Separatists push for a referendum on Canadian independence. Meetings with foreign officials were seen as sympathetic to their cause. Charges of treason and sedition.
In the lead-up to the 1995 referendum, leaders of Quebec’s independence movement made a series of provocative proposals to foreign governments, including a visit to France by the province’s premier. The mayor of Paris gave Quebec MP Jacques Parizeau a well-deserved welcome from the country’s leader, a move that angered anglophone Canada.
Thirty years later, reports of a more clandestine visit to the United States by a group of would-be separatists from the western province of Alberta prompted a similar backlash, reigniting longstanding concerns about foreign involvement in domestic unity debates.
Related: Canadian separatists charged with ‘treason’ after secret talks with US State Department
“It’s an old-fashioned way of saying that you’re going to foreign countries to ask for help to divide Canada,” British Columbia Premier David Eby told reporters. “That word is treason.”
Andre Lekus, a political science professor at the University of Ottawa, said primitive diplomacy – the act of seeking support from sympathetic states – is often practiced by separatist movements around the world.
“There are certainly criticisms of this, but when actively preparing for an independence referendum, leaders often look abroad to try to gain sympathy or support. They want some sign or assurance that a foreign country is willing to recognize their independence.”
But he said recently disclosed contacts between members of Alberta’s nascent independence movement and the Trump administration bear little substantive similarity to Quebec’s attempts in the 1990s.
“What’s different about this movement is that none of these people associated with Alberta’s fight for independence are democratically elected. They don’t hold any public office,” LeCours said. “While I am extremely reluctant to use the word ‘treason,’ I find it odd that the Trump administration would meet with unelected officials. They have no formal democratic legitimacy.”
No pro-independence parties hold seats in the province’s legislative assembly. Only one separatist has ever been successfully elected in Alberta (a by-election victory in 1982), but lost the subsequent general election.
None of the members of the separatist forces in Alberta are elected officials. Support for independence is also lukewarm in the province: a recent poll of Albertans showed some 18 per cent support leaving Canada. Prominent Alberta politicians, including former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and two former Alberta premiers, have rejected the idea of independence, instead calling for national unity amid a diplomatic turmoil with the United States.
Danielle Smith, the current right-wing premier of Alberta, has also come out against secession, although critics say her call for “a strong and sovereign Alberta within a united Canada” only muddies the issue.
In Quebec, by contrast, five premiers ran and won provincial elections on an explicitly separatist platform. The pro-independence Parti Québécois is widely expected to win the next provincial election in October and has pledged to hold a third referendum.
Canadian law allows groups to advocate and advocate for leaving a province or territory in the country. In Alberta, members of the pro-independence movement have been traveling across the province trying to collect nearly 178,000 signatures by May. But recent allegations that independence activists have repeatedly met with government officials increasingly hostile to Canada’s sovereignty have fueled speculation that the movement could pose a threat to Canada’s national security.
While Quebec’s pro-independence politicians have made overtures to France, the country’s stance on the province is “Not indifferent, not indifferent”—the official policy of neutrality.
But Donald Trump has threatened to annex Canada and turn it into the 51st state – a move that appears to be popular with leaders of the Alberta independence movement. Lawyer Jeffrey Rath, who was part of a delegation that secretly met with State Department officials, said last year that he and others wanted to “petition” Alberta for U.S. statehood.
Influential figures in the White House have also expressed support for the separatists.
“Albertans are a fiercely independent people,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the conservative website Real America. “rumor [is] They might have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada… people are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what America has. “
Mark Carney said he “hopes the U.S. government will respect Canada’s sovereignty.” But senior officials in Ottawa are increasingly concerned that the United States could use the secession movement as a political wedge to interfere in Canada’s domestic affairs.
“It now appears that the United States will not remain silent and/or support Canadian unity if either Alberta or Quebec holds an independence referendum,” LeCours said. “You might hear a very different message.”
