Alberta's separation referendum cost $84 million, double the last election

Analysis

Alberta's historic separation referendum last month cost an estimated $84 million to administer, more than double the price of the 2023 provincial election. The province's bipartisan legislative committee unanimously approved an additional $59.6 million in funding for Elections Alberta on Thursday to cover a budget shortfall and prepare for the 2027 general election. Chief electoral officer Gordon McClure described the Oct. 19 vote as an unprecedented event in scale and complexity, driven by the need to hand-count more than 22 million individual votes. He and other officials detailed a crushing workload that left staff exhausted and raised concerns about the agency's ability to sustain its operations.

The $84 million total includes the agency's original $34 million budget plus the newly approved $49.6 million specifically for the referendum. McClure told the standing committee on legislative offices that $26 million was required just to pay the staff who manually counted the ballots, a necessity under Alberta's ban on vote-counting machines. Renting voting and counting spaces cost about $7 million, while nearly $11 million was spent on security, information technology equipment, and shipping and postage for ballots. The referendum featured 10 questions, allowing each of Alberta's 3.15 million eligible voters to cast up to 10 ballots.

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Staff pushed to the limit

Officials painted a stark picture of the human toll of administering the vote. Steve Kaye, the agency's chief administrative officer, said his longest shift was 22 hours and that the executive team worked multiple 16- to 20-hour days. "We've had our foot on the gas for a long time," Kaye told the committee. "People are tired, and we have some concerns going forward about being able to hire some of the people that have worked for us in the past." He noted that Alberta has held 37 electoral events, including petitions, recalls and byelections, since the start of 2025, compared to 21 nationwide.

McClure shared that at least one staff member developed appendicitis but postponed treatment until after the referendum. "People went above and beyond," he said. Kaye emphasized that the lean staffing model, with just 54 full-time employees, proved unsustainable during the referendum. He said if Elections Alberta had the same staffing level per capita as Quebec's elections body, it would have more than quadruple its current workforce. "If we lost a person for medical reasons or whatever, the gap that created was exponential, and the staff we had had to pick up the ball and run with it," Kaye said.

Political reactions and future costs

In moving to approve the funding, government MLA Nolan Dyck said the request was reasonable and helped Elections Alberta carry out a core function. Opposition NDP committee member David Shepherd thanked the agency for a "heroic effort" but noted the referendum's cost had ballooned to more than double that of the last election. He linked the strain directly to the government's decision to hold the vote. "We will leave that to Albertans, I guess, to determine what the return on investment is," said Shepherd. Premier Danielle Smith's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The committee approved an extra $10 million beyond the referendum shortfall, with about $9 million dedicated to preparations for the next provincial election scheduled for Oct. 18, 2027. Another $1 million was granted to hire additional full-time staff. Kaye warned the committee to expect further staffing requests when the agency submits its annual budget proposal in December. The referendum results, released last month, saw about 75 percent of voters reject holding a second, binding vote on separation. Albertans approved five questions related to the province taking more control over immigration by slim margins and rejected four proposals for constitutional change.

Challenges for the next election

McClure assured the committee that Elections Alberta would be able to deliver the 2027 general election on time, despite concerns about the government's plan to formalize a new electoral map before the end of the year. Last week, McClure had asked the government to delay the election or hold it under current boundaries to allow proper implementation of the new districts, but the request was denied. Justice Minister Mickey Amery said this week the new boundaries will be put into law before Christmas. Officials told the committee that to meet the timeline, some processes that normally take months to adjust to new electoral boundaries are being foregone. Others, like updating elector information, are being expedited with temporary staff. McClure cautioned that rushing the implementation could lead to higher costs. "Having time to be fully prepared makes the agency more efficient with its spending," he said. He warned that rushing could see the agency "paying a lot more" to run the 2027 vote. Nosy Mag reported in October that Premier Smith voted to stay in Canada during the referendum. The committee's approval brings the total supplementary funding granted Thursday to $59,552,176. McClure said he anticipates no further funding requests related to the referendum. The agency will present its annual budget for the fiscal year beginning March 31 in December.

With files from Edmonton Journal, Global News and The Globe and Mail