Alberta’s referendum to begin the process of seceding from Canada failed by a wide margin on Monday, keeping Canada’s oil wealth intact and delivering a major political win to Prime Minister Mark Carney.
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Alberta will not follow Quebec’s path. According to the early results of Monday’s referendum, 76.5% of voters in the provincial government’s consultation chose the first option on the ballot: “Alberta should remain a province of Canada.” The second proposed holding a binding referendum on secession.
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Alberta voters have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to begin the process of separating from Canada, with 77% opposing the initiative in unofficial results that strengthen Prime Minister Mark Carney’s push for national unity.
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With more than 1 million ballots counted, 23% supported the proposal, according to Elections Alberta. The October 19 referendum was not a direct vote on independence; approval would have set the province on a path toward a future vote on separation.
Carney welcomed the results, saying Albertans had chosen to remain part of Canada and that the outcome would allow the country to pursue an ambitious economic agenda.
“Above all, Albertans chose Canada,” he said in a statement released on October 20. He added that Canadians could move forward together with renewed purpose and greater ambition.
My statement on Albertans choosing to build a stronger Canada, together: pic.twitter.com/pNXb427wXI
— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) October 20, 2026
Carney also pointed to efforts to secure new international trade partners, accelerate major infrastructure projects across the country and expand Canada’s role as a global energy power, with Alberta at the center of those plans.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith also welcomed the early results, saying they demonstrated support for a stronger province within a united Canada.
“Albertans have voted for a stronger Alberta in a united Canada,” Smith wrote on social media.
Smith called the referendum under pressure from separatists within her governing United Conservative Party (UCP), despite opposing independence. She was scheduled to address the province on Tuesday evening about the results and Alberta’s future.
Thomas Lukaszuk, a former deputy premier who led the Forever Canadian campaign against separation, also welcomed the outcome.
“We are a solid country that’s united from coast to coast to coast,” he told supporters.
Separatist leaders, meanwhile, pointed to the vote as evidence of continuing dissatisfaction with the federal government in Ottawa. Keith Wilson, a prominent figure in the movement, cautioned that the results were not final but argued that a substantial share of Albertans wanted the province to be treated better.
“We don’t have the final results. I think the numbers are going to fluctuate, but it is fair to say that at least a quarter of Albertans feel that Alberta needs to be treated better,” Wilson said.
The results were delayed after late openings forced more than 100 polling stations to extend their voting hours on Monday.
Alberta, home to the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserves, is a conservative stronghold whose political culture has long had more in common with the American West than with much of Canada.
Resentment toward the federal government has persisted, but separatist parties historically attracted only 1% to 2% of the vote, according to former Premier Jason Kenney. Anger over COVID-19 restrictions helped mobilize activists who later embraced the separatist movement.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and threats to make Canada the 51st U.S. state have helped Carney rally support in Alberta, where Liberal prime ministers have traditionally been unpopular.
Result is a victory for prime minister Mark Carney and supporters of Canadian unity
Voters in Canada’s Alberta have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to begin the process of independence, delivering a decisive victory for supporters of Canadian unity and deepening divisions within the separatist movement.
With nearly 1.9m votes counted, roughly 76% people supported remaining in Canada, while 24% backed beginning a process toward separation, according to unofficial results from Elections Alberta.
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© Photograph: Canadian Press/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Canadian Press/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Canadian Press/Shutterstock
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OTTAWA: Residents of Alberta began voting Monday in a non-binding referendum that will determine whether the western-Canadian province should pursue separation from Canada.
The vote comes at a time when the province is mourning the deaths of four soldiers, while dozens of others were injured from a fast-moving fire that burned through a military base in Alberta.
While the results of a poll involving 1,021 respondents released by Abacus Data on Saturday showed that 74% of decided voters favor Alberta remaining within the Canadian Confederation, the independence issue won’t disappear for the nearly 30% who want Alberta’s government to begin the process to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether Alberta should separate from Canada, according to veteran separatist organizer Cory Morgan, who leads a group called Pathway to Independence.
"It will say that about one in three Albertans have had it," Morgan told Fox News Digital. "There is a big rift within Alberta and if things don’t change, it will be a growing faction in this province — so this vote is an important one."
About 3 million Albertans are eligible to vote in the referendum.
Another recent Abacus poll found that 61% of the 1,021 eligible voters surveyed expect Albertans will vote again on separation, even if most choose to remain in Canada.
On Friday, the Angus Reid Institute released the results of its poll that found 62% of 1,010 Albertans surveyed believe "there will never be an end to the separatist movement" in the province.
Morgan, who led the short-lived Alberta Independence Party from 2000 to 2001, said that while "a vocal minority" within the separatist movement favor Alberta becoming the 51st state, most pro-independence Albertans "don’t want to become a small fish in an even bigger pond." He added that "Albertans in general are not too thrilled with President Trump right now and that makes them less inclined to leave the federation."
