Alberta Separatists Wooing Trump Officials May Not Be Treason, But It’s Close

Political scientist warned six months ago that U.S. interference was already underway. He now fears a Trump-style attack on the legitimacy of Alberta’s Oct. 19 referendum

Alberta separatists seeking support from political figures in the United States are engaging in foreign interference, but their actions do not meet the legal definition of treason, says Mount Royal University professor Duane Bratt.

Bratt was responding to a Globe and Mail investigation detailing contacts between Alberta separatist leaders and figures connected to the Trump administration. The report has generated outrage across Canada and renewed questions about American involvement in Alberta’s separatist movement.

“This is political interference. But it doesn’t rise to the issue of treason,” Bratt told Energi Media publisher Markham Hislop.

Bratt said Canadian history includes numerous examples of political movements seeking support outside the country, including Quebec separatists lobbying Washington and Paris. What concerns him more is the willingness of American political actors to engage with Alberta separatists.

“I’m more concerned about the American response, the American political response,” he said.

Globe investigation finds cross-border campaign

The Globe and Mail investigation found something much more extensive than a handful of conversations in Washington. Republican political operatives travelled to Alberta to assist the separatist campaign, while separatist leaders made repeated approaches to the U.S. State Department seeking American support for an independent Alberta.

According to the Globe, Alberta Prosperity Project leaders met U.S. officials at State Department headquarters three times last year. Dennis Modry, a co-founder of the organization, said the separatists brought proposals outlining how an independent Alberta could deepen its economic relationship with the United States. The ideas included access to Alberta fresh water, oil royalties, new pipelines through the United States, land for a rail corridor to Alaska and possible U.S. financial assistance during the transition to independence.

Another separatist leader, Jeff Rath, disputed Modry’s account. He told the Globe those specific proposals were not discussed with State Department officials and said the meetings dealt generally with Alberta’s aspirations for independence. The White House also told the newspaper that no support or commitments were offered.

The investigation also uncovered a second American connection inside Alberta. Republican strategists from Michigan travelled to Calgary in January to demonstrate 10X Votes, voter-targeting software developed to mobilize Republican voters. David Parker, a prominent Alberta political organizer and separatist, brokered the meeting and later promoted an Alberta version of the technology through his Centurion Project.

That project became embroiled in a major privacy controversy. The Globe found that its database contained names and addresses for almost three million Albertans, along with other personal information. Elections Alberta alleged in court that the project had improperly accessed the provincial voters list, while a federal national-security assessment obtained by the Globe showed officials were concerned about the breach.

The investigation portrays these events as part of a broader pattern: Alberta separatists seeking American political and tactical support while figures in Republican and Trump-aligned circles increasingly discuss Alberta independence or even annexation. That is the context for Bratt’s distinction between treason and foreign political interference.

Bratt warned about U.S. interference in April

Six months ago, Bratt was already warning Energi Media that American involvement in an Alberta referendum was not hypothetical.

“There will be clear American interference in this. There already has been,” he said in an April interview.

Bratt placed the risk in a longer history of foreign involvement in Canadian politics. He pointed to tensions between the Kennedy administration and the Diefenbaker government in the early 1960s, Charles de Gaulle’s support for Quebec separatism in 1967 and the Clinton administration’s support for a united Canada before the 1995 Quebec referendum.

But he argued Alberta could be different.

“We’ve seen these examples before, but the scale and scope of what we would see in Alberta dwarfs all of these,” Bratt said.

He also connected the issue to the broader Canadian debate over foreign interference, noting that the Hogue Commission examined interference by China, Russia, Iran and India and treated foreign interference as a national security concern.

Trump’s silence

Bratt pointed to another curiosity: Donald Trump has publicly commented on almost every major Canadian political controversy, yet has said nothing about Alberta separatism.

“Donald Trump, who opines on everything, hasn’t said anything about Alberta separatism,” Bratt said. “And I find that absolutely striking.”

Bratt said other figures on the American right are aware of the movement, while cross-border links between conservative and Christian nationalist organizations are not new.

Those connections sit inside a separatist movement that has developed its own organizations and communications networks. In earlier Energi Media interviews, Bratt traced part of the movement’s current activist base to the post-COVID freedom movement and argued that alternative media and podcasts have helped sustain separatist narratives among highly engaged audiences.

He has also argued that Alberta’s constitutional debate extends beyond the separation question itself. In September, Bratt pointed to other referendum proposals involving immigration, the Senate, judicial appointments, federal spending power and provincial supremacy. He traced those ideas in part to the 2021 Free Alberta Strategy and warned they could produce an Alberta that was effectively “independent in all but name.”

A ‘Stop the Steal’ problem?

Bratt sees signs the separatist campaign itself is struggling, including infighting among its leaders. But he does not expect the movement to disappear after Oct. 19.

“This isn’t going away no matter what the result is,” he said.

That concern predates the latest controversy. After the Calgary-Shaw byelection in September, Bratt told Energi Media that organized separatist networks could survive a referendum defeat because they had organizations, money and an ongoing political cause. He was already watching separatist voices question the legitimacy of Alberta’s electoral system and draw on narratives familiar from U.S. politics.

Now his greatest concern is what happens when the referendum votes are counted.

More than 650,000 mail-in ballots could be counted late, he said. That creates the possibility that early results show a relatively close federalist result before mail ballots substantially change the margin.

Separatists are already raising doubts about the process, according to Bratt.

“It’s rigged. It’s unbelievable. Stop the steal,” he said, describing the kind of rhetoric he expects if late-counted ballots substantially change the result.

He does not expect violence resembling the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. But he fears the political response could echo Donald Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 election defeat.

“The political response after Trump’s election defeat is going to be identical,” Bratt said. “And that’s what keeps me up at night.”

Danielle Smith’s balancing act

The referendum also creates a problem for Premier Danielle Smith. Bratt said she continues to accommodate separatist sentiment while simultaneously working with Prime Minister Mark Carney on energy, trade and economic diversification.

Bratt argues Carney’s push for LNG expansion, pipelines and closer economic relationships with Europe and Asia is primarily a response to the rupture with the United States, rather than Alberta separatism. But demonstrating that Canada can still deliver economically for Alberta strengthens the federalist argument.

Smith faces the opposite political problem inside her own coalition. Bratt said UCP supporters include both separatists and committed federalists.

“I don’t know how she keeps them together,” he said.

Bratt also argues Christian nationalism is an underappreciated element of the separatist movement. He said fundamentalist Christianity, scripture and links with American churches are important influences on some activists.

Albertans who see separatism only as a dispute about pipelines, equalization or Senate representation, he said, are missing a larger argument about what kind of country some separatist leaders want Alberta to become.

End note

1. Duane Bratt: Why Duane Bratt Debated Derek Fildebrandt About Alberta Separatism. Watch on Energi Media YouTube.
2. Duane Bratt: Why Duane Bratt Agreed to Debate Alberta Separatists. Watch on Energi Media YouTube.
3. Who’s driving the Alberta rage machine? The same activists behind COVID-19 opposition. Read on Energi Media.
4. Alberta separatism could deliver “devastating economic blow” – economist. Read on Energi Media.
5. Jared Wesley: Alberta Should Lead Canada, Not Leave It. Read on Energi Media.
6. Alberta Separatism Is Reviving Canadian Patriotism, Says Thomas Lukaszuk. Read on Energi Media.