Alberta has voted to remain part of Canada, rejecting a proposal to begin the legal process towards a binding referendum on separation from the rest of the country.
Preliminary figures from Elections Alberta gave about 76 per cent support for staying in Canada against 24 per cent for pursuing a separation vote. Counting was still under way on October 20.
The ballot on October 19 was the first time the western province had put the question to its voters, and the first such consultation in Canada since Quebec narrowly rejected sovereignty in 1995. Quebec returned the sovereigntist Parti Québécois to a minority government in its October 5 election, on a promise of a third referendum.
Carney said Albertans had made a “clear choice” in favour of unity and of building the country together. He said the province was central to plans to find new trading partners and to speed up large national projects.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who called the referendum but voted to remain, welcomed the early results. “Albertans have voted for a stronger Alberta in a united Canada,” she wrote on social media.
Separation was the last of 10 questions on the ballot. Five dealt with immigration, among them provincial control over admissions and limits on access to publicly funded services, and four with constitutional change, including the abolition of the Senate.
Early counting showed the immigration questions running ahead and the constitutional ones much tighter. None of the 10 results binds the provincial government.
Campaigners who backed the separation option said the vote had closed a campaign rather than the argument. Keith Wilson of the Let Alberta Decide group said debate on the province’s place in Canada would continue.
The vote followed a court ruling in December 2025 that struck down an earlier citizen-led question on independence as unconstitutional, after First Nations groups said they had not been consulted.
Separatist feeling in the province grew after Carney’s Liberals returned to office in 2025 on a promise to resist United States President Donald Trump, whose tariffs and repeated talk of annexing Canada have dominated relations between the two countries.
The outcome is being followed in Brussels, where the European Union has spent the past year courting Ottawa as a trade and defence partner. Trump has threatened tariffs on the bloc over plans to bring Canada in as an associate member.
Alberta produces most of Canada’s crude oil and its output is part of Carney’s pitch to European and Asian buyers looking to cut their dependence on Russian and American supply.
Smith has ruled out calling another vote on separation after a result to remain, though she has said she will keep pressing Ottawa for greater provincial autonomy.
