More than 300 advance polls open across Alberta in historic referendum on separation

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.

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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.

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

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

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