ANALYSIS: Canadian separatists courting Trump behind Carney’s back

A Prime Minister Facing an Unprecedented Constitutional Crisis

Mark Carney is not a traditional politician. A former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, he embodies a form of enlightened technocracy that the Liberal Party has chosen to weather the Trump storm. His vision of Canada is that of a sovereign, economically robust country, capable of withstanding pressure from its southern neighbor without surrendering its identity or dignity. But now, even within its own borders, political actors are working to offer Washington precisely what he is trying to defend: entire swaths of Canadian territory.

Carney’s position is uncomfortable for several reasons. First, he cannot crack down on these contacts without risking fueling the separatist narrative that Ottawa is stifling freedom of expression in the West. Second, he cannot ignore them without appearing incapable of defending national unity. And finally, he cannot overreact on the international stage—particularly in Washington—without it being interpreted as weakness or panic. Carney is walking a tightrope, in a context where every misstep could prove very costly, both domestically and in the ongoing trade negotiations with the United States.

Carney has inherited a situation he did not create but must manage with surgical precision. The paradox is cruel: the more resolute he appears in the face of Trump, the more Alberta separatists accuse him of failing to defend their interests. The more he tries to accommodate the West, the more he risks endorsing positions that undermine federal unity. There is no right answer here. There are only less-bad answers.

Washington’s Silence: Neither Yes Nor No, but Anything Goes

The Trump administration’s response—or rather, its lack of response—to these moves is itself a political message. By not explicitly rejecting the Canadian separatists, by not declaring them persona non grata, Washington grants them a form of tacit legitimacy. Trump’s silence is a weapon. It maintains ambiguity, lets uncertainty simmer, and sends a very clear message to Canadian negotiators: we have alternative partners if discussions with Ottawa don’t suit us. It’s a classic negotiating technique—brutally effective—and Carney knows this all too well.

A movement that everyone has long underestimated

The Wexit movement—a portmanteau of “Western Exit”—emerged in the wake of the 2016 British referendum as a political joke, an intellectual provocation that was barely taken seriously. The idea of a secession by Canada’s western provinces—Alberta, Saskatchewan, or even British Columbia—seemed too radical, too unrealistic, and too far removed from the Canadian political consensus to pose a real threat. Political analysts long treated it as a fringe phenomenon, the Canadian equivalent of the secessionist movements that all democracies produce on their fringes, movements that never gain real power.

They may have been mistaken about the timeline. For while Wexit has not taken Parliament by storm, it has conquered something perhaps more valuable: it has taken root in the political imagination of Western Canada. Recent polls show that a significant—and growing—proportion of Albertans say they are in favor of or open to some form of separation, whether it be independence or joining the United States. These figures would have seemed impossible ten years ago. Today, they are fueling concrete political strategies.

What Wexit ultimately embodies is not so much a vision for a nation as it is an expression of exhaustion. The exhaustion of people who feel they are working for a system that does not see them, does not hear them, and does not respect them. This pain is real. But movements that exploit this pain without offering a viable solution do more harm than good.

The Ideological Connection to the American MAGA Movement

What sets today’s Canadian separatist movement apart from those of previous decades is its ideological roots in the international conservative-populist movement. The most active figures in Wexit and its ideological counterparts no longer look solely inward toward Canada: they are part of a transnational network that includes MAGA circles, ultra-conservative American think tanks, and media personalities aligned with Fox News and the Trumpist information ecosystem. This connection is not merely anecdotal: it means that these movements have access to resources, visibility, and networks of influence that far exceed what their electoral base in Canada would allow them to achieve on their own.

A joke? A strategy? Both?

Ever since he revived the idea of Canada as the 51st state, Donald Trump has never really clarified his intentions. Is this a calculated provocation to weaken Ottawa’s negotiating position on tariffs? Is it a sincere imperialist fantasy, fueled by the conviction that North America should be a unified political entity under American command? Or is it simply the Trump style—that way of throwing out shocking ideas to test reactions, dominate the media cycle, and keep his counterparts in a state of constant disarray?

The honest answer is probably all three. Trump does not draw a clear distinction between rhetorical posturing and foreign policy. For him, the threat is the tool. The noise is the message. And by maintaining ambiguity about his true intentions regarding Canada, he gains a considerable diplomatic advantage without having to articulate a specific position that could be refuted. Ambiguity is his strength. And the Canadian separatists traveling to Washington understand this perfectly—they play the same card of mobilizing ambiguity.

