Alberta Voted to Stay in Canada. Québec's Reasons to Leave Are a Different Set.
Albertans voted overwhelmingly to remain in Canada rather than begin a process for a second, binding referendum on independence. Polls put the stay vote at 76 per cent of Alberta voters, an even higher figure than pre-referendum surveys in which more than 70 per cent of Albertans said they wanted to remain in Canada.
What Alberta wants from Ottawa is a specific list: its grievances focus on federal economic, energy and climate policies, immigration and political representation. Québec's concern is different in kind — the protection of its distinctive language and culture in an anglo-dominated North America.
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The Alberta result answers one question and parks it; by 2030, people in Québec could face a similar choice. In a country where the constitutional question keeps finding new clothes, four years is a long time for that prospect to be repriced.
The backdrop is more interesting than a straight tariff story: these referendum debates played out as Canada–U.S. relations sit at a low ebb amid Trump's talk of making Canada the 51st state and waves of tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian exports. Alberta is among the least affected by those tariffs because its oil, gas and beef exports are exempted, which makes economic punishment a strange engine for the province's independence vote.