Alberta’s Separatist Movement Is a National Security Threat

When does a separatist movement become a threat to Canada’s national security?

This is a question hanging in the air in Alberta. People are asking how it can possibly be that the very same individuals who are leading the separatist movement can also be three meetings deep into a relationship with senior officials of the Donald Trump administration in Washington, with a fourth scheduled for this month.

Treason. Sedition. Traitorous. These are words that are ricocheting around the radio talk shows and the social media channels.

In the aftermath of the United States’ move on Venezuela, people are genuinely concerned that Canada could also be “on the menu.” There is a growing recognition that resource imperialism has become the basic orienting principle of US grand strategy. And that Canada, as a resource-rich and militarily poor nation, has become exceptionally vulnerable to it.

A sovereignty referendum engineered by a group known as the Alberta Prosperity Project at a time like this takes on exceptional, existential risk to Canada’s continuance as a sovereign nation in the western hemisphere.

It’s important, therefore, to understand where the line between political movement and national security threat is drawn in Canada.

It is, as we know, entirely legal in Canada to advocate and campaign in support of a province or territory leaving confederation. This is covered by the Clarity Act but also by the Charter, which protects the rights of citizens to free expression, assembly, and association.

Any organic political movement that is based in a genuine desire to achieve an outcome of their design is free to pursue that through whatever lawful means are available to them. Foreign interference in such movements, however, is where the line between lawful advocacy and dissent crosses into territory that constitutes a threat to Canada’s national security.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act is clear on this. CSIS itself does not have a mandate to investigate “lawful advocacy, protest or dissent” unless these forms of activity are carried on in conjunction with the range of activities which the act defines as threats to the security of Canada.

Those threats include espionage or sabotage harmful to Canada’s interests; covert or deceptive foreign-influenced activities that undermine Canada or threaten individuals; support for or direction of serious violence against people or property to achieve political, religious, or ideological goals; and covert, unlawful acts aimed at undermining, overthrowing, or destroying Canada’s constitutionally established system of government through violence. In short, the act draws a clear line between protected democratic activity and conduct that involves foreign interference, secrecy, violence, or efforts to subvert the state itself.

In relation to separatist movements, Canada has grappled with where the line between political movement and national security threat can be drawn in the past. In the late 1960s, through the Royal Commission on Security, this issue was addressed in the context of the Quebec separatist movement.

The Commission argued that separatism in Quebec, pursued legally and democratically, should be dealt with in a political rather than a security context. But, were evidence of anti-democratic, subversive, or seditious intentions or “any suggestion of foreign influence” to be present, then that did necessitate treating the issue as one of national security. At the very least this ought to compel the government to “take adequate steps to inform itself of any such threats.”

The threat environment of the time was remarkably simple by comparison to today. Back then, the Commission assessed that the “main security threats to Canada are posed by international communism, and the communist powers, and by some elements of the Quebec separatist movement.” It recommended that security policy concerning separatism should be clearly stated and that the federal government should be seen to be taking steps to prevent the infiltration of the Quebec separatist movement “by persons who are clearly committed to the dissolution of Canada, or who are involved with elements of the separatist movement in which seditious activity or foreign involvement are factors.”

The Commission’s findings and recommendations remain instructive today. The line between political movement and national security threat is highly charged in the current context in Alberta. Any hint of federal “overreach” or “monitoring” of the situation will further inflame the separatist movement and lead to politicization allegations against the security agencies.

The questions then become, one, is there just cause for the security agencies to become involved at this point? And, two, what should they be looking to achieve through this involvement?

The answer to the first question appears to hang entirely on the presence of a foreign element of influence or interference in the domestic political movement. The answer to the second question amounts to CSIS beginning collection efforts in order to provide the government with intelligence briefs on the nature of the threat posed by that foreign involvement in the domestic political movement.

Should evidence of criminality present through the course of CSIS’s work, they would be expected to provide notice to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who would then have the option to investigate with the view toward criminal prosecution for crimes that could include sedition, treason, or espionage.

Beyond this, it does not appear as though there are many options for Canada to deal with the separatist issue other than to allow it to run its course and hope for the best.

The only other option is a potential use of a brand new federal law called the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act that would compel the APP to disclose any arrangement they have with any foreign principals, including any communications and financial relations related to the political process of the referendum.

