re all laying in the gutter, some of us are looking up at the stars!? MAYBE . My brain hurts, so tired
The TRUTH is buried under a mountain of liberal lies
Morrigan Flamm @4:24pm.
I think you described Anonymous (the human sewer) from 8:40pm and 9:94pm to a Tee.
Anonymous is a village idiot…and clearly brain damaged as well….maybe anonymous should listen to Ben for guidance as he has none of his own.
@ morrigan, if ya luv carnhole so much tell him to call turdeau, you can get tag teamed by two reetards
@morrigan, grab a brain you dumb cnt, you don’t have a fcking clue what’s going on
haha i don’t know !so i make up the numbers to mess with peoples minds ..me bad! is just i had sucked off to many liberals at the forever Canada bare back party i attended .i bet i took 40 loads sorry my mind is messed up
The 10% seperatist in Alberta are really loud pushing their agendas…we will see what the 90% residents say.
What is this? A place for fat white guys with small dicks to show how moronic they are?
In case you are wondering, i am a woman who is laughing my head off at you “Muslim Values etc”
Morrigan Flamm shows me your dumb when you pull out the old “get educated card” goof!! you want wife beating just vote to stay in Canada because that’s ” the Muslim” values Carney talks about and wants to bring in millions more .and everything is not trumps fault your pos ,your own liberal government is the problem
Oh, I forgot “White”
@Muslim Value..blah blah nlah
Why is it that it is all these MAGA, Trumpian cult beerbellied, guntoting, atv driving wife beating cult followers that never got past grade 8 that are posting unintelligent rage farming rants? Just asking
@ David your a good boy! open your mouth wide take your load of Punjab jiz and swallow
@ Good Citizen who is 90% who wish to remain in Canada that are ignored.???? who!!! where do you get this number from?? did you pull it out your azz hole???? because nobody i know WANTS TO STAY IN CANADA people are sick of this liberal government make dumb decisions time and time again you can take your fake numbers and pound them up your azz
Morrigan Flamm stop telling people what to vote you pos liberal . everyone will vote for who they want . that’s the entire point of this election, no more liberal control now f off!!
Send Danielle Smith a message, say “NO” to questions 1 – 9.She then hs two options: resign, or call an election and run on the 9
Commenter below, more like other way around! Hahaha hahaha hahaha 🤣
Media giving the loud 10% seperatist a lot of TV coverage. While the quite 90% who wish to remanin in Canada are ignored.
If the separatists don’t like to be in Canada just get your sorry asses out of Canada and leave. Trump will have you all but will love to take the resources.
Smith taxes down the toilet.
Who am I kidding though. Conman Carney is supposedly going to be at every rally there. Yeah no voter influence there is there?
F*ck carney too! Hypocrite!
If they win, Trump’s name is all over this. Trump and Smith. Traitors to every flag.
1 to 9: No
10: Stay in Canada
Easy peezy.
@ Ali – There you go again framing everything negatively. Voting no to the nine shows how much I love Canada. Federalism works. No need for constitutional changes. We are a nation of immigrants. Everyone here came from somewhere else. It’s a vast country with 6 time zones and only 40 million people.
Don’t worry, be happy.
Freedumb.
The power you have right now, you will never get again!! Do not piss this away Alberta, get the job done and I hope to see many Sask flags at the Rally planned on October 17th! Lets get out there and support out neighbours!! Talked to some great people and they would love to see a sea of blue and green!!
Elbows up toucan your immigrants can take the door out as soon as albeta separation happens . Alberta was a great place before all you showed up and destroyed it
Anonymous
October 13, 2026 at 3:17 pm
“@ Alberta – Immigrants are much more pleasant to deal with than the loud, angry, contrarian monkeys that come here to fling their poop.”
I agree! Leftists with their fake compassion hiding their boiling over hate are the worst!
Let’s go!!!
No matter the result, at least we have a government who actually asks the public what they want. A breath of fresh air IMHO.
ali is worried about being deported lol good luck with that!!
“Anonymous” You are showing Alberta how much you hate it voting “No” to the 9.
Carney said it himself, he wants Alberta to separate! He told Albertans to vote for prosperity!
@ ALBERTAN – Come on ALBERTANS show separatists how much you HATE THEM!
no to the nine, remain for #10
Come on ALBERTANS show ottawa how fcking much you fcking HATE THEM!
My kind likes my kind, that’s good enough for me
@ Alberta – Immigrants are much more pleasant to deal with than the loud, angry, contrarian monkeys that come here to fling their poop.
Who wants to live anywhere with people like you?
No to all immigrants, don’t want REAL ALBERTANS erased!
Ben’s solution to Alberta losing $20-30 billion annually in support payments to Quebec is to raise taxes on Albertans and charge more royalties to corporations?
Yeesh!
Danielle Smith indulged the cranks in the UCP with her Alberta Next tour to canned audiences. This is the result of encouraging the folks that aren’t for anything but are against a plethora of things.
There are 5 anti-immigrant questions for the racist UCP members.
There are 4 constitutional questions for the anti-Ottawa UCP members.
‘No’ to the nine.
‘Remain’ for #10.
Went to advanced polling at 8:30 before polls opened at 9. Very heavy turn out of a lot of seniors. This is going to further erode UCP support. People are pissed they have to deal with this stupidity, especially when none of it was mentioned during the last election. Not publicly, but lot’s of back room discussions with the separtists who took over constituency associations. Remember what happened the last time Danielle Smith was in politics? Broke the Wild Rose and PC parties, splitting the vote, resulting in the NDP getting a majority. I bet the constituency associations will start to turn on Smith, and a rift will develop in the UCP. Wild Rose party part 2?
Their is nothing historic about the dumb lunatic idiots in ottawa thinking they can wear the daddy pants when they are reetarded POS!
There is nothing historic about a handful of
lunatic idiots trying to make havoc in Alberta, thinking they can force their supreme dumbness on the population of the whole province.
@Rob Wise. Respectfully, Alberta gets most of the royalties and benefits from oil and gas. Conservatives in Alberta have kept royalties too low, frittered away all the tax revenue, and never considered a sales tax. It would seem Alberta conservatives and the UCP should take some responsibility for a problem they helped create.
We need something like the Logan Act in the US to prevent Alberta separatists from negotiating with foreign governments before a referendum. Our political culture is different here-the US would never allow a state to secede. We can tho prevent separatists from meeting up with foreign actors to conspire to sway a referendum, or to negotiate.
Fat, dumb and stupid is no way to go through life!
I don’t understand the referendum on having a referendum to stay with Canada. We have already stayed with Canada since 1905. How has that worked out. Are we richer than Saudi Arabia because of the petroleum under our feet? Has mining to extract things like rare Earth minerals made us a world leader in mineral exports? Are we producing massive amounts of beef at a low cost and exporting all over the world? Because of the expertise of our government making trade deals are our beer an spirits exporters rich beyond belief? Is our Federal taxes being distributed fairly among the provinces?
Naah, I didn’t think so.
Who is going to waste gas on going to vote. Polls say a tiny fraction of Albertans support seperation.
This is not a referendum on separation. Saying so only confuses gullible people who vote with emotions, and zero critical thinking.
Stop calling it a referendum on seperation. No one is separatinh after this vote.
Say YES to the 9 and pick Option 2 and send Ottawa a message that their days of ignoring Alberta are OVER!