Alberta man creates spoof referendum website in response to province’s questions

After the provincial government unveiled a website on nine referendum questions that will be put to Albertans this fall, a Strathmore man created a website designed to question its veracity.

AlbertaReferendum2026.ca lays out the questions and offers comprehensive background information, along with links to a report compiled by the Alberta Next Panel, which travelled the province, holding town halls in 2025.

Premier Danielle Smith has been clear that the government is advocating for a yes position.

This week, a man from Strathmore has launched his own website in response. www.Albertareferendumb2026.ca . The website is designed to directly reflect the government-sponsored one, with a similar URL, layout, and content. However, the mirror site questions the presumptions on the government site,

Stephen Elaschuk from Strathmore is an IT worker for a small insurance company. As a hobby, he provides technical production assistance for podcasts like The Strategists, hosted by Stephen Carter, Zain Veliji and Shannon Phillips. Elaschuk says he has no content or editorial role in the podcast, and the referendumb site is not at all connected to it.

“I’m definitely a little bit more plugged in than your average Albertan,” he says. “The part of my brain that most people have that is occupied by sports, mine’s just wired for politics, instead.”

Elaschuk calls himself political, but not partisan.

He says the referendumb site started as a joke between friends, “this one sort of escaped containment, as it were.”

The information on his site comes from his own research, from government sources and statistics.

“I’ve reached out on social media to a few experts in the fields just to sort of check my work,” he says.

On immigration, the government website argues federal policy has strained Alberta’s ability to fund services like health care and education, costing taxpayers billions. Referendumb counters that this tells only half the story, noting many temporary residents also pay taxes, tuition, rent, and CPP and EI contributions while filling key labour shortages, and that focusing only on service costs presents a one‑sided picture.

“Using our tax dollars to mount a public pressure campaign, basically to tell us, try to get us to think a certain way, is dumb,” he says. “And what’s even dumber is, again, these new Albertans, these immigrants, their tax dollars are being used to effectively demonize them.”

The premier’s office says in response that Smith publicly stated last week that the government is “actively campaigning ‘yes'” on the questions and they “expect a variety of groups to be campaigning on the yes and no side.”

Elaschuk says the referendum questions themselves are leading and problematic, and his website seeks to present more fact-based information.

“I think almost everyone would have a problem with the government trying to tell them what to think,” says Elaschuk.

His intention moving forward with the website is to provide updates only when necessary, “I guess that depends on what the government site does.  If it decides to take a particular stance on, say, a separation question, and it does a poor job of explaining it, then absolutely, I’m going to do my best to give people a fuller understanding of the questions that they’re being asked.”

And while he is not thrilled with the idea of being the face of it, he says it is necessary to attach his name to it.

“To show that this is legitimate, to show this as an actual Albertan, that’s, that’s doing this, I need to attach my name to it,” he says.