For Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, the decision by oil-rich Alberta to ask voters whether to remain in Canada or hold a second, binding referendum on secession came, as he put it last week, “at the worst possible time.”
But timing aside, Monday’s resounding vote to keep the western province within Canada both strengthens national unity and eliminates a significant distraction as Mr. Carney works to form new global alliances in the face of the trade and diplomatic war that President Trump has waged against Canada since he returned to office.
After months of campaigning, 75.2 percent of Albertans voted to remain in Canada, while 24.8 percent favored holding a second, binding vote on separation, according to unofficial results.
Neither Mr. Carney nor his Liberal government had a formal role in the referendum, which was called by Danielle Smith, Alberta’s conservative premier. But many analysts attributed the strong vote for Canada to policies Mr. Carney, who was raised in the province, introduced over the past year and to his campaigning for continued unity here.
“Carney was huge,” said Duane Bratt, a professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, who studies Alberta politics. “His working with Smith really took the wind out of separatism, and that’s why the separatists were just flailing.”
He added, “Mark Carney is the most popular politician in the province right now.”
Even after accounting for Mr. Carney’s upbringing in Edmonton, for a Liberal prime minister to enjoy outsize popularity is an anomaly in Alberta, the home of Canadian conservatism, where Conservative candidates frequently win federal elections in landslides.
Even today, many Albertans still complain about a government policy almost 50 years ago under the Liberal prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. His short-lived National Energy Program of 1980, which sought to lower the Canadian price for oil, was popular elsewhere in Canada. But it was deeply resented in Alberta, where it was widely seen as an intrusion on the provinces’ control over natural resources.
When Mr. Carney, former governor of the central banks of Canada and of England, entered politics last year, Ms. Smith seized every opportunity to criticize what she called the federal government’s “nine bad laws,” environmental measures introduced by his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, Pierre’s son. She also relentlessly pushed for a second oil pipeline to the Pacific Coast from her landlocked province.
Since then, Mr. Carney has replaced most of the “nine bad laws” with what he calls “cooperative federalism.” The new approach includes a new system that he said would speed up environmental and regulatory approvals of large projects, including oil and gas developments. More significantly, he said the federal government would build and largely finance an oil pipeline to a new ship terminal near Vancouver, British Columbia, the province just west of Alberta.
While Mr. Carney’s changes were condemned by some environmentalists and Indigenous communities, they undercut separatist claims that Canada holds Alberta back from its full economic potential.
As a result, Mr. Bratt said, separatist campaigners were reduced to saying that Mr. Carney “was going to cancel the pipeline the day after the referendum or ask why he wasn’t building it personally by hand — just all sorts of crazy stuff.”
Polls show that Albertans support Mr. Carney’s defiant approach to Mr. Trump, as do Canadians generally. Ms. Smith, by contrast, who became leader of the United Conservative Party and then premier largely with the support of separatists, has frequently urged caution and restraint in dealing with Washington.
She initially joined other provinces’ leaders in banning the sale of American beer, wine and spirits from the provincial liquor distribution system to pressure the Trump administration. But she soon allowed the products’ return, leaving Alberta as the only province without any measures against American alcohol.
Ms. Smith and Mr. Carney also contrasted during the referendum campaign. After a court quashed separatist efforts to force a direct question on leaving through a petition, Ms. Smith changed the law to add the separatism question to a previously planned referendum. She then alienated separatists by saying that she would vote for Canada; she did not require her party’s elected members to follow suit. Her own campaigning for Canada was limited, and she often focused on reasons for leaving the country.
Although Mr. Carney acknowledged that Albertans have causes for complaint and that Canada ”isn’t perfect,” he vigorously pushed back against the separatist movement and the referendum. His message was well received. About 7,000 people lined up last week in Calgary, the province’s largest city — some for up to two hours — for a rally where he was the headliner.
On Tuesday, Mr. Carney made no attempt to hide his delight as he headed into a cabinet meeting in Ottawa.
“It’s a great result for Canada, thrilled that Albertans have chosen unity,” he told reporters, adding in French: “It’s a good day for Canada.”
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