Trump probably doesn’t have a specific plan to annex Canada. But he doesn’t need one. All he needs is for the question to remain open, for the idea to circulate, and for Canadians to spend their time refuting it instead of negotiating. It’s a geopolitical diversionary tactic, and it works perfectly.

Natural resources: the real driving force behind the rhetoric

Behind the annexationist rhetoric lie economic interests of almost disarming clarity. Canada possesses one of the world’s largest oil reserves, concentrated largely in Alberta in the form of oil sands. It holds colossal reserves of fresh water, some of the most fertile farmland on the planet, and mineral resources critical to the energy transition—lithium, cobalt, nickel, and uranium. It controls the Arctic, whose strategic and economic importance will grow exponentially with global warming. For a U.S. power obsessed with its energy security and technological dominance, Canada is a geopolitical jackpot. It is no coincidence that Trump is talking about the 51st state at the very moment when trade tensions are at their peak.

Self-proclaimed representatives without a democratic mandate

One of the most fundamental questions raised by these actions is that of legitimacy. Who exactly are these individuals traveling to Washington to discuss Canada’s territorial future? Were they elected to do so? Do they represent a majority? Do they have a popular mandate that grants them the right to negotiate with a foreign power on matters affecting national sovereignty? The answer is no, and that is precisely what makes their actions so problematic from a constitutional and democratic standpoint.

These actors proclaim themselves spokespeople for a disgruntled West, relying on polls, petitions, rallies, and a growing media presence to establish their de facto legitimacy. But in a representative democracy, legitimacy is not gained through visibility. It is gained through the vote, through a mandate, through institutions. And no Canadian institution has granted these individuals the right to discuss secession with Washington. What they are doing is not only politically questionable—it is potentially a violation of Canadian laws governing relations with foreign governments.

Claiming to speak on behalf of a people without having received their mandate is exactly how authoritarian populism works. You declare yourself a representative, you bypass institutions, and you negotiate over the heads of legitimate elected officials. And when it works, you call it direct democracy. When it fails, you cry persecution.

Danielle Smith Caught in the Crossfire

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith finds herself in an ambiguous and uncomfortable position in this story. On the one hand, she has maintained a working relationship with the Trump administration, stepping up contacts with Washington to protect her province’s economic interests in the face of U.S. tariffs. On the other hand, she must distance herself from the most radical factions openly calling for annexation, as going too far in that direction would cause her to lose all credibility as the head of government of a sovereign Canadian province. Smith is juggling the anger of her base, which wants a break with Ottawa; diplomatic imperatives that require her to stay within constitutional bounds; and Washington’s appetite, which she wants neither to overindulge nor to completely rebuff.

What History Teaches Us About These Approaches

The history of separatist movements that have sought the support of a foreign power is rich in lessons—and warnings. The most obvious example, even in Canadian memory, is that of the Quebec separatists, who at times attempted to find support in Paris, with mixed results and considerable diplomatic damage to Canada. But international history offers other, even more telling examples: the Irish Republicans who sought weapons and funds from the United States; the Catalan separatists who canvassed European capitals after 2017; and the Kurdish independence activists who tried to secure guarantees from Washington before the 2017 referendum—only to be abandoned immediately afterward.

In almost every case, the foreign power approached used the separatists as leverage against the central government, then abandoned them once the tactical objective was achieved. Separatists serve as tools, rarely as partners. And when the geopolitical calculus shifts, they find themselves alone, without their promises, left with resentment as their legacy. Albertans who believe that Trump will sincerely fight for their integration into the United States would be well advised to revisit these precedents.

Trump will not fight for Alberta. Trump will fight for Trump. That is his one and only constant, and Alberta separatists who forget this are making the same mistake as all those who believed they had found a reliable ally in him—the Ukrainians, the Kurds, NATO allies. He has used them all. He will use them too.

The Quebec Precedent: Lessons Ignored

The comparison with Quebec is inevitable, but it deserves to be qualified. The Quebec sovereignty movement took decades to build genuine democratic legitimacy through structured political parties, referendums, and in-depth constitutional debates. Even in its most radical moments, it never sought to attach Quebec to a foreign power—it wanted to create an independent state. What the most extreme Alberta separatists are proposing is fundamentally different: not independence, but a merger with the United States. It is a stance that, paradoxically, deprives the movement of the national dignity that traditional sovereignty advocates consistently invoke.

