Editor’s note: CBC News commissioned that this public opinion investigation was carried out immediately after the federal elections and led to the second anniversary of the victory of provincial elections of the Conservative Party united in May 2023.
As with all surveys, it provides a snapshot over time.
This analysis is one of a series of articles of this research.
Alberta’s policy is not exempt from its complexity. Here is a new surprising example.
While this is a province in which many people are recently interested in separating from Canada because the liberals won, again, and almost all the lots were conservative, again, Albertans seem likely to be probable that they express admiration for Mark Carney as for Pierre Poilievre.
Yes, Albertans.
A new opinion research survey by Janet Brown held after the federal CBC News elections asked the respondents for their impression of liberal and federal conservative leaders, on a 10 -point scale, where 0 means deeply not impressed and 10 completely dazzled means.
And the results for Carney and Pailievre are almost identical.
The conservatives won almost all seats in the province and 65 percent of the votes, compared to 28 percent of liberals, far behind, even if it was their best performance in Alberta in half a century.
But the survey data suggests that the number of lodges that are very impressed with Carney exceed the number that voted for him. It also suggests that a significant number of conservative voters are not in love with their own leader, although some can be considered hopeful about the new liberal prime minister.
In general, voter elections are largely promoted by the leader of a party, said John Santos, scientist of data firm data. The similarities in the opinions of Albertanes about Carney and Poilievre are a surprising game for that rule.
“The leading parts could not have been more separated in terms of results [in the province]”
Bryndis Whitson ran without success for liberals in Calgary Signal Hill, ending 24 points behind the conservative David McKenzie.
But he has been campaigning for liberals in Calgary since 1997, and said this was the greatest positivity he found.
“There were some people who really liked Carney, and there was also a factor of very insecure people from Pierre,” Whitson said.
She had begun to hit the door as liberal, while Justin Trudeau was still prime minister. She remembers praising for her own ideas and background in the supply chain sector, but her leader turned off people.
All that changed with Carney to the helm.
“I think most conservatives were very willing to give them a chance,” he said.
Pailievre certainly had its regional strengths in the survey, with the surveyed much more likely to inform a better impression of it outside Edmonton or Calgary, and among men.
In line with party preferences, Carney had a higher classification among women. Pailievre and Carney scores broken down by the genre are almost mirror images.
Ok with boomers
Pailievre exceeded Carney qualification among millennial Albertans and Gen X.
But the broader gap was among the elderly, who were much more impressed by Carney, and more impressed by their conservative rival.
Karamveer Lalh, a conservative lawyer and activist for a long time, helped the candidate for the party to win at Edmonton Southeast, where Mayor Amarjeet Sohi ran as liberal.
He said that the major voters tended to be aware of the background of Finance of Carney and as governor of the Central Bank in England and Canada, and that eclipsed the curriculum of Trudeau and Poilievre.
Who else is showing more heat lately towards the new liberal leader? Alberta Prime Minister Danielle Smith, who declared after this week’s prime minister meeting with Saskatoon prime minister who saw an “immediate change” with Carney, after repeatedly crossing swords with Trudeau and his focus on climate action instead of increasing the oil and gas sector of Alberta.
“I have not listened to a prime minister to say that we want to build a bitumen pipe on the northwest coast in a long time,” Smith told Power and politics Mondays.
“The fact that we have a change in tone and a change of direction of this prime minister is very encouraging.”
Even so, Alberta Prime Minister warned about a “national unity crisis” if the Carney government does not eliminate obstacles to the development of the pipe and go back other regulations related to oil and gases. And there is also a renewed interest in Alberta’s separatism, although this survey also suggests that only 28 percent of Albertaos would vote to break the province of Canada after Carney becomes prime minister. (Notably less than 37 percent who say they are very impressed by Carney).
This is, of course, an early stage for Carney’s leadership, and most of the new prime ministers enjoy a honeymoon period, said John Santos, Janet Brown Brown Review Research data scientist.
But it seems that for now, many lodges perceive that a key figure during past economic crises is the appropriate person for this moment of rates and economic agitation.
“If the Alberta are going to be warm for any federal liberal leader, one that comes from the big companies of that right flank of the Federal Liberal Party will be one of the liberal leaders who, if they don’t like it anymore, at least they don’t like them less,” he told Santos.
Conservative voters in Alberta are still predominantly more impressed by their own leader, and since there are many more of them, Pailievre’s print scores strive approximately with Carney. However, four out of 10 conservative voters give Carney a high or moderate score, instead of less than a quarter of the liberals who do the same for Pailievre.
“He was favorably seen in conservative circles before leaving as a partisan,” says Lalh about Carney.
“He was seen as technocratic, very respected, helped navigate the financial crisis.”
On the contrary, 82 percent of liberal voters said they were very impressed with Carney, compared to 68 percent of conservative voters who expressed that same feeling about Pailievre.
It can be attributed to the polarization of each leader. When Lalh played conservative supporters, they tended to throw the liberals but not much to their new leader. When I visited liberal doors, more often it was oriented by Pailievre.
“Carney was fresh enough at the doors anyway that people who were not particularly Poilievre fans had a positive reason to vote for the liberals,” Lalh said.
As for himself, Lahl said he appreciates how Carney has pointed out that she wants to address Alberta’s concerns about taking her natural resources to the market, but added: “I am reserving the trial until I see if you can walk the walk.”
Since this survey measures how impressed the Alberta are with the respective leaders, part of the lowest score for Pailievre among their own partisans may have to do with voters without impressing their lost conservatives, and who lost its own seat, Santos said. (Win, of course, impresses more to lose).
But from this survey it seems that Carney has a deposit of goodwill among the Albertanes who did not vote for him.
Smith has warned that while the words and the Carney’s direction have impressed it, it is anxious to see the action on their priorities of the liberals.
It is those next steps that could determine whether Albertaos sour to Carney as they did with their predecessors, or if they have finally found a liberal leader who can support.
The random CBC News survey of 1,200 Albertans was carried out using a hybrid method between May 7 and 21, 2025 by the Trends research based in Edmonton under the direction of Janet Brown’s opinion investigation. The sample is representative of regional factors, age and gender. The margin of error is +/- 2.8 percentage points, 19 times from 20. For subsets, the margin of error is greater.
The survey used a hybrid methodology that involved contacting respondents on the phone and giving them the option to complete the survey at that time, at another more convenient moment, or receiving an email link and completing the online survey. Trend research contacted people who use a random list of numbers, which consists of 40 percent of fixed phones and cell phone numbers of 60 percent. The phone numbers were marked up to five times at five different moments of the day before another telephone number was added to the sample. The response rate between valid numbers (that is, residential and personal) was 12.8 percent.
