Voters in Canada’s oil-rich province of Alberta have rejected a proposal to begin a process toward independence, results showed early Tuesday, delivering a victory for Prime Minister Mark Carney and supporters of Canadian unity amid President Trump’s trade war and annexation threats.
The vote was not a direct referendum on independence but would have set oil-rich Alberta on a path toward a future vote on separation from Canada.
With more than 1 million votes counted, about 76% supported remaining in Canada, compared with 23% who backed beginning a process that could lead to separation.
“We are a solid country that’s united from coast to coast to coast,” Thomas Lukaszuk, a former Alberta deputy premier who led the Forever Canadian campaign against separation, told supporters.
Results were delayed after late openings forced more than 100 polling stations to extend voting hours Monday. More than 1.35 million Albertans, or 43% of eligible voters, cast advance or special ballots. Albertans were deciding whether to remain in Canada or begin a legal process that could have lead to a second vote on separation.
Alberta, home to the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserves, is cowboy country and a conservative stronghold whose political culture has long had more in common with the American West than much of Canada. Resentment toward Ottawa runs deep, but has not traditionally translated into widespread support for independence.
Dustin Degenhardt, a Wainwright voter, said Albertans have long been mistreated by Ottawa.
“Alberta has essentially been treated as, you know, a colony,” he said after voting Monday. “They want to take and take and take from us and not return anything.”
Taylor MacIsaac, another Wainwright voter, backed separation.
“I think it’ll be good for Alberta to separate personally, as a very conservative individual that grew up in rural Alberta,” she said.
Dave Malka, 59, of Edmonton, criticized spending money on a “referendum on a referendum” rather than health care.
Despite the proposal’s apparent failure, separatist leaders have said they turned a fringe cause into a movement that will not disappear.
Carney earlier urged Albertans to deliver a decisive vote for unity. “Vote like Canada’s future depends on it because it does,” he told a rally Friday in Edmonton, where he grew up.