However, this law only received royal assent in 2024, and the Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement and the proposed regulations were just published in the Gazette on January 3 of this year. The consultation period for the regulations continues until February 3, after which point—and presuming the consultations do not require major amendments—it is possible that these regulations would come into force and have bearing on any foreign interference related to the referendum.

The open information on the US’s involvement with the APP comes from two sources.

First, on November 15, 2025, Trump strategist Steve Bannon hosted an individual named Brandon Weichert on his show that streams on Real America’s Voice. Weichert, the senior national security editor for the conservative foreign affairs publication The National Interest, argues that Trump’s talk of Canada as a “fifty-first state” is not merely rhetorical provocation but a coded reference to Alberta, which he calls “the linchpin.”

While Trump may be “having a little fun,” he says, the real message is directed at Alberta’s separatist and prosperity movements, whose leaders he claims have “already met twice now with the State Department.” He predicts Albertans are “ready to vote in the next six months,” asserting they will leave the Canadian union, become “an independent state, independent country,” and then be recognized by the US, placing them “on the pathway to becoming the fifty-first state.”

Alberta’s appeal, he says, lies in its “bevy of untapped critical minerals,” “the world’s largest geothermal energy resources,” and major oil and gas deposits, as well as its strategic position as “a gateway to the Arctic,” linking Canada, Greenland, and the polar regions to US hemispheric defence.

Weichert goes on from talking about Alberta as the linchpin to America’s annexation of Canada and the Canadian Arctic to accurately predicting that the Trump administration would take Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro out six weeks before it actually happened. There is, therefore, credibility to his statement that should not be overlooked in Canada simply because it was made on Bannon’s show.

The second data point we can add to understanding whether the APP is a political movement—that should be treated as such—or a movement working in concert with foreign actors looking to interfere in a Canadian domestic political process comes from an interview with Jeffrey Rath, the APP’s lawyer and primary spokesman.

Rath’s interview with independent journalist Rachel Parker—which was uploaded to her YouTube channel in late December and has since had over 80,000 views—provides a fulsome account of the scope of the third meeting he and his APP partners had with Trump officials.

Across the interview, Rath repeatedly suggests that the Alberta Prosperity Project is no longer engaging at the margins of the US government. He implies that the individuals he is meeting with are in direct reporting lines to the president—or at least close enough that the substance of those meetings reaches the Oval Office in near real time. Either way, this should be interpreted to mean that these officials are Trump appointees in high-ranking positions—likely at the secretary or undersecretary level.

The setting of the most recent meeting reinforces that claim. Rath describes a multi-hour discussion held inside a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. A SCIF is a secure room in which sensitive or classified state business occurs. SCIFs are designed with advanced soundproofing, reinforced doors and locks, and keypad access controls. To enter a SCIF, one must shed all technology from their person, including cellphones, smart watches, wireless headphones, laptops, tablets—you get the idea. Nothing that can be turned into a listening device or that a camera gets inside.

Meetings that take place in SCIFs are typically of a classified nature and are usually between government officials with requisite security clearances. It is unusual to have individuals without security clearances in a SCIF.

For US State Department officials to meet with the APP in a SCIF suggests they viewed the content of the meeting as occurring at a classified level and were attempting to shield the contents of the discussion from any foreign signals intelligence agencies that might have an interest in eavesdropping on the meeting.

Rath indicates that the meeting lasted several hours and focused on “the ways the US government could support Alberta independence when the timing was right.” The implication is stark: that the US government has held multiple meetings—including at least one in a classified environment—with a Canadian separatist movement to discuss the dismemberment of a close ally. Even if no commitments were made, the progression Rath describes suggests a sustained, continued, and escalating interest in assisting the Alberta Prosperity Project in achieving its objective of an independent Alberta and a divided Canada.

The US National Security Strategy provides insights into why this would be the case. Outlining what it calls the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, the NSS explains that the intention of the strategy is to make it clear that the US will assert dominance over the western hemisphere. The way they intend to do so was demonstrated very clearly, in the early hours of Saturday, January 3, when the US invaded Venezuela, removed its president and his wife to face trial in New York’s southern district court, and declared that they would now run the country in order to rescue the world’s largest oil reserve from underproduction.

