Alberta rejects secession referendum, votes to remain in Canada, CBC projects

Voters in Canada’s oil-rich Alberta province voted down a plan to start a process that would have seen the province split from Canada, CBC estimated early Tuesday, in a blow to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s bid to keep the country united.

As of over 1 million votes counted, nearly 76 percent of voters had opted to stay in Canada and 23 percent voted to begin the process of separating, which could eventually lead to a referendum on independence, The Associated Press reported.

The vote on Monday was non-binding. Voters are being asked to choose between staying as a Canadian province, or meeting the criteria to launch the constitutional process for holding a binding referendum on separation.

Carney told Albertans to vote down the plan, saying it would create years of confusion and conflict if the province left Canada. ‘Vote as if Canada’s future depended on it because it does,’ Carney said at a rally in Edmonton last week, the AP reported.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who held the vote under pressure from separatists within her governing United Conservative Party, has expressed support for staying in Canada.

The vote followed a period of discord with the US over US President Donald Trump’s trade agenda, as well as the US-Canada border, and repeated talk of the US as the 51st state.

Despite the blow for the separatists, their leaders said they would plough on campaigning for independence, citing decades of grievances over federal policies and the oil industry.