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. They will continue more stories.
If Albertaos feel a divergence of political attitudes, a change from the center, towards more ideological extremes, in the province, they are not wrong, according to a recent survey in charge of CBC Calgary.
“I think we are so polarized,” Jillian Reimer de Calgary lamented while she and her two children drank drinks outside a cafeteria recently.
“I would like to have more conversations. I think there is very little that is actually black and white and much more nuanced,” CBC’s news journalist told Calgary’s residents about the residents of Calgary His impressions of Prime Minister Danielle Smith.
Reimer applauds Smith’s defense of the energy industry, but not its actions in medical care. Calgary’s wife laughed when she told her that she is part of a group of people who qualify Smith somewhere in the middle.
From “FK Trudeau” mainstreaming “ Stickers and bumper flags For the heated tone of the debate on social networks, our political discourse can often feel more with spikes and divided.
While a 2023 Political Science Study He found “only mixed evidence that Canadians are divering ideologically and are more polarized,” CBC News data ” recent survey It suggests an increase in political polarization between Albertanes, pointing out the possibly more controversial times for the Province of La Pradera.
Why we should worry about polarization
Polarization is not necessarily bad, according to a data scientist who analyzed the survey results for CBC News.
“It is important to identify where the failures in society are,” said John Santos.
He believes that, if we know where the cracks are in our policy, we can try to deal with divergent points of view and democratically order our differences.
“We need to deal with those in a way where people’s concerns are heard and feel they have a voice and a voice in the democratic process,” Santos told CBC News.
Experts say that addressing these political fractures can print the entrenchment that polarization can trigger.
Politologists differentiate between ideological polarization (divergence on policy on issues from the medical care system to taxes, and the so -called emotional polarization, emotional disgust or distrust that people feel on the other hand.
“We care about the effect of polarization,” said the polytoto politient of the University of Calgary, Lisa Young, “because it is difficult to have a democracy that works when you see your opponents not like … from a different perspective or be wrong, but be evil.”
Flight of Albertanes to the extremes of ideology
The survey does not measure how Albertans feel about their political opponents, but the data suggests an increase in political polarization in values and worldviews.
In the last seven years, CBC News has surveyed voters about their ideology, asking them to be placed in the spectrum from left to the right, with zero being extremely left or progressive and 10 are intensely right or conservative.
According to the previous surveys, the last representative survey found that the Alberta, for the most part, see themselves as political centrists with a slight right bias: on average, they were described by 5.8 of 10 on this scale.
But while the average only increases slightly, less people in the recent survey identified their worldview as centrist, compared to previous surveys in recent years.
Most of the intensification occurred on the right side of the political spectrum, with an expanding number of lodges that qualify themselves and eight, nine or 10. The left side of the spectrum, on the contrary, seems relatively stable.
In addition to ideology, shelters seem to be polarizing in political values.
Polarization in value questions
Since 2018, the number of lodges that think we would have fewer problems if there was more emphasis on traditional family values has remained stable, with almost two thirds of people according to that feeling.
However, the number of shelters that are totally agreed with the importance of family values has grown significantly, from 35 to 40 percent, in the last seven years.
In addition, the number of lodges that totally agree that social programs make people less willing to take care of themselves have grown to 21 percent in the recent survey, compared to 15 percent when CBC News asked the same question five years ago.
“Today there is a clear line of failures in Alberta, and I think this reflects much of what we are seeing in the advanced industrial west,” Santos said.
“What becomes difficult,” he added, “is when people are not willing to commit, when disagreeing leads to being unpleasant.”
There is also evidence of Increased polarization over Alberta’s place in Canada – and the attachment of the Alberta to the country and the province.
The last survey also found a growing support of support among Albertanes that think that the province rich in oil would be better if it separated from Canada. In March 2020, only 11 percent “strongly” agreed. But in the survey this spring, that feeling grew to 17 percent.
“I would say that this is probably the most polarized I’ve seen since I have been studying and tracking public opinion in Alberta,” Santos said.
There is also evidence of polarization when it comes to Smith’s leadership, as prime minister.
Speaking with a dozen voters in the community of Southeast of Calgary by McKenzie Towne about Smith, it was easy to find divided opinions.
Most people loved her or was quite disappointed, aligning with him CBC news surveys results That suggests that approximately equal numbers of Alberta are extremely impressed with it, or are not impressed at all.
A small group, only 16 percent of Alberta’s inhabitants, had an impression of Smith in the middle of the road.
And this growing division can be an increasingly competitive political landscape by Brown, according to Janet Brown, who conducted the CBC News survey.
Why do we see a growing polarization?
For decades, progressive conservative governments remained constant in Alberta’s policy.
The uninterrupted rule of the party, 12 consecutive election victories, was executed from 1971 to 2015.
Brown believes that the election of the new Democrats a decade ago increased the polarization he found in his recent random survey of 1,200 shelters.
“For a long time, Alberta was essentially a state of a party,” Brown said.
The surprise victory of the NDP 10 years ago pushed Alberta to a competitive and bipartisan system.
“It simply makes politics much more divisive. It makes public dialogue more controversial,” Brown said.
The NDP government was a “shock for the political system,” according to Young, who has studied Alberta’s policy for decades.
“He really sent everyone to his corners, politically,” he added.
The NDP victory in 2015 also seems to have expanded emotions, or affective polarization, in Alberta’s policy, according to Young.
“We see people on both sides increasingly rooting,” he said.
This wide division can repel Alberta voters in the middle of the road as Reimer, which is proud to be centrist.
“With luck, we can grow that average group, “he said.
“I think it would be better for our society, as a whole, if we could have more people in the middle, not only in full black on one side or another.”
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.
