Opinion | MAGA Is Feeding a Separatist Surge in Canada

This essay is part of “The New World Disorder,” a series exploring the disintegration of the postwar international system and how countries are adjusting as America steps aside.

The political pancake breakfast is one of the longstanding traditions of the Calgary Stampede, Alberta’s annual rodeo and fair. Members of the province’s governing United Conservative Party hosted one on July 2, the day after Canada Day. The far-right premier of the province, Danielle Smith, kitted out in Lone Star cowboy boots, a Stetson hat and a Texas Longhorn bolo tie, popped in. It was hard not to read the outfit as a conscious nod to Canada’s erstwhile friends south of the border, because President Trump, MAGA and the United States are unmistakable strands of the conversation in Alberta these days.

After flipping some flapjacks, the premier addressed the crowd, making sure to toss a pancake to her base by saying that immigrants — or “newcomers,” as she put it — had caused government spending to skyrocket. She reminded people that the Stampede is an expression of bedrock Albertan values: grit, determination and getting back in the saddle. The implied contrast was with the hopeless mandarins in Ottawa who can’t be expected to know anything about such matters.

It would have been a typical Stampede breakfast were it not for the sightings of a formerly reclusive political creature: the baldfaced Alberta separatist, a breed apart from the more common species, the alienated Westerner. They came in groups like Albertans4Freedom and United Alberta Flags, which advocate Alberta seceding from Canada to become an independent Judeo-Christian nation. They encouraged Albertans to vote yes on Oct. 19 to a referendum question asking whether Alberta should start down the road to separation, an impulse that the Trump-friendly Ms. Smith — without explicitly endorsing separation — has given new life to by pushing for the referendum question to be on the ballot.

Most Albertans are outraged that their elected leader has given credence to the idea, even if polls show it has little chance of being approved. A couple of weeks after the Stampede, when Ms. Smith was again pancaking at another event, a protester yelled that her pancakes were “fascist.” Hardly fair to the pancakes, but evocative nonetheless. There are plenty of irate separatists, too, who view the wording of the separation question, which asks voters to move forward with a further binding referendum, as too wishy-washy.

Separatism isn’t a new idea in Canada. The provincial government in Quebec has kept the notion of independence simmering on a back burner for the past few decades to use as leverage with the federal government, though polls show that most Quebecers don’t actually want to leave. With Alberta now considering the idea, the normally cozy patchwork quilt that is Canada is really starting to pop a seam or two. It just feels like everybody’s angry, everywhere, all the time.

It is the perfect moment, in other words, for Mr. Trump to tear further at the quilt by insulting our leaders (especially Prime Minister Mark Carney), threatening our sovereignty, attacking our economy — particularly after the highly acrimonious breakdown of trade talks between Canada and the United States in late August — setting provinces against one another with differing tariffs, speculating about erasing the border and just generally butting into our business. In so doing, the American president shows how he is not only damaging the comity of nations dating back to the end of World War II. He is, actively or by example, rending the fabric of nations internally.

The Trump administration has meddled in Argentina in favor of the right-wing president, Javier Milei; interfered in elections in Hungary, Honduras, Colombia and Brazil; given a boost to the ascendant far-right AfD party in Germany; and offered refugee status to white South Africans. “This administration has had zero compunction about interfering in the domestic elections, the domestic politics” of U.S. allies, Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts University, told me. Mr. Trump “obviously does not like Carney” and “he will do anything he can to belittle or minimize Canada’s autonomy.” His actions could also embolden divisive internal forces — including Alberta’s separatists, Mr. Drezner said.

When it comes to Alberta, the MAGA presence has taken various forms. Ms. Smith says she told Trump administration officials to “pause” on tariffs “so we can get through an election” — meaning, of course, to avoid tariffs on oil and gas, the mainstays of the provincial economy. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in an interview, appeared to show sympathy with separatists in Alberta. “They have great resources. The Albertans are very independent people,” he reportedly told Real America’s Voice, a right-wing media outlet. Separatists have met multiple times with administration officials to discuss the logistics of Alberta separating and how the United States might support that process. The Trump administration has acknowledged the meetings, but said no senior officials were present.

The greatest favor Mr. Trump has done for Alberta separatists has not been to promote an independent Alberta, but to undermine a sovereign Canada. Mr. Trump’s casting of Canada as weak, broken and beholden to the United States does nothing but promote the separatist cause. All of it is a complication we could do without. Hoisting ourselves onto a chopping block with Donald Trump standing there holding a cleaver just doesn’t seem all that smart.

