With about five weeks before Albertans head to the polls to discuss — among other topics — immigrant rights, some organizations say racialized groups are bracing for the worst.
“Get your bags ready to be packed,” “Prepare to leave your new home after the referendum,” and “Alberta will be a white-only country,” are some of the statements recently reported by immigrants in the province with adverse experiences, according to provincial non-profit Stop Hate AB.
“We’ve actually been hearing a huge influx of anti-immigrant and hate-related reports coming in through our (online) reporting tool,” executive director Nina Saini told CTV News Edmonton.
“Since the first quarter of 2026, we’ve seen an increase of 86.6 per cent of reports … You can tell they feel a lack of a sense of belonging, anxiety and uncertainty of how their lives may look for them.”
Sister Dialogue, another Alberta-based organization created to offer resources to Muslim women, also says its proponents have noticed an uptick in those seeking mental health support.
According to the Edmonton Police Commission’s hate crimes unit, there were 139 hate incidents — non-criminal prejudice — and 43 hate crimes reported in the city as of Aug. 27, 2026.
In the entirety of 2025, 60 hate crimes were reported, meaning the city is on track to surpass last year’s numbers.
The top five affected groups were “multiple, unknown, LGBTQ2S+, Black and South Asian,” a police spokesperson noted.
Immigration questions on Oct. 19 contributing to ‘hateful rhetoric’: groups
The aforementioned advocacy groups believe a rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric directly corresponds with five immigration-related questions that will appear on a ballot on Oct. 19.
Those questions ask if the Alberta government should be given more control over types of immigrants in the province, their access to education, health care and other social support programs and the ability to vote in elections without proof of citizenship.
While the tenth and final separation-related question has overshadowed consideration of its nine precursors, critics in the political scene have denounced the immigration questions as “mean-spirited” and “discriminatory.”
Saini says Stop Hate AB is working on a research study to monitor the rise of hate crimes pre- and post-referendum. She says municipalities have reached out with concerns of tangible rises in “hateful rhetoric.”
“We’re very, very fearful of a very strong, potentially violent backlash after this referendum,” she said.
A poll obtained by CTV News Edmonton suggests that a majority of voters would likely support many of those five immigration questions in the fall.
Should the questions pass with a majority “yes” vote, analysts find the validity of the referendum will depend on the number of Albertans who actually get to the polls.
Mandates on the ballot are changes ‘the province could do right now’: researcher
Bronwyn Bragg, a federal immigration researcher from the University of Lethbridge, believes the immigration and constitution questions on the referendum create a “noxious, toxic discourse” she ties to separatist sentiment.
“Most of the things proposed in these immigration questions, things like introducing a qualifying period for accessing services, paying a fee for health care, that’s something the province could do right now. They don’t need to do a referendum to do that,” she told CTV News Edmonton.
“But part of that question is about increasing control, and one of the only real ways to take full control of immigration is to manage our borders, and that is why I think that’s linked to a separatist agenda.”
She says an Alberta-approved immigration status is “not something that exists and would not exist unless we were an independent sovereign nation.”
After announcing the referendum, the Alberta government released its own information concerning the influx of immigrants into the province. Premier Danielle Smith said “out-of-control” levels meant a strain on provincially funded services.
“Alberta taxpayers can no longer be asked to continue to subsidize the entire country through equalization and federal transfers, permit the federal government to flood our borders with new arrivals, and then give free access to our most-generous-in-the-country social programs to anyone who moves here,” she said in February.
Bragg said that Canada is in a period of immigration contraction, as Prime Minister Mark Carney-era policy contributes to an active decline in immigrant levels.
Carney himself had blamed the previous Liberal government for lax immigration policies. Smith says it’s those policies that flooded emergency rooms, schools and other public services.
A statement from the press secretary for the Alberta minister of jobs, economy, trade and immigration said the provincial government “unequivocally condemns all forms of hate and violence towards any culture or ethnic community.”
They further noted that the questions were meant to address “current unsustainable immigration levels in Canada that are putting real pressures on critical public services” and reflect feedback heard in Alberta Next townhalls last year.
“We look forward to getting direction from Albertans on Oct. 19.”
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Chelan Skulski and Angela Amato
