Albertans seem to have turned down a path toward separation from Canada by a margin of roughly three to one. At 6:55 AM PT on Tuesday, Oct. 20 (7:55 AM MT), Elections Alberta’s unofficial results page showed 1,382,443 votes for Option 1, “Alberta should remain a province in Canada,” and 448,400 for Option 2, under which the Government of Alberta “should commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.” The page listed 4,500 of 5,586 polls reporting. This desk worked out the shares from those counts at about 75.5% for Remain and 24.5% for the referendum option. The vote did not ask directly about independence; Al Jazeera, in a report written with AP and Reuters, says the second option would have set Alberta on a path toward a future vote on separation.

News outlets called the question overnight and kept updating the margin into the morning. CBC News, in a story by Joel Dryden, says its Decision Desk projects a “remain” win, and that with more than one million votes counted as of 12:30 a.m., 76.5% favoured “remain” and 23.5% the referendum option. The CBC live page later said that with more than 1.8 million votes counted as of 7:10 a.m., “remain” led with 75.7% against 24.3%. Al Jazeera says that with around 1.8 million votes counted, about 76% supported remaining in Canada and 24% backed beginning a process that could lead to separation. The BBC live page says early figures show about three-quarters of voters chose to stay. The small spread among these figures seems to track the time of each snapshot and each outlet’s rounding.

Premier Danielle Smith, who CBC says declared from the start that she would vote to remain, welcomed the count. “I’m very pleased to see the initial results from Elections Alberta show widespread support for remaining in Canada. Albertans have voted for a stronger Alberta in a united Canada,” she wrote on X. The CBC article says she plans to address Albertans on Tuesday evening at 6:45 p.m. about the results and “where our province goes from here,” and the CBC live page gives the time as 6:45 p.m. MT, which works out to 5:45 PM PT. That address had not taken place when this story went up, so this story carries nothing from it. CBC also says Smith said earlier this month that if Albertans voted to remain, she would not hold a second independence referendum as long as she stayed premier; Global News says she promised a simple 50% plus one majority would carry the day and no follow-up referendum for the rest of her government’s mandate.

Prime Minister Mark Carney framed the outcome as a vote for unity. The BBC live page carries his statement in full; it opens: “On October 19, Albertans made a clear choice. They chose unity, to build together, and to take care of each other.” It goes on: “Above all, Albertans chose Canada.” Carney also points to “unleashing our full potential as a global energy superpower with Alberta at its core,” and says: “Canada is so much greater than the sum of its parts.” Carney’s post on X carries the statement as an image, so this desk read its words through the BBC, which matches the wording CBC and Global News quote. Al Jazeera calls the result a much-needed win for Carney as he tries to unify the country during the trade war with the United States, and says he has partnered with Smith on a new pipeline to export more Alberta bitumen overseas. CBC says Carney, on a stop in Alberta last week, suggested Albertans should vote “No to the Nine,” the slogan of a federalist advertising campaign against the other nine questions.

Leaders across Canada weighed in. Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said on social media that “Albertans have decisively voted for a stronger Alberta within a united Canada,” CBC News reports, and added: “Now our focus must be on results in people’s lives: affordable food and homes, safe streets, strong borders, and less immigration.” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said in a post on X that Alberta voters had chosen a “stronger, more prosperous” future, per CBC. British Columbia Premier David Eby said, according to the BBC: “We may argue, but we stick together.” Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi posted, per Global News: “Thank you! We saved Canada. Now, we save Alberta.”

Leaders of the independence side say they will keep going, and some now aim at Smith’s hold on her own party. “Our movement isn’t going anywhere,” Jeffrey Rath, co-founder of the Alberta Prosperity Project, told Global News, which says he wants a special general meeting of the United Conservative Party on whether Smith still has the confidence of its base. “There needs to be a serious discussion within the party as to whether or not we want to continue to be led by a federalist,” Rath said, according to CBC News. Speaking to the BBC World Service, Rath called the vote a “first step,” the BBC live page says, and when asked whether his movement would keep pushing for votes until it got the result it wanted, he replied: “Why not?” Keith Wilson, co-leader of the pro-independence group Let Alberta Decide, said, per CBC: “Tonight concludes a campaign, but the conversation about Alberta's future in Canada, and our place in Canada, and our role in Canada, will continue.”

Not every separatist voice wants the governing party to carry the cause. Cory Morgan, founder of the third-party advertiser Pathway to Independence, rejected the idea that the UCP should turn into a separatist party: “To be blunt, that’s pretty stupid when 75 per cent of the province said they don’t want to go that route,” he said on CBC Radio, according to the CBC live page, which says he wants an advocacy group rather than a party to speak for the movement. On the federalist side, Forever Canadian founder Thomas Lukaszuk told a watch party “Don’t mess with Canada!” Global News reports, while also faulting the cost of the vote: “We just spent $130 million in our referendum, plus additional dollars, that will add up for nothing.” He urged outreach to the other side, CBC says: “As Canadians, as Albertans, we cannot go on fighting with each other.” Calgary Chamber of Commerce president Deborah Yedlin said, per CBC: “The results provide much needed certainty for businesses to move forward with hiring, planning and investing for the future.”

The other nine questions show a different pattern. At 6:55 AM PT, Elections Alberta’s results page showed “yes” at about 55.8% on question 1 (on immigration control, 1,241,907 ballots counted), 56.5% on question 2, 58.5% on question 3, 57.1% on question 4 and 63.2% on question 5 (proof of citizenship to vote), by this desk’s arithmetic. The constitutional questions sat closer to even: about 51.2% yes on question 6 (provincial choice of judges), 53.2% on question 7 (abolishing the Senate), 48.6% on question 8 (opting out of federal programs, where “no” leads) and 50.6% on question 9, with roughly 790,000 to 871,000 ballots counted on each. Global News says Smith has said she needs a yes on those nine questions to get a mandate to bargain with Carney. University of Calgary political scientist Melanee Thomas told CBC Radio, per the CBC live page: “Preliminary results are looking like she's gotten at least tepid, if not pretty warm, endorsement for almost everything.” She added: “I think it solidifies her leadership position for the time being.”

The count runs on a set timetable. Elections Alberta says it counts question 10 first, then questions 1 to 9 in order, and that the Referendum (General) Regulation requires counts to finish and unofficial results to appear within 48 hours of the confirmed close of all voting locations; its referendum page sets the official announcement of results for Oct. 29 at 10:00 AM. Global News says Elections Alberta hired more than 48,000 workers to count ballots around the clock and that results on the nine questions should come by Wednesday. The BBC, citing Elections Alberta, says each voting station has eight people counting by hand at about 400 ballots per hour. Accounts of the last poll closing differ: the CBC live page says in one entry that Elections Alberta put it around 10:40 p.m. MT, quotes agency spokesperson Kevin Duncan saying stations stayed open as late as 10:41 p.m., and says in another entry that the final stations closed just after 11 p.m.

Turnout and regional patterns remain partial. CBC News says Elections Alberta had projected a record turnout of 80% to 85%, against 60.5% in the last provincial election, and that more than 1.3 million people voted early at advance polls or by mail; Global News puts that figure at more than 1.35 million, including 519,082 mail-in ballots received by the cut-off date. This desk did not see a final turnout figure on the results page. The CBC live page says that as of 2:30 a.m. local time, Option 2 led in only one riding, Central Peace-Notley in northwestern Alberta, at 51.1% with 88.3% of its polls reporting. Al Jazeera says Alberta’s independence push drew interest from allies of U.S. President Donald Trump, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and that Elon Musk posted on X that Alberta “should separate”; this desk did not look up those original remarks.