What does the law say about these steps?

The legal issue is central yet underanalyzed in media coverage of this episode. The Canadian Constitution does not provide for any procedure for a province to join a foreign country. It does provide mechanisms for constitutional amendment, governed by the Clarity Act passed after the 1995 Quebec referendum, which requires a clear question and a clear majority for secession to even be considered. But even in this extreme case, secession would lead to independence—not to annexation by the United States. Joining the United States would require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, involving the U.S. Congress and three-quarters of the states. The path is constitutionally nearly impossible, and those who present it as realistic in the short term are deliberately misleading their supporters.

Furthermore, Canadian citizens who negotiate with a foreign government on matters affecting their country’s sovereignty could potentially find themselves in violation of laws governing relations with foreign governments, particularly provisions that prohibit acting as an undeclared agent of a foreign power. The line between political activism and illegal activity is not as far away as these actors seem to believe.

There is something both absurd and tragic about the fact that people passionately attached to their regional identity choose, as a political project, to become Americans. Would the Albertan identity—that pride in the frontier, in oil, in boundless space—truly survive absorption into an empire that crushes everything that does not submit to its logic?

The Role of the Supreme Court and Federal Institutions

Faced with this situation, Canada’s federal institutions are not without recourse. In 1998, in its landmark opinion on Quebec’s secession, the Supreme Court of Canada established a clear legal framework: no province may secede unilaterally, and any secessionist initiative must respect fundamental constitutional principles—democracy, federalism, the rule of law, and the protection of minorities. This framework also applies to Alberta. And the Carney government has a duty—and the legal tools—to reaffirm these limits with the utmost clarity should separatist efforts cross a critical threshold.

When Media Coverage Creates Its Own Reality

We must seriously question the role played by the media—Canadian, American, and international—in amplifying this phenomenon. By giving extensive coverage to initiatives that, politically and constitutionally, have no chance of succeeding in the short term, the media help lend them a credibility they would not have without this attention. Every article about Alberta separatists meeting with people close to Trump is an article that normalizes the idea that this effort is serious, that these interlocutors are legitimate, and that Washington might actually consider the matter.

This is not an argument for journalistic self-censorship—these efforts deserve to be documented and analyzed. But there is a difference between reporting on a phenomenon and overestimating it to the point of giving it momentum it does not inherently possess. Extreme populist movements—whether separatist, nationalist, or otherwise—thrive on the visibility granted to them by the very institutions and media outlets they claim to oppose. It is a paradox that neither publishers nor editors have yet truly figured out how to resolve.

As I write these lines, I am aware that I, too, am contributing to this phenomenon of amplification. But the alternative—ignoring what is happening—is worse. You don’t fight darkness by turning off the lights. You fight it by calling it exactly what it is.

The MAGA Information Ecosystem and Its Penetration of Canada

An often-overlooked aggravating factor is the permeability of the Canadian media landscape to the influence of the American MAGA ecosystem. YouTube channels, podcasts, and social media accounts linked to the American pro-Trump movement have built significant audiences in Canada, particularly in the western provinces. These platforms promote a worldview in which the Canadian federal government is portrayed as an illegitimate and tyrannical entity, where Ottawa is the Canadian equivalent of the American “Deep State,” and where joining the United States appears to be a logical and desirable liberation. This ideological colonization of the Canadian political debate by American narratives is a structural phenomenon that goes far beyond the episode involving the separatists in Washington.

A bilateral relationship already strained by tariffs

Relations between Canada and the United States were already going through a period of severe tension prior to this episode, mainly due to the trade war triggered by the Trump administration through the imposition of massive tariffs on Canadian exports. These tariffs affect entire sectors of the Canadian economy—steel, aluminum, lumber, and agricultural products—and have sparked deep resentment across all Canadian provinces. It is against this backdrop of intense trade friction that the separatists’ moves in Washington are taking place, further complicating a bilateral relationship that is already under severe strain.

For Carney, the situation creates an almost unsolvable diplomatic equation. He must negotiate with a U.S. administration that is inflicting economic damage on him, while simultaneously managing domestic actors who are using that same administration as leverage against him. The external enemy and the internal enemy speak the same language and feed off one another. It is a scenario that drains a government’s political resources and undermines its ability to present a united front in the face of coordinated external pressure.

