\u201cWe\u2019ve learned a lot of lessons from this fight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
At the federalist election night party in Edmonton before the results were announced, a band warmed up before an anticipated positive result.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was amazing to see the enthusiasm and resolve among Canadians,\u201d said Thomas Lukaszuk, who heads Forever Canadian, the group that campaigned across the province for national unity.<\/p>\n
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, a conservative, said she voted against independence but called the referendum to settle an issue that has divided the province.<\/p>\n
She has said a federalist win would close the secession question.<\/p>\n
Foreign influence?<\/p>\n
Alberta has the world\u2019s fourth-largest proven oil reserves, and much of the separatist momentum has been driven by anger over oil industry management.<\/p>\n
Smith has blamed Carney\u2019s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, for igniting the separatist fire, accusing him of trying to crush oil production to advance his pro-climate agenda.<\/p>\n
Alberta\u2019s independence push has also drawn sustained interest from Trump allies.<\/p>\n
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Alberta a \u201cnatural partner\u201d for the United States. Elon Musk, the world\u2019s richest person and a top Trump supporter, posted on X this month that Alberta \u201cshould separate\u201d.<\/p>\n
Separatist leaders also held meetings at the US State Department and received advice from Republican political operatives.<\/p>\n
\u2018Huge uncertainty\u2019<\/p>\n
Carney, who grew up in Alberta, has worked to improve relations between the province and Ottawa since taking office last year.<\/p>\n
He has partnered with Smith on advancing a new pipeline to export more Alberta bitumen overseas, a project considered a non-starter during Trudeau\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n
Alberta Prosperity Project leader Mitch Sylvestre told AFP earlier on Monday that Carney had \u201cthreatened\u201d the province in the closing days of the campaign.<\/p>\n
Carney\u2019s message was \u201cvoting against Canada is dangerous\u201d, Sylvestre said, calling that \u201cvery unreasonable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Haley Erdegard, a 44-year-old who voted in Edmonton, voiced discomfort with the idea advanced by some separatists that Alberta is forced to share too much of its oil revenue with the rest of Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we probably need to put some more work towards co-operation before making rash decisions about trying to start our own country,\u201d she told AFP.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019ve learned a lot of lessons from this fight,\u201d he said. At the federalist election night party in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3225,276,3458,34609,311920,275,13303,56453,2178,2245,7469,42,25993,2845,5268,1073,43,90,2170,2572,29141,89060,275735,22053,258034,48656,40,38,41,39,2179,14578,5905],"class_list":["post-636293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-according","tag-alberta","tag-allies","tag-backed","tag-binding","tag-canada","tag-canadas","tag-comfortably","tag-donald","tag-early","tag-forecasts","tag-headlines","tag-independence","tag-leaving","tag-lose","tag-media","tag-news","tag-on","tag-plan","tag-president","tag-projected","tag-province","tag-referendum","tag-reject","tag-separatists","tag-setback","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trump","tag-tuesday","tag-vote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}