In the midst of an increase in the population, the past fall, Prime Minister Danielle Smith delivered a televised speech to the province, in which he launched the welcome carpet, with a warning.
“Alberta has always welcomed the newcomers,” said Smith, “who owns our shared values.”
The second part of that line caused some criticism at that time, in the context of the simultaneous opposition of his government to a federal plan to locate asylum applicants more uniformly throughout the country, including more in Alberta. Smith was accused, for some, of “feeding xenophobia” and “stigmatize newcomers.”
Regardless of how this particular line sees in that particular direction, Smith’s comment touches a longer opinion among many shelters, which goes back to the auges of the population of the past of decades.
The conservatives have been concerned for a long time that international and interprovincial migrants will bring with them a wave of tidal views, and votes, disagree with the traditional values of Alberta, who feel to the right. Meanwhile, some progressives have been looking forward to and waiting for the day.
Until now, he has not done so.
And it will probably not, says pollster Janet Brown, even with the last wave of people who move to the province.
“It is a widely sustained belief that the newer Albertaos are different, but the data has never realized that,” said Brown, who recently conducted a high -range survey for CBC News that examined the beliefs and perspectives of people in this province.
The results were in line with the surveys he had done in past years; In general, Brown has found very little difference in the opinion between the shelters that have lived their entire life in the province and those who have moved here from another place.
When it comes to many beliefs, in fact, the two groups are practically indistinguishable.
Value statements
This most recent survey asked the Albertans whether or not they disagree with a series of value statements about a variety of issues and problems.
You can see for yourself in the picture below how similar were the answers.
Albertaos who have always lived mostly in the province are seen in the left column, while Albertaos who moved here from another place are in the right column.
These results can be a surprise for many lodges, but not Brown.
As a pollster, he says that the lack of difference between these two groups has been evident for some time, even if others did not believe it.
“In the past he would have liberal friends and they would say: ‘Well, if we only hope that enough people move from Ontario, then Alberta will become liberal,” Brown said.
That has not yet materialized, he said, because “people who move from Ontario are not a random and representative sample of people who live there.”
“Sometimes we find that new Albertans are more stereotyped than people born here,” Brown said.
‘Half of the road’
Faith Zachar did not know much about Alberta when he moved here of Ontario in 1968, apart from the fact that it sounded like a more conservative place than was accustomed.
She had met a birth and raised shelter, who would later become her husband, Guelph, Ontario, where she was studying veterinary medicine. He later moved to be with him in Nanton, Alta., Where he had opened a practice.
In 1969, the couple moved a little further south, to Pincher Creek, where they still live and direct the practice to this day.
When they met, she says she found that her husband was more conservative, while she was more liberal in her political views.
But after 57 years in Alberta of the small city, Zachar says that she and her husband agree on many things, and generally does not find people in Pincher Creek and their surroundings of those who grew up in the small town of Carleton Place, Ont.
“Some are very fanatically conservative, and that was also true in Ontario, and others are more liberal,” he said. “Most are only in the middle of the way.”
Stereotypes versus experience lived
Thomas Ambrozitis is a more recent transplant, having moved Calgary from Toronto only three years ago, largely to be closer to the mountains.
He says that his first impression of the city was that he was more conservative in his policy than he was used to in Ontario, but as time passed, he also saw more and more similarities.
“The short version would be: at the end of the day, we are all human,” said Ambrozitis. “And so, the same concerns, the same problems, the same concerns and enthusiasm: I see them in the people I find here, as I would in Ontario.”
His own stereotypes about the Calgarians began to disintegrate, he said, once he realized how Calgarians have their own stereotypes about the Torontonians, in particular that they see themselves as “the center of the universe.”
“I want to tell people: ‘Have you ever asked someone from Toronto yes feel How do the center of the universe? Because my meaning is: I don’t. And so it is interesting because, for me, there is a story about the Torontonians that Torontonians really don’t experience, “he said.
“Then, to turn that, I have been like, ‘Oh, well, I have a story about the Calgarians that the Calgarians cannot have about themselves.'”
‘Resistance is useless’
Several years ago, Brown says he deepened in some of his voting data, which included a question for people who had moved to Alberta, how long they had lived in the province.
“I tried to find out: how long do you have to be in Alberta before they are not indistinguishable from someone who was born here? And I concluded that it was about seven years,” he said.
“After about seven years, resistance is useless. Even if you come here and decide that you don’t want to be a stereotypical alberta, you will be one.”
Of course, none of this is to say that each person who moves here ends up being conservative in his mentality and his voting patterns. It simply means that, together, newcomers have ended up statistically similar to albertanos born and raised, in terms of their values and beliefs.
Or, as Brown says: “It’s a stereotype to think that people will come to Alberta and change to Alberta. People come to Alberta because Alberta makes sense to them.”
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.
Methodology:
The random Survey of 1,200 Albertas CBC was made using a hybrid method from May 7 to 21, 2025, by the investigation of headquarters in Edmonton headquarters 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.
