‘Unintended consequences’: Poll shows UCP independence referendum boosting Alberta NDP

Jessica Fallis initially feared getting doors slammed in her face canvassing for Alberta’s New Democratic Party in Calgary-Shaw during the 2023 general election campaign that propelled the United Conservative Party to its second majority. 

But door-to-door canvassing for the NDP in the far south Calgary riding was a lot easier in the recent byelection, Fallis says.

“Some of the [voters at the] doors,” said Fallis, “would be, ‘I’m going to vote for anything but Danielle Smith and the UCP.’”

New Democrat Kyle Campbell defeated the UCP’s Mike Derry in September by nearly 600 votes in a constituency with a long history of electing conservative politicians.

Alberta NDP win in Calgary-Shaw byelection

UCP Premier Danielle Smith may have triggered the independence referendum, according to one longtime Alberta political watcher, because she “wanted to prove to her hardcore base she was committed to direct democracy,” but her efforts to satisfy the party faithful may have unintentionally breathed life into the opposition NDP. 

“The referendum has meant we are attracting people from across the province who want to get involved,” said Heth Wilson, president of the NDP, in an interview with CBC News.

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A recent CBC News poll suggests Alberta voters’ impressions of Smith personally and support for her governing UCP have slipped in recent months, with the UCP now essentially neck-and-neck with the opposition NDP. New Democrats lead by eight points in battleground Calgary.

This past spring, the UCP and Smith still enjoyed the longest honeymoon period since the Ralph Klein era. 

On top of losing the conservative stronghold of Calgary-Shaw, Smith faces simmering frustrations within her party surrounding the political “hot potato” that has become the Oct. 19 referendum asking if Alberta should remain a province of Canada.

“One of the unintended consequences is that it’s given the NDP increased capacity. It’s given the NDP a chance to get their ground game together one full year ahead of a general election,” said Calgary-based pollster Janet Brown, who conducted the random survey of 1,200 Albertans for CBC News. 

The UCP, stressed Brown, usually has the better ground game to get out their vote than the NDP. 

The referendum, likely in concert with the ongoing trade war between Canada and the U.S., and tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump, has also dialled up Albertans’ attachment to Canada in recent months. 

“For those who are paying close attention,” said University of Calgary political scientist Lisa Young, “there’s a real intensity of preference here, and that often turns into a desire to do something.”

For some, that something has turned into volunteering for the NDP.  

“It seems to me that the NDP is well positioned to benefit from that,” said Young.  

And the referendum offered the party a springboard of sorts to talk about issues other than separation. 

NDP door knockers in Calgary-Shaw say the independence referendum — and its ballooning cost — gave them an opportunity to talk about what voters care most about: affordability, education and health care. 

“That’s something that really resonated with the people,” said Wilson. “Where’s our elementary school? How are our children being taken care of? How are my parents being taken care of in the health-care system?”

“The referendum seems to be a distraction and a cost we just can’t afford as a province at this time, is what we heard on the doors when the referendum came up,” added Wilson. 

The contrast between the cost of the referendum and “shovels are not in the ground to start building schools” proved an effective message, said David Cloutier, who door knocked for the NDP as a volunteer in the recent byelection and as the NDP candidate in the 2023 provincial election.

“We talked to a lot of folks who feel like their needs have been ignored for a long time,” he said. 

The NDP’s president stresses the referendum was not a top-of-mind issue for voters in Calgary-Shaw when the byelection was called in August.

“We’ve certainly seen the referendum as an issue ramp up through the fall and toward the end of the byelection,” added Wilson, who said it breathed momentum into the party.

The NDP hopes to capitalize on that momentum in the looming provincial election expected next October.

But longtime political watchers warn against writing off the UCP too soon.

The UCP may be facing tough headwinds now, but the governing party has a year to recover before facing voters in a general election.

Also, the province is flush with energy royalties because of high oil prices, meaning it can spend big on schools and the provincial health-care system in the coming months. 

“I think we’ve already seen the UCP switching into pre-election mode,” said Young, highlighting the recent provincial pause on its fuel tax.

“They’re clearly trying to shift the focus away from the issues that matter to their base toward the issues that matter to the electorate,” she said. “The UCP is well positioned to use its very significant budget surpluses to do things that make it more popular in electoral terms.”

“The challenge for the NDP,” Young thinks, “is going to be that once the referendum is over, it will be easy for Albertans to forget that there was a referendum. These things fade in people’s minds relatively quickly.” 

“For the NDP, there’s going to have to be really razor-sharp focus on keeping people reminded that they weren’t happy about the referendum, that the NDP is the party of Canada, and to the extent that Trump remains problematic, I think that’s probably helpful,” said Young.

The NDP might also benefit from continued infighting in the UCP.  

Smith could face a leadership review in the coming months amidst simmering tensions over the referendum. 

There’s another structural advantage of being in power. 

The UCP could use its majority in the legislature to redraw riding boundaries to create new so-called “rurban” ridings that include both rural and urban areas.

Data analysis done by CBC News suggests that proposed hybrid ridings in the Calgary area favour the governing UCP. 

“The NDP is well positioned under this current seat model,” said Brown.

But the new hybrid ridings will be tougher for the party, given the UCP’s traditional dominance in the province’s rural areas, said the pollster.

Still, with some wind in its sails from the recent Calgary-Shaw byelection and recent stronger public opinion polling, NDP volunteers say they’re feeling confident a year out from the election.

“We are hyped and inspired,” said Fallis. “We’re on fire. We want to do this. We need to do this.” 

The CBC News random survey of 1,200 Albertans was conducted using a hybrid method between Sept. 8 and Sept. 21, 2026, by Edmonton-based Trend Research under the direction of Janet Brown Opinion Research. The sample is representative of regional, age and gender factors. The margin of error is +/- 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. For subsets, the margin of error is larger.

The survey used a hybrid methodology that involved contacting survey respondents by telephone and giving them the option of completing the survey at that time, at another more convenient time, or receiving an email link and completing the survey online. Trend Research contacted people using a random list of numbers, consisting of 30 per cent landlines and 70 per cent cellphone numbers.  Telephone numbers were dialled up to five times at five different times of day before another telephone number was added to the sample. The response rate among valid numbers (i.e., residential and personal) was 11.3 per cent.