Residents of Alberta voted overwhelmingly on Monday to remain part of Canada, rejecting a campaign to try to separate the oil-rich western province from the rest of the country and further bolstering Prime Minister Mark Carney’s efforts to advance a united Canada.
Voters in a referendum endorsed remaining in Canada over the option of holding a second vote on whether to secede. With just over a third of votes counted, 75.5 percent of voters chose to remain part of Canada, with 24.5 percent seeking another vote.
Mr. Carney, who urged Albertans to support remaining a part of the country in the days before the vote, welcomed the result on Tuesday morning.
“It’s a great result for Canada, thrilled that Albertans have chosen unity,” Mr. Carney told reporters in Ottawa. “They’ve chosen to build together.”
Mr. Carney’s efforts to promote Canadian unity and lessen Canada’s economic dependence on the United States stem from recent threats by President Trump. Since his second term began, Mr. Trump has insulted Canada and its leaders, levied punishing tariffs in an ongoing trade war, and repeatedly suggested that the country should be annexed as the 51st U.S. state. Some prominent separatists leaders traveled to Washington three times last year seeking support in meetings with low-level State Department officials.
Mr. Carney, who was raised in Alberta’s capital, Edmonton, called the referendum a “dangerous bluff.” Mr. Carney was governor of the Bank of England when Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016. He received enthusiastic receptions at two large rallies for those who supported remaining in Canada last week, in Edmonton and Calgary.
The referendum reflected the province’s long history of resentment toward the central government but also more recent discontents. Many of the separatist leaders became politically prominent by organizing large protests against restrictions during the Covid pandemic.
In a speech to supporters in Edmonton, Thomas Lukaszuk, a former provincial lawmaker whose Forever Canadian organization led the campaign to oppose secession, addressed Mr. Trump, saying the vote “will send a very strong message to the rest of the world: Don’t mess with Canada.”
Unlike in Quebec, a province that held two unsuccessful votes on leaving Canada, secessionist sentiments have always been a minority viewpoint in Alberta. Still, before the vote opponents of separatism worried that voters might support holding a second referendum to show their unhappiness with the province’s relationship with Canada, even if they did not want to secede.
The vote was the work of Danielle Smith, the conservative premier of Alberta, who managed to provoke the ire of people on both sides.
Ms. Smith assumed the leadership of the United Conservative Party largely through the support of separatists who were responsible for ousting the previous premier, Jason Kenney, from party leadership.
Supporters of a united Canada were angry at Ms. Smith for adding the question on holding a second referendum on secession to a previously planned referendum with nine other questions. Those questions focused on provincial powers and immigration.
Her move came after a court blocked an attempt by separatists to force a vote to leave Canada through a petition. Federalists said Ms. Smith’s decision was an effort to circumvent the courts and was unconstitutional.
Separatists were dismayed that Ms. Smith asked residents to vote on whether to hold a second vote and not the more direct question of whether they wanted to stay in Canada or leave.
Ms. Smith said that she would vote to remain in Canada. However, opponents of secession viewed her support as anemic, leading many to doubt her sincerity.
Last month in an online forum, Ms. Smith, expressed support for keeping Alberta within Canada but also laid out what she described as Albertans’ grievances with the federal government.
“When proud, hard-working people feel their contribution is taken for granted,” she said, “and their livelihood is treated as something to be phased out, some begin to ask a painful question: Does this country actually want us?”
She was referring to environmental policies introduced under a former prime minister, Justin Trudeau, that many Albertans considered an effort to shut down their province’s oil sands.
Business groups, former premiers and local politicians were all firmly on the side of remaining in Canada. Economic studies, including one commissioned by the provincial government, forecast that leaving the country would come with enormous costs.
Many separatist leaders are veterans of the large protests in Alberta during the Covid pandemic that were aimed at public health restrictions. They never laid out specific plans for an independent Alberta and their various factions offered a variety of futures, including a state guided by Christian doctrine, but their complaints about Canada were largely based on economic issues.
About 1.3 million people, just over a third of all eligible voters, cast ballots by mail or during early voting. Because voters had to mark 10 separate paper ballots and then place them into an equal number of ballot boxes, there were long lines at many of the 1,400 polling stations on Monday.
Before the vote, some leaders of the separatist movements suggested that they might not accept the results. Mitch Sylvestre said in an interview last Thursday that he was concerned about potential irregularities, including the validity of many mail-in ballots.
“All I’m saying is I’m very skeptical, as are a lot, or most of, our people,” Mr. Sylvestre said.
The post Voters in Oil-Rich Alberta Strongly Reject Leaving Canada appeared first on New York Times.
