As Alberta Rejects Canada Separatism, Carney Gets Much of the Credit

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News Analysis

Prime Minister Mark Carney won over Canada’s most conservative province by promising a pipeline and campaigning hard, defeating its efforts to secede.

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· 5:36 min

Oct. 20, 2026

For Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, the decision by oil-rich Alberta to ask voters whether to remain in Canada or hold a second, binding referendum on secession came, as he put it last week, “at the worst possible time.”

But timing aside, Monday’s resounding vote to keep the western province within Canada both strengthens national unity and eliminates a significant distraction as Mr. Carney works to form new global alliances in the face of the trade and diplomatic war that President Trump has waged against Canada since he returned to office.

After months of campaigning, 75.2 percent of Albertans voted to remain in Canada, while 24.8 percent favored holding a second, binding vote on separation, according to unofficial results.

Neither Mr. Carney nor his Liberal government had a formal role in the referendum, which was called by Danielle Smith, Alberta’s conservative premier. But many analysts attributed the strong vote for Canada to policies Mr. Carney, who was raised in the province, introduced over the past year and to his campaigning for continued unity here.

“Carney was huge,” said Duane Bratt, a professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, who studies Alberta politics. “His working with Smith really took the wind out of separatism, and that’s why the separatists were just flailing.”

He added, “Mark Carney is the most popular politician in the province right now.”

Even after accounting for Mr. Carney’s upbringing in Edmonton, for a Liberal prime minister to enjoy outsize popularity is an anomaly in Alberta, the home of Canadian conservatism, where Conservative candidates frequently win federal elections in landslides.

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