The Canadian province of Alberta rejected a plan to hold a binding independence referendum, results showed yesterday, a setback for separatists backed by allies of US President Donald Trump.
Public broadcaster CBC and leading private network CTV projected a comfortable victory for the federalist side, with official results showing more than 76 percent support for national unity with more than one-third of ballots counted.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney welcomed the result and said Albertans had made a “clear choice” in favor of unity.
Photo: Reuters
“They chose unity, to build together, and to take care of each other,” he said in a statement on social media.
Carney had campaigned for national stability as the country faced Trump’s trade war and annexation threats.
A somber mood took over the restaurant in the provincial capital Edmonton where a leading separatist group watched the returns. Jeffrey Rath, a top leader of the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project, told reporters his push for an independent Alberta would “absolutely” continue, despite the result from Monday’s vote.
“We’ve learned a lot of lessons from this fight,” he said.
Separatist supporter Jour Dain said he was “disappointed in [his] fellow Albertans.”
“Honestly, if this continues down this path of remaining in Canada, I’m just going to move,” the 40-year-old said, expressing a desire to live in the US.
At the federalist election night party in Edmonton before the results were announced, a band warmed up ahead of an anticipated positive result.
“It was amazing to see the enthusiasm and resolve among Canadians,” said Thomas Lukaszuk, who heads Forever Canadian, the group that campaigned across the province for national unity.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, a conservative, said she voted against independence, but called the referendum to settle an issue that has divided the province.
She has said a win for the federalists would close the secession question.
Alberta has the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserves, and much of the separatist momentum has been driven by anger over oil industry management.
Smith has blamed Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, for igniting the separatist fire, accusing him of trying to crush oil production to advance his pro-climate agenda.
Alberta’s independence push has also drawn sustained interest from Trump allies.
US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent called Alberta a “natural partner” for the US. Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and a top Trump supporter, posted on X this month that Alberta “should separate.”
Former British prime minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday urged so-called middle powers to become a “poisonous shrimp” to carve out strategic economic leverage in a more turbulent global environment. Sunak drew from a metaphor by former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀): A big fish will eat a smaller fish, and the smaller fish will eat the shrimp. Lee made the point a year after the Asian nation’s independence in 1966 that the city-state needed to build up its defense mechanisms — like a shrimp that stings — so it would be left alone by predators. “He was thinking about what Singapore’s
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