EDMONTON — Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi says Albertans did not give Premier Danielle Smith a clear message of support for her nine referendum questions, claiming that, despite up to eight passing, they were inexplicably worded and needed a higher mandate threshold. "They're inexplicable," said Nenshi during a press conference on Tuesday. "You can't understand them.""So, if she's going to claim a massive mandate on numbers like that, then she's got another thing coming. Because in fact, if she wanted a mandate, she should have been able to get 85% on questions like this, and she was unable to carry the day." .Smith and the UCP called Monday's referendum using nine questions that they claimed were aimed at securing more sovereignty for Alberta within Canada. The questions included taking more control over immigration, prohibiting or requiring a fee for temporary residents to use social services, requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship, Alberta appointing its own federal court judges, and giving provincial laws superiority over federal when jurisdictions overlap. Polls indicated support for the immigration-related questions when they were first introduced, including 56% of respondents in an April Angus Reid Institute survey supporting restrictions on access to social services, but sub-50% on some other questions.Nenshi and the Alberta NDP fiercely rejected these questions, calling them "racist," saying they targeted immigrants, and that the constitutional ones are pointless because they will never happen. They called for Albertans to vote "No to the nine and Option One (on question 10)." Though ballots are still being counted and several questions remain close, Smith appears on track to win a positive mandate on eight of her nine questions, though the four constitutional ones will be slim either way. .Despite the tight figures, Smith is expected to claim the referendum as a victory, but Nenshi says the results should not be misconstrued, and that Albertans did not fully understand what they were voting for in some cases. "The government spent $4 million telling people to vote yes on them-it's 10 times more than anyone else spent," Nenshi said. "They were written as push-pull questions, sound appealing, sound nice. They don't even make any sense." He asked what an "Alberta-approved immigrant is," and whether prioritizing Albertans for jobs means deprioritizing Canadians from other provinces, "because that's unconstitutional." Nenshi added that the other immigration questions are contradictory. These are opinions shared by many Albertans. "I don't know what she's going to do with this," Nenshi said. "She has two choices. She can either double down on this culture war garbage and scapegoating, or she can pivot and try to be a premier for all Albertans. I think it's a pretty easy bet on what she's going to try to do." Conversely, some Albertans expressed confusion about what the referendum question on whether to have an Alberta independence referendum actually meant. “When Albertans showed up to vote last night, they certainly sent a message,” Nenshi said. “They sent a message to Danielle Smith. They rejected her, and they rejected the separatist agenda that has brought us to this point.”The Alberta independence-related question received 75% support for remaining in Canada.
