Three in four Alberta voters chose to stay in Canada, unofficial results show — the largest margin of its kind in similar secession referendums
Unofficial results from Alberta's independence referendum show three in four voters chose to stay in Canada, a resounding win for the remain side. The 50-point margin is the largest of its kind in similar secession referendums.
That the province would stay was never much in doubt in the polling: on the eve of the referendum call, barely one in five Albertans indicated support for forming a new country. Separatist parties have only ever elected one member to the provincial legislature, a brief stint following a byelection in 1982.
The United Conservative Party has governed Alberta since 2019. Its bylaws give a small group of activists an unusual lever: Article 5.7 allows them to effectively replace the leader after a vote of non-confidence.
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A 50-point margin is the largest of its kind, and the movement on the losing end has elected exactly one member to the provincial legislature in its whole history. Most questions with answers that clear are never asked in the first place, which is the genuinely strange part of this one.
Losing a lopsided vote doesn't necessarily dissolve a coalition. The Conversation Canada describes Alberta's separatists as a far-right populist network of anti-establishment, anti-pluralist factions with more in common with the MAGA movement in the United States than with secessionist movements elsewhere. Dubbing itself a “grassroots party,” the party's organizational structure provides unprecedented access to the leader — hardly the profile of a movement likely to fade politely.