Part of President Trump’s justification for the takeover was that the “oil business in Venezuela had been a bust.” Trump said in his address to the nation on the morning of January 3 that “the future will be determined by the ability to protect commerce and territory and resources that are core to national security.” Other countries in the hemisphere that are not living up to Trump’s standards for oil production or law enforcement could be subject to similar intervention. Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia have already been put on notice, as has Greenland. The “Donroe Doctrine” of hegemonic dominance over the hemisphere is now in play. We ignore this warning shot at our peril.

Rath also shared the belief that “the landlocking of Alberta’s resources is being done at the behest of the Communist Chinese, and the Americans see it within their national interest, both under the Monroe doctrine, which has been around forever, and their new National Security Strategy to support Alberta independence and freeing the third largest oil field in the world from control by the Communist Chinese.”

First, it should go without saying that this assertion that Ottawa—as a monolith—is somehow being controlled by China is both false and dangerous. It is troubling that Rath believes that members of Trump’s inner circle view the Alberta oil reserves as somehow being held under the thumb of a Canadian government controlled by the Chinese. This is a false narrative that could be propagated against the Mark Carney government as justification for other forms of interference and further pressure from the Trump administration. A key theme in the US NSS is that asserting dominance in the hemisphere means driving out the influence of US adversaries, namely China.

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One of the more detailed and extraordinary sections of the interview refers to discussions that go well beyond post-referendum recognition: immediate construction of a west coast pipeline, currency support, pension guarantees, conversion of Alberta pensions at parity with US dollars, and a feasibility study for a $500-billion line of credit backed by the full faith and credit of the US Treasury and collateralized against Alberta oil resources.

It speaks to the level of thought and planning that has gone into the US’s eventual involvement in seeing Alberta separate from Canada. This goes beyond a guarantee of recognition post-referendum to something approaching an offer to pawn Alberta’s oil and gas resources for the financial wherewithal required to start a new nation state.

This bargain is not underpinned by benign recognition by a democratic state of a distinct society’s oppression within a particular regime it seeks relief from. Quite the contrary, this is based on a thirst for resource extraction and the creation of an opportunity by an aligned movement in Canada to help the Trump administration realize it’s objective of turning the country (or at least one province of it) into its fifty-first state. This aligns with the US NSS. We have now seen one stunning example of how that strategy is going to be implemented.

The US NSS states that “we will reward and encourage the region’s governments, political parties, and movements broadly aligned with our principles and strategy.” In other words, it intends to interfere in the domestic politics of other countries—and to do so in a way designed to empower MAGA-adjacent voices.

In Alberta, one of those voices is the APP. They are an entity that bills itself as an “educational society.” But they are also in regular contact with Trump officials and are planning a fourth visit to Washington to further their organization’s work with the US administration to facilitate Alberta’s separation from Canada. Rath holds neither office nor diplomatic credentials. He’s been elected by no one in the province of Alberta.

And yet his entire interview with Parker speaks to the progressive development of a burgeoning relationship with the Trump administration. It suggests that a detailed policy-planning process has taken place, as well as a commitment on the part of the Trump administration to advance the Alberta separatist movement’s message and political objectives. This telegraphs that we can and should expect that the APP messaging will be amplified by the Trump administration and their proxies throughout the course of the petition process and, if successful, throughout the referendum process.

Indeed, the recent remarks by US treasury secretary Scott Bessent suggest that this is very much part of the strategy of foreign interference the US intends to pursue through the vehicle of the APP and the runaway referendum they have succeeded in co-opting the United Conservative Party to pursue.

The federal government and Canada’s security and intelligence community will be hesitant to wade into this territory. Now is not the time for temerity. The clock is ticking on a time-bomb referendum that has and will continue to bring US foreign interference into a crucial Canadian domestic political process through the conduit of the Alberta Prosperity Project.

This will come in the form of financial support through grey channels, through messaging support, through manipulation of social media (most controlled by the US tech bros who are clearly aligned with the Trump administration), through human resources in the form of “volunteers” (in his interview, Rath describes an imminent mobilization of 50,000 people and a target of 1.5 million signatures), through training on how to conduct the politicking on the ground and at the doors, through promises and guarantees as discussed above, and eventually, if necessary, even through the use of force if the example of Venezuela is anything to go on.

The lines between lawful advocacy and bona fide threat to national security, in this case, may have seemed somewhat unclear before. That should no longer be the case.

Adapted from “When does a separatist movement become a threat to Canada’s national security?” by Patrick Lennox (Substack). Reprinted with permission of the author.