ANALYSIS | The other 9 referendum questions

Okay, time for a little analysis now. CBC political reporter Alex Boyd has been looking closely at the results coming out of those other nine questions and the reaction to them. She joins us from Edmonton. So Alex, let's drill down on the immigration questions in particular. And can you just start maybe by quickly reminding us why they ended up on the ballot in the first place? Okay, so I realize this now feels like ancient history because this goes back to February. But the first nine questions were announced before the separation question was announced. So Daniel Smith came out, says we're going to go to a referendum in October, and these are the nine questions we're going to look at. And so they were part immigration, part constitution, and they were announced critically a week before the budget came out. And this budget was expected to be a deficit budget. And Daniel Smith said, you know what, there's two things that are causing this budget to be a deficit. That's oil prices and that's out-of-control federal immigration policy. So these were announced kind of in the context of, you know, Alberta wanting to get a mandate to bring immigration back under control. That's at least how they saw it. But at the time, you know, the separatists weren't getting as loud as they would come in the months to come. But it was seen by her critics as an attempt to maybe, you know, take the wind out of the sails of some of the grievances that they were feeling. OK, that brings us to today. So what could a yes to those questions, those immigration questions mean for the province going forward? So, I mean, as the province sees it, this would allow them to take more control over immigration. They often point to Quebec and say, hey, Quebec does it. Why can't we? But, you know, for critics of these questions, they're saying, you know, this could really fundamentally change our relationship to immigration within the province. So, you know, we're talking about things like letting Alberta have more control over immigration. Now, that's not totally clear what that would look like, but also kind of more specific policies like, you know, reducing the access that temporary residents would have to provincially funded programs like health care and education or putting barriers to them using it. Like saying you have to be in the province for 12 months before you can use it, or you even have to pay a fee. So, you know, these are pretty big changes to, you know, how we deal with temporary residents within the province. And I know you've been speaking with groups that work with immigrants and newcomers. How are they reacting today? And did they say anything about the message that the yes to these questions sends to people outside of our province? You know, to them, I think it's dampened the sense of relief. I think a lot of people were feeling last night about the fact that Albertans voted to reject separation from Canada because they're saying, well, you know what? There's still other questions coming in. And to be clear, you know, results are still coming in. But, you know, they're saying that, you know, this could pretty fundamentally change our relationship to immigration. You know, I talked to Avnish Nanda. He's with a group called Our Alberta Advantage. They're a third party advertiser that is really, you know, trying to get the word out about these questions that has done a lot of get out the word, get out the vote work in recent months. And he says, you know what, he really feels like this could make Alberta, you know, poorer and weaker. And to be clear, you know, they think they've actually had a bit of a victory here in the sense that the margin between yes and no on these questions could be relatively slim. They feel like they actually reduced the gap there. But, you know, they're saying that, you know, people within immigrant communities are not feeling great. You know, Alberta is a place where they traditionally felt really welcome, felt like they could really build a life. And they're not really feeling that as much these days. All right, well a lot of work for them still to do and we'll appreciate your continued work when we see your analysis piece in full on the website. Thanks Alex. Thanks Rob.