We asked 1,484 Albertans one open-ended question. Their answers surprised me.

A word cloud visualization of the resposnes to a question in a recent Probe Research survey of Albertans that asked: “Premier Danielle Smith has announced Albertans will vote on nine referendum questions in October 2026. Most of the questions are about immigration and the Canadian constitution. When you think of this entire referendum process, what single word best describes how you feel about it?”

I spent many years as a journalist asking questions. So it was quite the turnaround to be on the other end — being interviewed, myself.

Yesterday, I spoke with TV, radio and print journalists about the first public-opinion survey I completed with my partners at Probe Research.

Our initial release focused on Albertans' views on referendums and separation.

There's been quite a bit of recent polling on the topic, but we took a different tack.

We asked about support for separation, and found what's been consistently found for some time: about 70% of Albertans would vote "No" in a hypothetical vote on Alberta leaving Canada. No surprises there.

But we also asked about the nine other referendum questions confirmed to be on the ballot in October: the ones on immigration and constitutional issues.

And we gave people a chance to weigh in, in their own words.

We asked 1,484 Albertans: When you think of this entire referendum process, what single word best describes how you feel about it?

These results surprised me.

Half expressed negative feelings, using words like "angry," "frustrated" and "wasteful" — and others I won't repeat here. Just over a quarter used positive words like "hopeful," "excited" and "about time." About a fifth expressed uncertainty or indifference.

Overall, nearly 8 in 10 had emotional reactions. Negative emotions outnumbered positive by nearly 2 to 1.

There was, of course, a partisan split. A majority of UCP supporters expressed positive sentiments; 78% of decided NDP supporters had negative feelings.

The one narrow cross-partisan overlap? "Waste/wasteful" — top for NDP voters and tied for fourth among UCP supporters.

All told, the results paint a more negative picture than I would have guessed.

This is why I love public-opinion research: it's full of both surprising and unsurprising results. The unsurprising ones solidify our understanding of what people think. The surprising ones remind us that our assumptions are just that — until tested.

There's one common thread in all of this: questions. The questions I used to ask pollsters. The questions journalists now ask me. The questions we should all be curious about when it comes to each other.

Yesterday was a little unfamiliar, for me, being on the receiving end of journalists’ questions. And I got some astute ones thrown my way by Sean Amato, Courtney Theriault, Darren Krause and Hiren Mansukhani.

But as I got into the flow of it, the exchange of ideas, the genuine back-and-forth on a subject of mutual interest, I found my groove on the other side of the interview.

And it reminded me of the mutual interest we all have in understanding how other people think and feel.

It's easy to assume. It takes more time and effort to ask.

But that can make all the difference.

For more results from this survey, the methodology and data tables, see our full report on the Probe Research website.