{"id":58935,"date":"2026-05-24T19:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T19:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/58935\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T19:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T19:16:16","slug":"the-debate-may-be-loud-but-separatist-fears-are-cooling-in-canada-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/58935\/","title":{"rendered":"The debate may be loud, but separatist fears are cooling in Canada: poll"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite a year that included referendum threats, court battles and renewed sovereignty rhetoric, Canadians appear less worried about the prospect of Quebec and Alberta separatism than they were a year ago, a new poll revealed.<\/p>\n

According to a survey conducted for the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS), concern over separation has cooled somewhat since last spring, with respondents appearing to view both movements with less urgency than those who were polled in May 2025.<\/p>\n

During that survey, when asked if the threat of separation should be taken very seriously, 52 per cent of all people said yes for Alberta and 42 per cent agreed for Quebec. Agreement was highest among those provinces\u2019 respondents \u2014 63 per cent of Albertans and 47 per cent of Quebecers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there was more fever about this thing at the time,\u201d ASC President Jack Jedwab told National Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s diminished, and people are now, in particular in Quebec, beginning to feel that they\u2019ve seen this film before. Whereas in Alberta, there\u2019s still a bit more of the imponderable or uncertainty about where this is all going.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the question was worded differently in the most recent poll \u2014 \u201cAre you worried about the threat\u201d of either province\u2019s separation from Canada \u2014 a subsided concern was evident.<\/p>\n

Just 26 per cent of all respondents said they were worried about Alberta, and only 18 per cent said the same of Quebec.<\/p>\n

Jedwab also attributed some of the lowered concern to recent political and legal developments, namely the Alberta Court of King\u2019s Bench decision to strike down the Stay Free Alberta petition<\/a> to force a referendum on separation, ruling that the province failed to consult First Nations on treaty rights implications, which came just before the poll was conducted.<\/p>\n

Premier Danielle Smith later said this October\u2019s referendum would be modified to ask citizens whether the province should remain a part of Canada or begin the legal process to hold another referendum on separation.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks at a press conference at McDougall Centre in Calgary.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Jedwab said, \u201cit feels more diluted in terms of what it might have been prior to the machinations of the past two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Quebec, Jedwab thinks the reduced unease is partially a result of the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois losing ground ahead of this fall\u2019s general election \u2014 the most recent Leger poll<\/a>, for instance, has them almost neck-and-neck with the Liberals and the Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec surging on the popularity of new leader, Premier Christine Fr\u00e9chette.<\/p>\n

Jedwab also suggested the PQ has pulled back on sovereignty \u201cbeing something that would immediately emerge in the event of election victory.\u201d In his view, it\u2019s a subject that would come up later.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to have an election first and we don\u2019t know after the election what the timing would be, whereas the Alberta one is very fixated on something that\u2019s going to happen in October,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Albertans were the most likely to express concern about their province separating (39 per cent), while Anglophones in Quebec (41 per cent) are most anxious about theirs.<\/p>\n

The results also indicate a correlation between concern and a respondent\u2019s geographic proximity to either province.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re in Alberta, you\u2019re going to be a lot less caring of what\u2019s going on in Quebec than you are in Alberta, where the issues are more in your face, presumably, than they are on the other end of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pattern was reflected in neighbouring provinces B.C. and Saskatchewan, where respondents shared comparatively greater concerns about Alberta separation than Quebec \u2014 29 and 21 per cent, respectively, versus 16 and 8 per cent.<\/p>\n

The survey also found Indigenous respondents expressed much higher concern about separation movements in both Alberta (42 per cent) and Quebec (29 per cent) than non-Indigenous respondents (26 and 19 per cent, respectively).<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

First Nations Chiefs and supporters rally against an Alberta separation referendum, in Edmonton\u2019s Churchill Square Wednesday April 8, 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat may be a partial explanation at least for the Indigenous leadership\u2019s move to intervene here, reflecting that higher degree of concern in Alberta and not insignificant in Quebec either,\u201d Jedwab said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hasn\u2019t been as much of an issue in the past, but based on what we\u2019ve seen in Alberta, it may be an issue in Quebec at some point down the line again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the relative decline in anxiety overall, Jedwab reasoned the issue is unlikely to disappear soon, particularly with both votes in October.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019ll clearly be more to say about this issue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The poll, conducted by Leger between May 15-17, surveyed 1,511 individuals. A margin of error cannot be associated with a non-probability sample in a panel survey. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of this size yields a margin of error no greater than plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.<\/p>\n

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com<\/a> and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite a year that included referendum threats, court battles and renewed sovereignty rhetoric, Canadians appear less worried about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[711,17,8868,25594,241,25595],"class_list":["post-58935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta-separatism","tag-canada","tag-elections-alberta","tag-jack-jedwab","tag-quebec","tag-quebec-separatism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}