The poll indicated that 44% of Edmonton residents would leave an independent Alberta along with 49% of Calgary residents.
An online poll of 750 Albertans conducted by Research Co. found that 44% of respondents said they would leave the province of Alberta if citizens chose independence in the upcoming referendum. It should be noted that the same poll asked other salient questions, such as whether or not they trust hockey player Connor McDavid on the issue of Alberta separating from Canada. It wasn’t a terribly serious poll, but legacy media outlets such as CTV treated it as if it was. The poll was modelled to grab headlines rather than reflect the will of Albertans, and it worked.
The poll also found that in Calgary, 49% said they would leave an independent Alberta vs 44% in Edmonton. The target they were hoping for was overshot so badly it brings the results beyond rational belief.
The likelihood of people migrating in developed countries due to electoral or referendum results is exceedingly low. In both 2016 and 2024, polls and anecdotal street interviews conducted by legacy media reported on Americans intending to move if Donald Trump were to win the presidency. After both election wins, no measurable exodus of Americans could be found. Asylum claims made by Americans trying to migrate to Canada numbered in the hundreds in 2025, which is statistically insignificant. A significant number of Canadians have been moving to the United States, however.
People will not abandon jobs, houses, and social ties at that rate over a still-hypothetical future constitutional outcome. Actual interprovincial migration in Canada is driven far more by oil prices, housing, and employment than by referendum talk, and Alberta remains a destination rather than a pariah.
Polls capture mood and protest. They are poor predictors of how many people will actually sell a house and change provinces.
People overstate willingness to uproot over politics. Cross-national research finds emigration intentions far exceed actual flows. One analysis of plans versus recorded bilateral migration found roughly 5 actual migrants per 100 people who said they planned to move.
Political signalling in a survey is cheap, and Research Co. got every penny's worth of those signals.
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