At a "Forever Canadian" rally on Friday in Edmonton, where he was raised, Prime Minister Mark Carney told a crowd of over 5,000 people that "this referendum comes at the worst possible time." He said that "the world is becoming more dangerous and divided [and] some outside our borders are working to break us so they can own us," making an indirect reference to Trump’s trade war against and annexation talk about Canada.
Alberta-born and raised, 55-year-old Morgan said that his home province is "politically and culturally different" than eastern Canada. "There’s a lot more focus on individual freedoms and property rights," he noted, acknowledging that those values are traditionally viewed as American.
"Most Albertans are going to feel much more comfortable sitting down for a beer with people from Great Falls, Montana, than they would in Ottawa," said Morgan. He explained that when Alberta became a Canadian province in 1905, its population grew largely from a migration of Montanans, and when oil was discovered in the 1940s, U.S. companies Chevron and Mobil helped develop what became Alberta’s biggest industry.
Also, earlier this year during an appearance on Real America’s Voice at Davos, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described Alberta as "a natural partner for the U.S." and described Albertans as "very independent people."
In response, Carney said that he "expect[ed] the U.S. administration to respect Canadian sovereignty."
Earlier this month, The Globe and Mail reported that Alberta separatist leaders met with Republican strategists in Calgary in January to look at software designed to identify and mobilize supporters. Separatist leaders also reportedly suggested exchanging water and oil for U.S. support when they met with State Department officials in Washington last year.
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told CBC News that if most Albertans support staying in Canada, she would not hold another referendum on the matter as long as she heads the provincial government.
However, on Oct. 18, 2027, residents of the province will vote again in a general election, and Smith could be out of her job by then, warned Morgan, a founding member of the former conservative Wildrose Party, for which Smith served as leader.
That party merged with the then-Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta in 2020 to form the United Conservative Party (UCP) that Smith heads. But Morgan explained that more than half of the UCP’s nearly 55,000 members support Alberta’s independence. The premier has said that she will vote to keep the province in Canada.
Angus Reid, founder and chairman of the Angus Reid Institute, told Fox News Digital that in his firm’s recent polling, 67% of the 293 UCP voters who support a future binding referendum on separation said that they would either "definitely support" or "consider" supporting the creation of a separatist provincial political party – not unlike the Parti Québécois, which won the recent election in Quebec.
The emergence of an independence party in Alberta "would probably spell the death of the UCP since it is so badly divided between separatists and non-separatists, and it would likely end the career of Danielle Smith because of the amount of breakage in her party," said Reid, whose firm’s survey found that 60% of the respondents who support a future binding referendum are "more likely sending a message to Ottawa" about the Canadian government’s often fractious relationship with Alberta.
"Separatist types are looking at how much leverage Quebec has been able to achieve in Canada as a result of its threats of exiting, and saying ‘Hold it, we can play that game too,’" explained Reid.
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As of Saturday, more than 1.2 million Albertans had cast a ballot on the referendum, which, in addition to the question on separation, has nine others, five focusing on immigration, such as one asking voters whether their province should take more control "for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities."
In a televised statement, Carney described a violent fire that spread rapidly as among the worst tragedies suffered by the Canadian Armed Forces on its territory. He said relatives had been informed and ordered flags on all federal buildings flown at half-mast, expressing solidarity with the families of victims and the injured.
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Among those affected were reservists and soldiers from Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, one of the best-known infantry regiments in the Canadian Army.
Carney promised Canada would support victims and families for as long as needed, care for the injured throughout recovery and back Armed Forces members bearing the loss, saying they would not carry it alone because Canadians take care of one another.
LIVE: Statement on CFB Wainwright • EN DIRECT : Déclaration concernant la BFC Wainwright https://t.co/bMaGN3Xvl7
— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) October 18, 2026
The Department of National Defence previously reported that the fire began around 4:00 p.m. local time Saturday in a training area of the base, located about 200 kilometers southeast of Edmonton, and spread rapidly beyond its boundaries, forcing military and civilian emergency services to deploy.
Global News, citing several military sources, reported that the explosion occurred during a live-fire exercise and may have originated when a projectile hit a gas pipeline or natural gas well. The account has not been officially confirmed. The toll given by Carney was the first official death figure.
The Canadian Armed Forces said Sunday that while the investigation continues, there is no indication the incident resulted from terrorist activity. NASA satellite images from its forest fire monitoring system captured at least seven clusters of fires at the camp in the early hours of Saturday.
Western governments are rebuilding ties with India even as they accuse it of foreign interference and of running intelligence operations against people on their soil. The contradiction was on display October 13, when Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney and India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, reaffirmed plans to expand trade and security cooperation, though underlying security […]
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Prime minister Mark Carney describes blaze as ‘one of the worst tragedies for the forces on Canadian soil in peacetime’
Four people have been killed and dozens more seriously injured after a “violent, fast-moving” fire tore through one of Canada’s busiest military training bases in Alberta, the country’s prime minister said on Sunday.
Mark Carney called the incident “one of the worst tragedies for the forces on Canadian soil in peacetime”.
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© Photograph: John Ulan/The Canadian Press/AP
© Photograph: John Ulan/The Canadian Press/AP
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