What the referendum results mean for Danielle Smith and Alberta

You've spent years taking the pulse of voters in this province, right? So as you watch Danielle Smith, how do you think her message will land with voters? How effective was she at speaking to all Albertans? Well, I think this has to be the start of a discussion. It was a short speech on a big news day. I think this is step one of just kind of healing the province after this divisive referendum. And I think her goal was to put United back in United Conservative. This issue of separation, it's not a big thing that divides Albertans at large. NDP supporters, they're unanimous in wanting to stay in Canada. This whole debate has divided the United Conservative Party. And I think this is the first step in trying to bring that party back together. Because if she doesn't hold that party together, she's going to lose her leadership and she's going to lose the party. So as it stands right now, I think we're looking about 24, maybe 25 percent voted to pursue, to not pursue leaving Canada, right, to stay put. Actually, the other way around. So about 24, 25 percent wanted to leave, wanted to leave, right, for real or for leverage. That is not a small fringe group, right? So how does this province move forward from this? Well, it's not. And that's the way I look at last night's results. 76 is a huge majority but that doesn't mean that the uh 24 25 is insignificant it's not a fringe and um yeah so i think she's got to make sure that that she doesn't lose those people and that 24 25 they live almost exclusively in her ucp tent and she wants to keep them in there and it's not an isolating event for them do you know i mean it wasn't like there were people who will flee that that persuasion at this point well you know these are conservative minded people so the ucp is a natural home for them but they they feel frustrated that Danielle Smith didn't help them realize their ultimate goal of a binding referendum leading to separation um she's trying to say to them look i understand your concerns i don't discount you i don't write you off i am going to move forward i'm not i'm no longer going to pursue separation but i'm going to continue to pursue a better deal for Alberta. So you've had a little bit of time to look at these numbers. You know, if we're looking at the car, you're the one who's sort of looking under the hood. What are you seeing that maybe we aren't? What story do those numbers tell you? Well, I go back to what I said originally when we started the broadcast last night. Albertans are being asked this binary opinion, this binary question, but I don't think public opinion is divided quite that starkly. On the one hand, you've got a bunch of people that absolutely want to separate from Canada. another bunch of people that that don't even know why we're talking about separation but there is a group of people in the middle who think separation is too drastic but they're not happy with the status quo relationship with Canada so that's who Danielle Smith was talking to tonight I know you've got frustrations just because it looks like 75 percent of people want to stay that doesn't mean that I'm not going to continue to pursue your concerns I I get that that's the concept there But as you look at the numbers as they came in, what other story are you seeing? Well, I guess the other story I'm seeing is sort of a regional story. So, you know, 75, 25, that's the provincial number. But it's different riding by riding. So I haven't calculated all the numbers yet. But I'm going to look for things like how many people sit in her caucus where the option two vote was the majority vote? How many people sit in her caucus where the vote was 50-50? How many people sit in a riding where it was 80-20? So she's going to have this diversity within her own caucus that she's going to have to manage. And all those numbers will be crunched by the time of that convention in November. So very briefly, one last thought. When you look at the results coming in for the other nine questions, right? So Danielle Smith says she is, you know, she's received mandates on those questions. Some of them are still being counted. What do those numbers tell you? So what we saw there was that voter turnout for those questions was a little bit lower. So between 20 and 40 people, 20 and 40 percent of people didn't answer those questions. They just went in to vote on question 10, left those blank. So now we're talking about maybe 50 percent of the turnout on those questions. And the questions that she's quote unquote won on, she's got something in the 50 percent range. I think they hit 60% for the question about showing identification to prove you're a Canadian citizen when you vote. But otherwise, the other results were in the 50s. So she said to you that anything above 50%, she will consider a mandate. I think anything above 50 maybe gives her some direction. I think it's a little extreme to call it a mandate. Okay. Janet Brown, as always, thank you very, very much.