Three hours east of Edmonton, across a rolling terrain of ranches and canola fields, the town of Bonnyville sits on the edge of Alberta’s vast oil sands. Many of its residents are connected to the oil and gas industry, though Mitch Sylvestre is not. He owns a local sporting goods and gun shop, and is also one of the leaders of the Alberta Prosperity Project, a group promoting an independent Alberta

I visited Mr. Sylvestre at his store during a mini-tour I took this summer of separatist Alberta. “We don’t want Communism, which is what the New World Order is,” he said, complaining that Ottawa has kept Alberta down and Mr. Carney is bringing Chinese Communism to Canada through his pursuit of new trade relationships with Beijing as insurance against Mr. Trump’s economic anarchy.

The federal government is “sabotaging” the oil industry, he said, mainly by stunting pipeline development and making overbearing regulatory and environmental demands. “They do not want us to grow and succeed,” he said. “That’s the heart of Alberta independence.”

Alberta became a province of Canada in 1905 and has been complaining pretty much ever since. Early on, local ire was aimed at Ottawa for keeping control of natural resources. Then came national energy policies that hampered the oil sector in the 1980s. Today, many of the grievances boil down to a feeling that the oil-rich province is just a giant A.T.M. for Ottawa to dip into when it needs the cash, which is always.

Tallies vary, but through a federal program called Equalization, Alberta puts between $15 billion and $20 billion a year more into federal tax coffers than it gets back in funding and services. But this is not subjugation: It’s math. Federal personal and corporate income tax rates are the same nationwide and the average Albertan makes more than the average Manitoban or Quebecer. Richer provinces contribute more so that all Canadians receive equal levels of service. It’s how it’s supposed to work.

Few legislators in the province are openly separatist, but many members of the governing United Conservative Party and Premier Smith herself have said one thing (a united Canada might still work) while doing another (creating a pathway for the referendum and making the idea of Alberta independence seem normal). Polls vary, but put around 20 percent of the province’s population as separatist or separatist-curious. A significant and volatile seam of the electorate — around 15 percent — doesn’t want to separate but is not averse to sending Ottawa a pointed message by voting “yes” next month.

Many separatists claim that exiting a broken country will make Albertans richer, but that’s not what the numbers say. Trevor Tombe, an economist at the University of Calgary, acknowledging the many variables, estimates separation could lead to as much as a 13 percent reduction of the province’s gross domestic product. True, there would be no more Equalization costs for Albertans, but what about their public pensions, defense, Indigenous services, foreign affairs, border security and so much more? The share of federal debt that an independent Alberta would have to take on would be around $180 billion. It would lose over $54 billion a year that Alberta receives back as funding and services.

“The math doesn’t work,” Mr. Tombe said. “There isn’t a reasonable scenario that supports the more extreme claims that are being made.”

True believers don’t worry too much about math. After visiting Bonnyville, I moved on to Mirror, a hamlet about 90 minutes south of Edmonton, where another prominent separatist, Christopher Scott, runs the Whistle Stop Café. He believes Alberta needs to grow up and stop being subservient to Ottawa. He has been running “Let’s Talk Alberta” chats around the province to stir up support for separatism since January. The events are advertised as open dialogues on an independent Alberta, but the one I attended in the small city of Camrose in July consisted primarily of older white people happily absorbing separatist talking points about how an independent Alberta will shine once free of Ottawa’s control.

After the event, I asked a small group of Indigenous men in the parking lot what they thought of the meeting and of separation. It’s all garbage, the eldest of the three, Patrick Buffalo, of the Samson Cree Nation in Maskwacis, said: “Where are the Asians? Where are the Black people? How come it’s just white people?” It’s all about Mr. Trump, he said. The world was divided everywhere because of him. “A lot of these people,” he said, pointing toward the hall, “are even threatening, ‘We’ll go the peaceful way for now.’” And then what?

The vibe was quieter and more conspiratorial in the office of Keith Wilson, a lawyer in St. Albert, a bedroom community near Edmonton. The room’s gauzy lighting and bank of 14 screens playing different news feeds made me feel like an extra in an espionage movie. Mr. Wilson is considered an important ideologue in the separatist operation. His main argument for independence is that Canada today suffers from a “democratic structural defect” because most voters reside in Ontario and Quebec and have all the power. “I’m not angry about that, in the same way that I’m not angry about gravity,” he says. “Just — it is.”

But imagine, he said, that you’re the trade negotiator of an oil superpower — Alberta — unhindered by competing federal obligations. “Although Trump will never say it,” he said, “a significant amount of the oil that the Americans use every day comes from Alberta, and if that got disrupted it would be a far greater shock impact than the Strait of Hormuz.” He added, “Imagine what we could achieve if we unleash our potential and lift Ottawa’s knee off our neck.”

Back in Edmonton, I met with Thomas Lukaszuk in the offices of Forever Canadian, a pro-unity organization. Mr. Lukaszuk served four terms in the provincial Legislative Assembly as a member of the centrist Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta before it merged with the right-wing Wildrose Party to form the United Conservative Party in 2017. As the separatist movement has gained traction, he has emerged as a leading federalist voice in the province.

