Carney met Forever Canadian in Banff before Alberta vote

Prime Minister Mark Carney met volunteers from the Forever Canadian campaign in Banff, Alta., on Sept. 11, 2026, five weeks before Alberta’s referendum. On Oct. 19, about three in four voters chose to keep Alberta in Canada and rejected starting a process toward a binding separation vote, according to early counts.

Updated Oct. 23, 2026, with the referendum result.

Elections Alberta has said it will publish final results on Oct. 29, after a hand count of the 10-question ballot ran past its 48-hour target, as we reported Thursday. Early returns put support for remaining in Canada at about 75 to 76 per cent, Global News reported.

Carney said in a statement after the vote that Albertans “chose unity, to build together, and to take care of each other.” Premier Danielle Smith said Albertans had voted for a stronger Alberta in a united Canada and has ruled out a binding separation referendum while she is premier.

Thomas Lukaszuk, the former deputy premier who founded Forever Canadian, celebrated at the campaign’s Edmonton watch party. He said the result showed the country cannot be broken up, and he criticized the roughly $130-million cost of the vote, arguing Smith could have settled the question in the legislature instead.

The Banff meeting came on the last day of a federal cabinet retreat at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, where the campaign was invited to bring its bright pink recreational vehicle, The Canadian Press reported.

About 50 supporters waved red and white signs as Carney shook hands and bumped fists with Lukaszuk. The prime minister wrote “Canada is everyone and for everyone” on the side of the RV, and the group sang O Canada. Carney did not take reporters’ questions.

Lukaszuk called Carney a calm and reassuring presence for Albertans during trade talks with Washington. He predicted the prime minister would become more personally involved as the campaign went on, and he urged federal Conservative MPs from Alberta to join the remain side, saying unity was not a partisan issue.

The day before, Carney told reporters that Canada was worth fighting for and urged Albertans to vote on Oct. 19, by mail or in advance polls. He described his main role as delivering on his economic agenda for Alberta.

At the retreat’s closing news conference, Emergency Management Minister Eleanor Olszewski, who represents an Edmonton riding, said it was not Ottawa’s job to tell Albertans how to vote, though she said cabinet members were making the case for staying in Canada. Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas credited the federal ministers for listening rather than treating the debate as a transaction.

Carney became more visible in the campaign’s final week. He headlined a Forever Canadian rally in Calgary on Oct. 15 and told about 5,000 people that a vote to leave was a “dangerous bluff,” The Canadian Press reported, as we covered at the time.

The fallout continues inside Alberta politics. Separatist organizer Jeff Rath has said his movement is not going away and is pushing for a special United Conservative Party meeting to test Smith’s leadership, while Peter Guthrie, leader of the Progressive Tory Party of Alberta, said Smith cannot survive the referendum’s fallout. Smith has told separatists in her party to accept its pro-Canada position or find another party.

Results on the other nine questions, which deal with immigration and the Constitution, are also due with the final count. Reaction from both leaders on referendum night is in our results story.

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