Given his unfulfilled dream of creating Canada the 51st state of the USA, is President Donald Trump actively supporting the separatists in Alberta, Canada’s richest province, to interrupt away and be part of America?
This query has gained contemporary urgency, with Trump escalating the commerce battle in opposition to Canada on August 26 and threatening to rename Lake Ontario (named after the Canadian province of Ontario, however break up between the borders of the 2 international locations) as Lake America the day after.
By the way, throughout the previous couple of days of what turned out to be the unsuccessful commerce negotiations, Canadian media had carried out reviews on how the nation’s researchers, utilizing synthetic intelligence to trace international curiosity within the Alberta separatism debate, found the province’s political discourse being focused on-line by Russian and American actors in each overt and covert methods.
They’re allegedly trying to advertise separatist concepts in what researchers described as a menace to Canada’s “democratic integrity”.
Alberta faces, it might be famous, a non-binding referendum on October 19, 2026, to start the method for what could possibly be a binding vote on separation from Canada.
Nevertheless, the researchers are clear that Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia are usually not working in tandem to interrupt Canada. They’re working in parallel, for very totally different causes, however their actions converge on the identical fault line that marks Canada.
This phenomenon of parallel workings by Washington and Moscow is just not precisely new. Through the Chilly Struggle, they continuously intersected of their help for anti-colonial, nationalist, or separatist actions, regardless that their long-term targets had been utterly opposed.
The US wished to construct pleasant capitalist democracies and cease the unfold of communism, whereas the then USSR aimed to unfold Marxist ideology and weaken Western capitalist alliances.
Each propped up separate native leaders with funds and weapons. Examples embrace the Nigerian Civil Struggle, the Liberation Struggle of Angola, the Suez Disaster, and Ethiopia’s battle in opposition to Somalia.
So far as Alberta is worried, it’s obvious that forces within the US and Russia try to take advantage of its grievance in opposition to the present association of the Canadian federation. And this grievance could be very outdated.
Not like the separatist components within the province of Quebec, whose grievances are primarily cultural and linguistic, Alberta separatism is alleged to be financial and psychological.
Alberta contributes disproportionately to Canada’s federal equalization — the system the place richer provinces fund poorer ones. It has oil, fuel, beef, and a frontier self-image. But it surely feels alienated as Ottawa blocks pipelines, imposes carbon taxes, and lectures Calgary about local weather whereas cashing cheques from its oil.
And this alienation will get stronger each time the Liberals are the ruling celebration in Ottawa. In any case, it was Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau who launched the Nationwide Vitality Program within the Seventies.
Many Albertans resent that Ottawa is utilizing their province’s power wealth to profit Central and Japanese Canada at Alberta’s expense. Additionally they declare the province pays Ottawa greater than it receives again in companies.
Actually, the separatist components in Alberta have had many names — Western Canada Idea within the Eighties, Wildrose, Wexit, and now “the Alberta Prosperity Venture”.
However help for precise secession has traditionally polled at 20-30%, spiking to 35-40% when Liberals are in energy in Ottawa and collapsing when Conservatives are in energy. The most recent opinion poll means that solely a minority – about 25% – of Albertans help independence.
That’s the reason specialists say that the grievance in Alberta is a barometer of alienation, not but a critical secessionist challenge. Seen thus, Russia and the US are solely amplifying it from outdoors.
But when Brian McQuinn, co-director of the Heart for Synthetic Intelligence, Information, and Battle on the College of Regina, is to be believed, Russia is doing it covertly, whereas the US is doing it overtly.
In Could this yr, analysis printed by Disinfowatch, a gaggle that exposes international disinformation campaigns focusing on Canada, confirmed that between late 2025 and early 2026, the Pravda Information Community printed dozens of tales depicting Alberta as a province systematically exploited by Ottawa.
An affect marketing campaign generally known as Storm 1516 reportedly went additional, creating web sites akin to albertaseparatist.com to flow into fabricated claims—together with the assertion that the federal authorities fleeces $20,000 a yr from each Alberta household. Russian state-aligned shops, like Sputnik and Russia As we speak, then helped elevate these narratives, alongside inflammatory commentary from sympathetic US influencers on YouTube and X, giving fringe claims the looks of mainstream debate.
Equally, a just-released evaluation by means of Cipher AI, a expertise developed by Dr. McQuinn and others in a partnership between the College of Regina and College of Alberta, as accessed by the Canadian every day, the Globe and Mail, says that its two reviews – the primary covers exercise within the final two weeks of July, and the second appears to be like on the first two weeks of August – clearly indicated that “international aligned platforms proceed to amplify anti-government grievances and points related to the Alberta separatist motion”.
