Alberta has voted to stay in Canada. CBC News projected late Monday night that voters had rejected the push to start the legal process toward a binding referendum on separation, and the first unofficial results from Elections Alberta show a decisive margin. With about a third of the count reported — 34.5 per cent of polls — 901,447 Albertans, 76.2 per cent, chose for Alberta to remain a province of Canada, against 281,342 votes, 23.8 per cent, for commencing the legal process required to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether Alberta should separate. The figures are unofficial and the tally is still moving as the count continues. Elections Alberta will announce the official results on October 29.
The answer came hours later than anyone planned. On Monday, 106 polling stations across the province opened late, and because no results could be released until every station had closed, the first numbers were held back until the last station — Edmonton's Westminster School, which had been scheduled to close at 8 p.m. — shut its doors at 10 p.m. Mountain time, midnight Eastern. The delays pushed the results back by more than two hours. Question 10, the separation question, was counted first at every station, ahead of the nine other questions on the ballot. Turnout was heavy: roughly 1.4 million Albertans had already cast advance or special ballots before referendum day, and in Maskwacis, stations ran out of ballots under the turnout and Elections Alberta had to send couriers with more.
"Tonight isn't the finish line. We've awoken something in this province and that spirit isn't going anywhere." — Mitch Sylvestre, Alberta Prosperity Project
Premier Danielle Smith called the vote to settle a question that has divided her province, and she had shown her own hand before a single ballot was counted: she voted for Option 1, Alberta remaining in Canada, while urging Albertans to vote Yes on Questions 1 through 9 so the province negotiates with Ottawa from strength. Smith had pledged that if a majority wanted to separate, she would move forward with the binding referendum. With the remain side winning, she has said the secession question should be considered closed — asked earlier this month whether she would commit to not holding another referendum on separation if Albertans voted to remain, she answered: "Not as long as I'm premier."
Ottawa campaigned hard for the result it got. Prime Minister Mark Carney, who grew up in Edmonton, warned Albertans against using the vote simply to send a message to the federal government. "A vote against Canada is a dangerous bluff that will lead to years of deep uncertainty and lost opportunities for Albertans and Canadians," he told a crowd last week, and he argued the vote was held "at the worst possible time," with Canada in a trade war with the United States. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, whose parliamentary seat is in the province, told supporters Albertans were not "quitters": "Canada is more than a government. It is a people, a flag, a land, a history and a promise." At the federalist election-night party in Edmonton, Thomas Lukaszuk, who heads Forever Canadian, the group that campaigned across the province for national unity, said: "It was amazing to see the enthusiasm and resolve among Canadians."
The separatist side is not conceding the cause. Mitch Sylvestre, who heads the Alberta Prosperity Project, watched the returns at a restaurant in Edmonton and told AFP on Monday he remained optimistic. "We're hoping to win," he said. After the projection, he told the crowd: "Tonight isn't the finish line. We've awoken something in this province and that spirit isn't going anywhere." Members of the independence movement told the Guardian they would continue their push for independence, and Keith Wilson of Let Alberta Decide has said the grievances behind the movement will remain after October 19: "This vote won't resolve what's broken in Canada and won't fix how Albertans are treated poorly by Ottawa, so demands for fairness will continue."
The referendum itself was non-binding, and Question 10 was only ever a first step: a win for the process would not have separated Alberta, only opened the door to a second, later referendum on independence itself. Counting on the other nine questions — covering immigration, provincial programs, proof of citizenship to vote, and constitutional changes Alberta wants to pursue with other provinces — is still under way, and Elections Alberta has said the remaining results could take days. What Monday settled is the question Smith said she wanted settled. Alberta stays, and the premier who put separation on the ballot has already said what that means: no second separation referendum, "not as long as I'm premier."
Alberta votes today. More than a million Albertans have already cast ballots in advance voting, and today the rest of the province decides ten referendum questions that would redraw Alberta's fight with Ottawa either way — the last of which asks whether Alberta should take the first legal step toward separating from Canada.
The first nine questions concern the powers and terms Alberta wants to renegotiate inside Confederation. Question 10 is the historic one: it asks voters whether Alberta should remain a province of Canada, or commence the legal process toward a binding referendum on separation. Today's vote does not separate Alberta by itself — it decides whether that process begins.
Premier Danielle Smith has shown her own hand. Smith voted for Option 1 on Question 10 — Alberta remaining in Canada — while urging Albertans to vote Yes on Questions 1 through 9, so the province negotiates with Ottawa from strength. Her message through the campaign has been consistent: fix Confederation, use the leverage this vote creates, but do not leave.
Ottawa campaigned hard in the opposite direction. Prime Minister Mark Carney warned Albertans against the separation path and called it a dangerous gamble, and federal voices have treated even starting the process as a threat to the country's unity. The referendum is non-binding, but nobody in Ottawa is treating it as a formality.
The polls say separation starts from behind: surveys have consistently shown around 70 per cent of Albertans would vote to remain in Canada. But the size of the vote for commencing the process matters almost as much as the outcome. A strong showing on Question 10 hands Smith a mandate Ottawa cannot ignore — proof that a large share of the province is unhappy enough with Confederation to put separation on the table.
Whatever the result tonight, it will be read far beyond Alberta's borders. A province formally voting on whether to begin a separation process is the most serious provincial challenge to Canadian unity in decades, and both Smith and Carney know the number — whichever way it lands — becomes the opening fact of every negotiation that follows. Polls close tonight, with results expected this evening.