It’s the question that has consumed months of political discourse in Alberta — whether residents want to remain in Canada, or whether they want to hold a second referendum to leave.
Albertans have their answer.
The CBC News Decision Desk is now projecting a “remain” win in the Alberta referendum.
Ten questions were put to Albertans as a part of this referendum, one of which was the question tied to independence.
Results on that question were anticipated after 10 p.m. MT, but one polling station in the riding of Cardston-Siksika remained open longer than anticipated and delayed those numbers.
With more than one million votes counted as of 12:30 a.m., 76.5 per cent of voters were in favour of the “remain” option, while 23.5 per cent voted in favour of the referendum option.
Beyond the independence question, five questions are related to immigration, while four propose constitutional changes.
They continue to be counted by election officers. You can view the latest results here.
Alberta referendum live results
As results became known late Monday night, people gathered at a pro-federalist gathering jumped out of their seats and cheered, chanting, “Canada! Canada!”
Taking the stage at a Forever Canadian rally shortly before midnight, the group’s founder Thomas Lukaszuk said the results send a message to the rest of Canada that Alberta would not be the “weak link” in Confederation.
“We Albertans are as proud to be Canadians as any other Canadian across the country,” he told the crowd.
At the same time, Lukaszuk said it was important to not forget the contingent of Albertans who voted in the other direction, adding it would be important to develop a dialogue with pro-independence Albertans.
“As Canadians, as Albertans, we cannot go on fighting with each other,” he said.
Forever Canadian founder Thomas Lukaszuk speaks at the pro Canada watch party in Edmonton on Oct. 19. (James Maclennan/The Canadian Press)
Polls have suggested that numbers on the separation question have largely been baked-in for years, with the majority leaning toward remaining in Canada.
The independence question was added to the referendum ballot by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith earlier this year after she argued having a vote was the proper way to respect the hundreds of thousands of Albertans who signed duelling citizen petitions.
But she has also been forced to grapple with a divide in her United Conservative Party. Polls have suggested that a slight majority of UCP voters favoured the separation option as part of the referendum.
The Alberta question: How separatists took hold of the province’s governing party
In a post on X, Smith wrote that she was “very pleased” to see the initial results from Elections Alberta showing “widespread support” for remaining in Canada.
“Albertans have voted for a stronger Alberta in a united Canada,” she wrote. “Thank you to all Albertans who took time to vote on these critically important referendum questions.”
Smith said she would address Albertans on Tuesday evening at 6:45 p.m. about the referendum results, and “where our province goes from here.”
Earlier this month, the premier said that should Albertans vote to remain in Canada, she would not hold a second independence referendum as long as she was premier.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks at the Canada Strong and Free conference on Oct. 16. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
In recent months, Smith has attempted to make the case for Confederation by championing what she has characterized as improved relations with Canada, largely given a new approach from Prime Minister Mark Carney.
In a statement released on Tuesday morning, Carney wrote that the results on separation indicated that “Albertans and all Canadians will move forward together with renewed purpose and high ambition.”
“Canada is so much greater than the sum of its parts. Now it is our opportunity to take all that we have been given as Canadians — and we have been given the greatest country in the world — and make our country better for all of us,” Carney wrote.
Carney, in a stop in Alberta last week, suggested Albertans should vote “No to the Nine” — referring to a prominent federalist advertising campaign that had urged Albertans to reject the nine ballot questions not concerned with separation.
Over the course of the campaign, proponents for independence argued that Alberta has been mistreated for years by Ottawa and that the federal government’s environmental policies stifled its oil and gas industry.
Keith Wilson, one of the most prominent voices in the Alberta independence movement, said earlier Monday he was hoping for a strong turnout for the separatist side in order to “send a message to Ottawa.”
Speaking after results were announced, Wilson said while final results are not yet known, it’s significant that around a quarter of Albertans feel that the province needs to be treated better in Confederation.
“Tonight concludes a campaign, but the conversation about Alberta’s future in Canada, and our place in Canada, and our role in Canada, will continue,” Wilson said.
Keith Wilson, co-leader of the pro-independence group Let Alberta Decide, speaks after results were released on Monday. (CBC News)
Federalists, meanwhile, warned that splitting Alberta from Canada would pose significant economic risks.
“It’s time to put the question of separation to rest and get to work building a stronger Alberta within a united Canada,” wrote Monte Solberg, founder of the pro-federalist campaign Vote to Stay, in a release.
The premier, who from the start said she’d vote for Alberta to remain in Canada, has acknowledged that she has come to be regarded as “public enemy number one” amongst Alberta separatists, given her federalist stance.
After Monday’s early results brought back a projected loss for the separation option, Alberta Prosperity Project co-founder Jeffrey Rath said the province’s independence movement still plans to roll up its sleeves and continue working.
“Have you ever seen the Conservative Party stop being the Conservative Party after an electoral defeat? The NDP polls under 20 per cent all the time and they’re still the NDP,” said Rath.
But the biggest lesson he expects his movement to take from the referendum is to take a hard look at whether Smith should remain leader of the UCP, if most of the party’s voters support separating from Canada.
“There needs to be a serious discussion within the party as to whether or not we want to continue to be led by a federalist,” said Rath.
But another separatist leader threw cold water on the idea of turning the UCP into a separatist party.
“To be blunt, that’s pretty stupid when 75 per cent of the province said they don’t want to go that route,” Cory Morgan, founder of the third-party advertiser Pathway to Independence, said on CBC Radio’s Alberta Morning.
Morgan argued Alberta’s independence movement needs a centralized voice, after a lack of message discipline hurt the separatists’ campaign ahead of the referendum. But he said the voice should come from an advocacy group to build its base of supporters, not a political party.
Despite a more recent upward trend, Alberta has had a history of mediocre voter turnout in provincial elections.
Elections Alberta was not expecting that as part of this referendum.
The elections agency previously said it expected a record turnout of Albertans, projecting that figure to reach between 80 to 85 per cent. By contrast, the last Alberta provincial election saw 60.5 per cent turnout.
A voter leaves a polling station after casting their vote in the Alberta referendum in Calgary, Oct. 19. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
The high engagement was at least obvious amongst Albertans who chose to vote early, whether they visited an advance poll or sent a ballot in the mail. More than 1.3 million people chose one of those two options.
Results were delayed Monday after the election agency announced that more than 100 stations failed to open on time.
