Canada separatists accused of ‘treason’ after secret talks with US state department

Covert meetings between separatist activists in the Canadian province of Alberta and members of Donald Trump’s administration amount to “treason”, the premier of British Columbia said on Thursday.

“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,” David Eby told reporters.

“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.”

The revelations that far-right activists met US state department officials first emerged in a Financial Times report outlining the efforts a group of increasingly emboldened separatists are taking in their attempt to secede from Canada.

A minority of residents of the oil-rich province have long argued that the province’s woes are due to the structure of payments to the federal government and a perceived inability to get their vast fossil fuel reserves to market.

Organizers of the Alberta independence movement, which still boasts only minority support, are now collecting signatures to trigger a referendum there. The pro-independence campaign has been travelling across the province as organizers try to collect nearly 178,000 signatures over the next few months. The group has publicly said it wants a $500bn credit facility from the US treasury to help fund the creation of a new country if their referendum is successful.

“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,” Eby told reporters, adding he would raise this at a meeting of provincial leaders later in the day.

Alberta’s premier, Danielle Smith, who has rejected the idea of separation and said she “supports a strong and sovereign Alberta within a united Canada”, is facing mounting criticism that her government recently made it easier for residents to petition for a referendum.

The Ontario premier, Doug Ford, said Smith needed “to stand up [to the separatists] and say enough is enough”.

Last week, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, appeared to support the efforts by the separatists in an interview with the conservative website Real America’s Voice.

“They have great resources. Albertans are a very independent people,” he said. “Rumour [is] that they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not … People are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what the US has got.”

Prominent Indigenous leaders in the province were due to speak on the issue on Thursday, warning earlier in the week that Elections Alberta was “ill-equipped” to deal with the potential of foreign interference in the referendum. They have warned no secession is possible without consultation with treaty holders, whose agreement predates the creation of Alberta as a province within Canada.

Increasingly, analysts worry that outside influence from the US could give separatists outsized influence.

Conflict researcher Thomas Homer-Dixon previously told the Guardian a “fifth column” approach by separatists – working with outside forces to destabilize Canada – is a growing and increasingly realistic fear. He warned a looming separation referendum could fail but Trump could argue the results were “fake” and the US would move troops to the northern Montana border and tell the rest of Canada that Alberta must be allowed to join the US as the “51st state”.

“We need to be planning right now to neutralize this kind of activity, well in advance. Because it seems increasingly like disinformation campaigns, appeals for help, declarations that the electoral process was fake and was stacked are something we need to game out,” said Homer-Dixon. “The reality is, right now, we’re just sleepwalking into it.”