The more Trump allies covet Alberta, the less popular separatism may get

After seizing the leader of Venezuela and demanding ownership of Greenland, perhaps it was inevitable Donald Trump’s team would cast its expansionist gaze on an oil-rich and somewhat disaffected chunk of Canada.

And lo, it came late this week in the form of U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent talking encouragingly about the prospect of Alberta separating from Canada.

“They have great resources. Albertans are a very independent people,” he told the conservative website Real America’s Voice.  

“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 U.S. has got.”

Days after the U.S. president posted his latest fantasy of a U.S.-owned Canada, such musings were bound to stoke attention.

To the ears of one Politico reporter, this was “a U.S. cabinet secretary cheering on a split in Canada.”

This Trump administration heavyweight, one could clarify, wasn’t directly musing about Alberta becoming part of the United States. But a Republican U.S. congressman was.

Speaking on Thursday to BBC about Greenland, Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee made a sharp rhetorical turn northwest.

“I think the people of Alberta would agree with the sentiment that they would prefer not to be part of Canada and to be part of the United States because we are winning day in and day out,” Ogles said.

To Ogles’s point, all public opinion polling to date has shown that Albertans’ majority sentiment has consistently been wanting to stay in Canada and not become Americans.

But to Bessent’s remarks — a rare understatement from Trump’s orbit — it’s far more than a rumour that Alberta may have a referendum of secession.

It’s a ready fact that separatists are spurring a petition that needs 177,732 signatures, representing about six per cent of the electorate, to force a vote on Alberta leaving Canada.

Any chance they have to say it, petition leaders from the group Stay Free Alberta will insist that their movement doesn’t favour unity with the United States as part of its push for separation from Canada.

“Andy Ogles’ suggestion that we join the U.S. is out of left field,” Jeffrey Rath, a lawyer and spokesperson for the group, told CBC News on Friday.