Canada is facing something unprecedented in its modern history: external pressure that finds allies within its own borders to relay and amplify it. This is not ordinary domestic politics. It is internal geopolitics. And the tools Carney has at his disposal to respond to it were all designed for a different kind of crisis.

What Europe and Western Allies Are Observing

This situation has not gone unnoticed by Canada’s allies in the Western world. The European Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada’s Asian partners are watching closely what is unfolding in North America. If the United States were ever to seriously consider absorbing Canadian regions—even marginally, even as an extreme scenario—it would upend the entire Western security architecture, call into question the borders that have structured the international order since 1945, and send a devastating signal about the reliability of U.S. guarantees to its other partners. What is at stake in Alberta has implications that extend far beyond Saskatchewan and the Rockies.

The Deep Divisions in a Federation Under Pressure

Beyond the immediate diplomatic episode, what this crisis reveals about contemporary Canada runs deep and deserves sustained attention. The Canadian federation is riven by regional, cultural, and economic divisions that decades of political management have at times masked without ever truly resolving them. The relationship between the western provinces and Ottawa is structurally unbalanced and breeds discontent that even the most well-intentioned governments struggle to alleviate in the long term. Quebec’s identity-based nationalism has found its counterpart—more brutal, less ideologically sophisticated—in certain parts of Western Canada. And the rise of populist movements in liberal democracies in general has provided language, tools, and networks to groups that would otherwise have remained marginal.

Canada is not falling apart. But it is revealing tensions that the prosperity of previous years had masked with a veneer of civic harmony. The separatist crisis in Washington is a symptom, not the disease itself. The disease runs deeper, is older, and demands a political response that goes far beyond managing this particular episode.

Canada has always been a gamble—the gamble that it was possible to build a vast, pluralistic, multilingual country without the glue of ethnic homogeneity or imperial expansionism. It is a gamble worth defending. But defending it requires that we squarely confront the reasons why some are turning their backs on it. Not to absolve them. But to understand what we have not yet succeeded in building.

Younger Generations and the Evolving National Identity

One angle that has been under-explored in this discussion is that of Canada’s younger generations and their relationship to national identity. Recent polls suggest that among 18- to 35-year-olds, the sense of national belonging is more complex, more fragmented, and less obvious than among previous generations. The boundaries of identity are being reshaped around cultural networks, online communities, and ideological affiliations that do not always correspond to traditional geographic and provincial divisions. In this context, the question “What does it mean to be Canadian?” has never been more open-ended—and potentially more vulnerable to radical answers.

What Carney—and Canada—Must Do Now

Faced with this unprecedented situation, the Carney government’s response must be both firm and intelligent. Firm from a constitutional standpoint: no secessionist effort can proceed outside existing legal frameworks, and the federal government not only has the right but also the duty to make this clear. Politically astute: responding to Albertan anger with repression or contempt would be a major strategic mistake that would only fuel the movement. The solution lies in genuinely listening to the West’s legitimate economic grievances, implementing structural reforms in federal-provincial relations, and engaging in an honest political dialogue about what Canada wants to be in the 21st century.

We must also, collectively, call what is happening what it is. Canadian citizens who are negotiating with a foreign government to cede national territory are not engaging in ordinary politics. They are crossing a line that touches on the very foundations of representative democracy and national sovereignty. Calling them to order is not narrow-minded nationalism—it is basic democratic responsibility. And Canadians observing this situation, in every province, have the right—and perhaps the duty—to demand that their institutions rise to the occasion.

Sovereignty is not an abstract concept reserved for international treaties and constitutional law courses. It is a daily practice, a collective decision that is constantly renewed. And when citizens choose to sell it short to Washington for tactical reasons, the entire community loses something it will not easily recover. Canada deserves better than that. And so do Albertans.

The future is being decided right now

This crisis is a test. A test for Mark Carney and his ability to govern amid complexity without losing sight of national unity. A test for Canadian institutions and their resilience in the face of coordinated internal and external pressures. A test for Canadians themselves and their commitment to a shared vision that many take for granted—until it is no longer a given. History does not repeat itself, but it has a way of posing the same fundamental questions in new forms. The question posed today is as old as nation-states: what do we do with our contradictions? Do we embrace them together, or do we resolve them by breaking away from one another? Since its founding, Canada has chosen to hold together despite everything. This choice deserves to be defended with a fervor that this crisis may, perhaps, help to rekindle.

Signed, Jacques Pj Provost