Last month renowned polling firm Leger released two surveys within a few days of each other that showed not two, but three different results on Alberta sovereignty.
The first poll, released May 15, showed 29 per cent of Albertans expressed support for Alberta being an independent country, compared to 67 per cent who opposed the idea.
Then on May 23, Leger released another poll on trust in government and views on provincial sovereignty. That one asked the question: “If a referendum were held on your province’s sovereignty, would you vote for or against?”
Albertans showed the strongest result in favour, with 41 per cent in favour and 44 per cent opposed.
Another question in that survey asked: “To what extent would you support or oppose the province of Alberta becoming a country independent of Canada?”
On this question, 47 per cent of Alberta respondents were either strongly or somewhat in support, while 48 per cent were somewhat or strongly opposed.
So do 29 per cent of Albertans support separating from Canada? Or is it 41 per cent? Or 47?
None of the above, of course. They’re each snapshots of a handful of people at a point in time on a still-hypothetical question.
Beyond the shifting sands of polls, there’s another number in that May 23 survey that gives more pause: the levels of trust in different levels of government.
Across Canada the numbers are relatively even – 51 per cent of those surveyed trust the federal government and their municipal government, while 47 per cent trust their provincial government.
The lowest level of trust in the federal government comes from Alberta, at 37 per cent – not a surprise when looking at the recent election results as well as support for independence.
What is more surprising is that trust in municipal governments is also lower in Alberta than any other province – only 41 per cent of Albertans surveyed trust their local levels of government, compared to 50 per cent in the Atlantic provinces and Ontario, 55 per cent in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and 56 per cent in Quebec.
Trust in the provincial government is lower in Alberta, too – but at 43 per cent, it’s still the most trusted level of government.
The survey doesn’t offer answers on why that’s the case, but there’s plenty of research that talks about why trust in government and other institutions is flagging. A Statistics Canada survey from 2023, for example, shows that Canadians with financial or health concerns and low life satisfaction – and those exposed more to online disinformation – are more likely to have low confidence in institutions.
Perhaps we can also look to the relationships between our different levels of government for answers. Liberal federal governments are a natural target for Conservative provincial governments, of course. But Premier Danielle Smith has also spent a large portion of her mandate making life more challenging for municipal governments in a number of ways from making vote-counting tougher to allowing local political parties to eliminating local codes of conduct. It’s possible that the province’s actions are reducing public confidence in their local governments.
Which makes this fall’s municipal elections that much more interesting. In our recently-concluded federal election, issues like the economy, housing, crime and health care were shoved to the side by the question of who was best suited to deal with the chaos coming from the United States government.
The “ballot question” this fall might go beyond the classic local issues of land use and municipal services to who can best manage the City’s relationship with the provincial government.
In other words, to quote a very old TV show: Who do you trust?