Between July 17 and 30, Cipher discovered 149 on-line objects that originated primarily from Pravda Community. Materials posing as information, designed to inflame divisions, is pushed on-line and makes its method into Canadian communities when folks knowingly or unwittingly share hyperlinks, headlines and memes with their social networks.
The second report, protecting early August, produced related findings, with about 80 p.c of the exercise linked to Russian content material farms, and 20 p.c to U.S. sources.
Through the second two-week window, the researchers discovered 147 examples of disinformation linked to foreign-based sources that had been geared toward Alberta separation.
The most recent evaluation has additionally discovered that statements from right-wing US podcasters and MAGA influencers have promoted the narrative that Canada is a failed state and that Alberta has no selection however to depart.
Such narratives adopted statements from Alberta separatist leaders this yr who mentioned they met with Trump administration officers in Washington on three events, and feedback from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who, when requested about Alberta in January, mentioned he had heard “a hearsay that they could have a referendum” and known as the province “a pure associate for the U.S.”
By the way, US State Division officers met with the separatist Alberta Prosperity Venture in one of many aforesaid three conferences earlier this yr. The group reportedly sought a $500 billion (US) line of credit score from the US to help Alberta in the event that they had been victorious in a referendum.
The American angle in Canada is comprehensible, given Trump’s “Transactional Continentalism”. Although the Trump Presidency has not formally endorsed the breakup of Canada, the Trump ecosystem appears to have finished so. A number of MAGA-adjacent commentators, podcasters, and even some Republican Home members help Alberta statehood or affiliation with the US.
In any case, Alberta holds the third-largest confirmed oil reserves on the planet. For a Trump administration obsessive about power dominance and decreasing home gas costs, direct entry to Alberta oil with out Ottawa’s environmental rules is a dream, it’s mentioned.
Secondly, Alberta is probably the most conservative, gun-owning, truck-driving, oil-loving province. So, MAGA influencers see a pure ideological ally being oppressed by “woke Ottawa.”
Alternatively, Russia’s motive is considered as much more strategic. Two potential causes could possibly be the next:
One is “Payback for Ukraine”. Canada, in spite of everything, is one among Ukraine’s most hawkish supporters. It’s house to a big Ukrainian diaspora, a staunch backer of sanctions, and a coach of Ukrainian troops.
Subsequently, if Canada lectures Russia about territorial integrity, what higher riposte than: “What about Canada’s territorial integrity?” It’s whataboutism as a weapon.
The second purpose could possibly be the hyperlink between Alberta’s separatism debate and Russia’s long-term Arctic technique and its rivalry with Canada over Northern sovereignty. Canada is actively upgrading its army footprint within the North. It has dedicated to counter rising Russian aggression by buying new icebreakers and deploying new infrastructure. For Russia, a significant constitutional disaster triggered by provincial separatism thus forces Ottawa to focus inward on saving the federation reasonably than projecting energy within the Arctic.
That is all of the extra so when Russia and Canada have overlapping claims over the huge, resource-rich seabed below the Arctic Sea, and Moscow is now aggressively increasing its useful resource extraction within the area.
Seen thus, Trump and Putin are usually not precisely companions in Alberta. However they could be opponents who’ve discovered the identical weak joint, or susceptible Alberta. They each profit from the identical consequence — a weaker Ottawa — however for various causes.
In fact, all this doesn’t essentially imply that Canada goes to interrupt. As identified above, separatism in Alberta remains to be a minority voice. However the timing of the international affect in favor of the separatists is worrisome.
Within the October nineteenth, 2026 referendum, Albertans will face an official, non-binding referendum question asking whether or not Alberta ought to stay a province of Canada or whether or not its authorities ought to start the constitutional course of required to carry a future binding referendum on separation. This isn’t but an independence vote.
There are different constitutional hurdles too.
Constitutional pundits level out that the Supreme Courtroom of Canada’s landmark Reference re Secession of Quebec case established {that a} province can not unilaterally secede.
Even a transparent majority answering a transparent query would set off negotiations, not computerized independence, and people negotiations must respect federalism, constitutionalism, minority rights, and Aboriginal pursuits.
However then what Canada is witnessing now’s mentioned to be a worldwide phenomenon: “Sovereignty” isn’t just about borders; it’s about narrative sovereignty. If you don’t management your home narrative, another person will. And that’s exactly what Trump and Putin appear to be doing.
And right here, Canada also needs to be reviewing its function in selling the Khalistan subject below the guise of free speech. It appeared to be cheering the separatist motion in India. That now Ottawa itself is dealing with a separatist motion being cheered from Washington and Moscow looks as if the same story.
- Creator and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Occasions and has been commenting on politics, international coverage, and strategic affairs for almost three a long time. He’s a former Nationwide Fellow of the Indian Council for Historic Analysis and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
- CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
