The Trump administration rankled Canadian officials Thursday following the admission that representatives of the U.S. government met with a group of separatists pushing for the province of Alberta to secede from the country.
The meeting comes after months of President Donald Trump needling Canada, suggesting that he may push to annex the country and make it into the 51st U.S. state.
British Columbia Premier David Eby on Thursday denounced the meeting, suggesting that the separatists committed an act of “treason” by meeting with the Trump administration.
“To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that, and that word is treason,” Eby said Thursday morning in a televised speech ahead of a meeting of Canadian premiers in Ottawa.
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Eby referenced reporting in the Financial Times that members of the Alberta Prosperity Project, a far-right separatist group, have met with State Department officials three times since April. The movement is seeking $500 billion in U.S. Treasury funds to backstop the new country should they succeed in splitting from Canada. There is currently no referendum on the matter scheduled.
“It is completely inappropriate to seek to weaken Canada, to go and ask for assistance, to break up this country from a foreign power and — with respect — a president who has not been particularly respectful of Canada’s sovereignty,” Eby continued. “I think that while we can respect the right of any Canadian to express themselves to vote in a referendum, I think we need to draw the line at people seeking the assistance of foreign countries to break up this beautiful land of ours.”
The pro-independence Alberta Prosperity Project has been working toward collecting the nearly 178,000 signatures needed to trigger a referendum. The group, however, has said it is not interested in pushing for the province to join the U.S.
The White House on Thursday confirmed meeting with the group, saying it “regularly meets with civil society types” and that “no commitments were made.”
Other Canadian premiers reacted strongly to the Trump administration’s decision to hold meetings with the APP. Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Thursday told his colleague, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, “to stand up and say enough is enough” — while adding that a separatist government in Alberta would be a “disaster” for Canada.
Smith, for her part, simply said that the U.S. should stay out of Canadian affairs.
“I would expect that the U.S. administration should respect Canadian sovereignty and that they would confine their discussion about Alberta’s democratic process to Albertans and to Canadians,” she said.
In an interview with Real America’s Voice last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Alberta was a “natural partner to the U.S.” and that “Albertans are a very independent people.”
“Rumour [is] that they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not,” Bessent said. “People are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what the U.S. has got.”
When asked Thursday by a reporter whether the Trump administration had engaged in “foreign interference,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney demurred, saying only that the U.S. should “respect Canadian sovereignty.”
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