Mr. Lukaszuk acknowledged that Canada needs to address the resentment by Westerners of the influence that Ontario and Quebec exert. “If we paid more attention to them and at least made them feel that they’re being listened to, maybe we wouldn’t get to this point,” he said. When I told him about separatist supporters I had met with, like Mr. Sylvestre, he said, “If I ever was to have a beer with any of them, it would be him, because he is misled and misguided, but he seems like a decent guy. A lot of the other ones are pretty vile.”

Some of those other ones include the lawyer Jeffrey Rath, who recently had his assets frozen over accusations that he misappropriated millions from a First Nations client, and who has stated that the First Nations are being bought off by George Soros and “foreign money.” Or Dr. Dennis Modry, a former ally of Ms. Smith, who a civil court found had misappropriated $1.3 million from his relatives. Or David Parker, accused of leaking Alberta’s 2.9 million-person voter list via an application called The Centurion Project. The software was based on a program called 10xVotes, which is used by American right-wing organizers and endorsed by the U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra. Mr. Parker’s possible motive for a leak is unclear, but he is under investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Elections Alberta.

Mr. Rath has denied misappropriating funds. Mr. Modry has not commented on the civil court finding. Elections Alberta has said Mr. Parker has refused to cooperate.

Jared Wesley, a professor of political science at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, says what has allowed the separatist embers to break out into a brush fire is Ms. Smith’s validation of the idea. “The premier has done more than anybody to normalize the sense that Albertans are so aggrieved that this is actually possible, that we could actually leave,” Mr. Wesley said. “Her behavior throughout her career suggests she’s motivated by retaining power.”

Ms. Smith’s standard public response to questions about the referendum is that she hopes it remains possible to “support autonomy for Alberta within a united Canada.” But this less-than-stirring loyalty to her country is belied by her actions and statements facilitating the separatist movement. In late August, she floated a timeline and procedures for a binding referendum on separation in the spring of 2027, all this before even knowing the results of the October referendum.

Ms. Smith, who declined to be interviewed for this essay, is not shy about embracing ideas that live at the political fringe. She once said at a party meeting that she would check with the Pentagon to see if the U.S. military was leaving vapor trails as a way of spraying Alberta with chemicals. She has claimed that the early stages of cancer could be defeated through self-control. During Covid, she likened people who got the vaccine to followers of Hitler. She once falsely claimed Cherokee heritage.

Then there are her links to MAGA. In addition to meeting with the president during Canadian elections, Ms. Smith has paid homage at Mar-a-Lago and has appeared onstage at a gala with the conservative provocateur Ben Shapiro, who has said that Canada, if annexed by the United States, would “greet us as liberators.”

Leaders in the separatist movement have links to the Trump ecosystem. Mr. Sylvestre met with Tucker Carlson for Take Back Alberta events in Calgary and Edmonton. Mr. Wilson has appeared twice on Glenn Beck’s talk show to talk about the movement. Mr. Rath claims he has had plans to meet administration officials in Washington seeking a $500 billion independence loan.

Naheed Nenshi is the leader of the New Democratic Party, the main opposition in the Alberta Legislature, and a former mayor of Calgary. Ms. Smith “just doesn’t see or doesn’t care how dangerous this is,” he said. As for the separatists’ policies, they depend on “an idea pipeline that comes directly from the MAGA movement.”

It’s difficult to know what manner of havoc Mr. Trump will next wreak on Canada and Alberta. Still, it seems reasonable to assume he’s not done with us.

Mr. Łukaszuk has one special worry: that Mr. Trump is bent on undermining Canada and widening any crack he can find. No polling indicates the Oct. 19 referendum will succeed, but if Albertans vote 75-25 to stay, what’s to stop him from deciding that he needs to liberate trapped Albertans?

“I don’t want it to sound far-fetched,” Mr. Lukaszuk said, “but that is exactly the argument that Putin used for invading eastern Ukraine,” referring to President Vladimir Putin of Russia justifying the invasion as an irredentist rescue of ethnic Russians.

Alberta might separate and it might not, but much damage has already been done. Alberta’s trust in Ottawa might be at its lowest point ever. The rest of Canada is surely losing trust in Alberta. Great swaths of Albertans don’t trust one another. Various factions of the separatist cause don’t trust other factions. Few Canadians trust the United States. And there can’t be many sentient creatures on the planet who trust most words that come out of Donald Trump’s mouth.

All that said, what happens in Alberta after the referendum is going to tell us something about the world’s ability to resolve differences. Because if we can’t manage it in Canada, with our democracy, stability, economy, history, constitution, legal system and 150 years of peace and order, then good luck to everyone else. It’s hard to watch, and my road trip didn’t help. The way things are unfolding has left me angry, sad, tense, worried and frustrated.

Which makes me just like every other Albertan, I guess.