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More than half of Alberta adults say they would support eliminating provincial funding for private schools if the issue went to a referendum, a recent survey suggests.
Think HQ, an Alberta-based government relations and opinion research firm, polled 1,150 people aged 18 or older, from Oct. 31 to Nov. 5, asking them how they would vote tomorrow if there was a referendum to decide whether the Alberta government should stop spending money on accredited independent schools.
The poll suggests 59 per cent of all respondents would vote to end the practice. But it suggests 69 per cent of decided voters would want to stop that spending.
“It was quite surprising in the sense that, in this day and age, in Alberta, the public is quite polarized,” Think HQ president Mark Henry told CBC News.
“A lot of times when you ask a question about a public policy matter, it’s sort of split down the middle, the conservatives versus the NDP … But this one was quite overwhelming.”
This year, the provincial government budgeted nearly $9.9 billion for kindergarten-to-Grade 12 education, with almost $295 million of that set to go to more than 230 private schools.
In a statement emailed to CBC News through a spokesperson, Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said he believes parents know what’s best for their children and should be able to choose the schooling that best meets their needs.
The poll’s question mimicked the wording that Alicia Taylor, a high school chemistry teacher in Calgary, had submitted in October with her citizen-initiated petition application to Elections Alberta.
The petition, called Alberta Funds Public Schools, must get almost 178,000 signatures — 10 per cent of total votes cast in the last provincial election — by Feb. 11, 2026, according to the Elections Alberta website. If that occurs, the agency will forward the petition to Ric McIver, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, and MLAs will decide whether to prepare a policy proposal or put the question to the public via a referendum.
According to the petition’s website, more than 38,700 people have signed so far.
The favourable polling results have further motivated Taylor to get the required amount of signatures, she told CBC News.
“That just means we need to get those signatures so that we can, ultimately, have this question on a referendum ballot — and that would result in the change that we want to make,” Taylor said.
The poll, conducted days after the Alberta government invoked the notwithstanding clause to end the provincewide teachers’ strike, also found about one quarter of its respondents would vote no to the question — meaning they want the funding to continue — and 15 per cent were uncertain.
Its results also suggested that more than half of Albertans of voting age didn’t know about Taylor’s petition until the pollster flagged it to them.
Respondents in Edmonton showed the strongest support for ending public funding of private schools, with 66 per cent saying they would vote in favour. People in other regions tended to support the notion, too.
But public opinion was more divided in northern Alberta: the poll suggests 45 per cent of respondents want to stop the funding, 42 per cent would vote to continue the funding, while 13 per cent were unsure.
John Jagersma, executive director of the Association of Independent Schools and Colleges in Alberta, said there are many contextual aspects about independent schools that get “lost in this one-question poll.”
“There’s actually a robust range of choices within independent schools that impact … kids from a whole wide range of backgrounds of learning abilities,” Jagersma said.
More than one in five students in private schools have designated learning needs, and there are 20 private schools in the province that focus specifically on children with special educational needs, he said.
Jagersma also noted that private schools must meet certain conditions to receive government money, including being a not-for-profit organization and having certified teachers presenting the Alberta curriculum.
The poll’s methodology was an online survey with a 1,150-person sample size. A random stratified sample of panelists was invited to complete the survey from panel partners, according to Think HQ.
The results were weighted to reflect gender, age, education and region of the Alberta population according to Statistics Canada.