On Monday, Albertans voted overwhelmingly to remain in Canada. A million and a half voters wanted to stay, while only half a million wanted to at least vote later on leaving.

The exact final numbers are still being counted—see the end of this newsletter for the latest tallies.

The Walrus was there following the twists and turns with live coverage all day, and editor-in-chief Carmine Starnino has a referendum post-mortem now that the dust has settled.

On Tuesday night, Danielle Smith announced to the public that there will be no more votes on separating—as long as she is premier.

That last part may be the rub. 

Danielle Smith won… or did she? 

After their resounding defeat on Monday, many separatist activists have concluded that Smith’s faithlessness is the barrier to their success. Jeffrey Rath in particular has been vocal about seeking to have Smith’s party leadership reviewed. 

Smith got what she wanted on Monday: a clear vote to remain, but slight wins on most of the anti-immigration and anti-federal undercard questions. She (and Pierre Poilievre) are now using those as a mandate against Ottawa and a rallying point for their bases. 

But those Conservatives’ Alberta bases are far more supportive of separation than the general electorate. That split has seemingly led Poilievre to hang back throughout the process—and for good reason. 

The base-versus-general-public divide has tanked Smith’s polling numbers in the referendum lead-up, with many voters on each side believing she works for the other. And it now jeopardizes her leadership. 

Canada won… or did it? 

If even Smith may not be a winner here, who is?

Carmine Starnino argues that the whole thing made losers of us all. It’s been a “colossal failure, morally, intellectually, and constitutionally,” he writes, that made “narrowly transactional gripes about policy” into a case to dismantle a country.

Quebec separatist referendums, Starnino also writes, clearly emerged from the big and fundamental question of whether Canada could contain a distinct French-speaking society.

Albertan separatism, meanwhile, is the recent (and exaggerated) result of “an angry faction persuading itself that federal laws amount to subjugation.”

It asked “Why are we putting up with this? rather than Who are we?”

But answers about who we are may still have to come. 

See the preliminary referendum ballot results here.

One divide in identity that became clear in the referendum results was the split between the big cities and rural areas. Those further-out regions are places where people feel unheard—and places The Walrus is interested to bring you closer to.

This year, alongside our Alberta coverage, we’ve had stories on the big issues in smaller and remote regions throughout this vast (and, for now, intact) country, including:

• A plan to build the world’s largest nuclear power station in Wesleyville, Ontario

• The surge in cocaine-related deaths in Atlantic Canada

• The load-bearing blue-jug infrastructure in the Yukon