Trump, Hoekstra and the Cabal Pushing Alberta Separatism

It is high time that Canadians, including the Mark Carney government, started to seriously worry about Alberta’s separatist movement and its U.S. connection.

Consider a recent headline for a piece by political commentator Dean Blundell on his Substack post: “Trump’s ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, at the centre of the doxxing of three million Canadians and their voter data.”

Blundell’s thesis? Hoekstra appears to be connected to the biggest voter data leak in Canadian history and the attempt to rig the upcoming referendum vote on Alberta separation.

Blundell elaborates by pointing out that a cabal of right-wing Christian nationalists, “Freedom Convoy” veterans and political fixers is being protected by Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party. A Canadian clone of a U.S. voter-targeting app is being used by an Alberta separatist group. The group’s leader, David Parker, says the app was built by U.S. Republican operatives. Parker also claims that the app helped deliver the crucial state of Michigan to Donald Trump in his run for president.

Interestingly, Parker left for Texas after the voter data leak in Alberta became public. Also of note, he is not co-operating with the Elections Alberta investigation into the massive leak. He is no stranger to elections violations. Parker and Take Back Alberta were fined $120,000 for violations of election finance law in 2023.

Ambassador Hoekstra has promoted the U.S. voter app, 10xVotes, at Trump rallies in Michigan. He has also landed in trouble for political interference before the Alberta controversy. That stemmed from his support of a Dutch far-right political party at the U.S. Embassy when he was ambassador to the Netherlands. He also denied saying earlier that there were Muslim-ruled “no-go zones” in the Netherlands, or at least he did until his comments were confirmed by a videotape record of his words.

Hoekstra now claims he was unaware that the U.S. voter app he promoted was used to help the Alberta separatist group. Not everyone is convinced. Blundell says the RCMP needs to interview Hoekstra. He also thinks Elections Alberta should find out if Alberta voter data was stored on U.S. servers. Canada’s civilian spy agency, CSIS, he adds, should conduct a foreign interference investigation into Hoekstra’s activities.

Hoekstra and the MAGA network

Some history here is useful. Hoekstra was formerly chair of the Michigan Republican Party. He was scheduled to speak at the Canada Strong and Free Network conference in Ottawa on May 8. Pierre Poilievre, the politician who brought doughnuts to the truckers who blockaded Ottawa, delivered the keynote speech.

Danielle Smith participated in a fireside chat at the conference. And President Trump’s former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, warmed up the room by urging Canadians to “move past the irritation” of Trump repeatedly saying he wants to annex Canada. Hoekstra was called to Washington for urgent meetings at the White House as the doxing story was breaking and sent his regrets at the last minute.

It is up for debate how serious U.S. support is for Alberta separatists. But there’s no denying that it’s a factor.

Here’s how Blundell described the Alberta separatist movement and its U.S. connection: “It’s a MAGA-funded, foreign attempt to break Canada in half, supported by a small group of compromised White Christian nationalists who are getting paid by ‘MAGA interests’ to do it.” A little over the top but not without evidence.

Besides the overt support for an independent Alberta voiced by Trump administration officials, researchers have identified a network of MAGA movement-funded online influencers bending truths as they hype Alberta separation.

Separatists’ sway in Smith’s party

Polls have shown that about 57 per cent of UCP members favour separation. The president of the UCP, Rob Smith, claims that a majority of UCP members will vote against remaining in Canada in the fall. But the party will not take a position on either side.

But is that vote really legitimate? As Prime Minister Mark Carney has pointed out, the secession question is undemocratic because the UCP did not campaign on a separation referendum in the 2023 provincial election.

Nor has the party debated or adopted a policy on independence. Yet Premier Smith claims to be following the will of the people in Alberta by allowing the referendum.

Danielle Smith’s constitutional adviser, Jason Stephan, MLA for Red Deer-South, quietly quit his position after publicly encouraging people to sign the separatist petition. But here is the question. If the premier is really pro-Canada and against Alberta separation, why would she appoint a known separatist sympathizer as her constitutional adviser?

And why would she do that just as the secessionists were readying their petition drive for an independence referendum?

At the same time, Smith was also launching her Alberta Next panel for Alberta to “assert its constitutional jurisdiction” argument against Ottawa.

Her former constitutional adviser followed her lead. In an op-ed for the Western Standard, Stephan wrote that people should sign the Stay Free Alberta petition to force a referendum. Why? Because, he said, the Canadian Constitution is “rigged against Alberta.” Smith didn’t exactly jump to Canada’s defence. Instead, she rationalized that “we are a caucus that allows for diversity of opinions.”

The separatists in the UCP are not as tolerant of diverse opinions. Mitch Sylvestre, the leader of Stay Free Alberta, says the UCP base is angry at Smith’s pro-Canada stance. As a result, he is organizing to either force a leadership review of Premier Smith or come up with a different and clearer referendum question than the one already on the table.

In Sylvestre’s opinion, Premier Smith’s popularity has fallen from 91.5 per cent support in her 2024 leadership review to as low as 60 per cent today. If roughly a quarter of the UCP’s 87 riding associations back him, they can hold a special general meeting to vote on Smith’s leadership. A similar meeting in 2022 forced then-premier Jason Kenney from office. That paved the way for Smith to become UCP leader.

But according to Sylvestre, there is a third option: passing a resolution to make the UCP an explicitly pro-separatist party.

Carney’s conundrum

Prime Minister Carney has warned Alberta not to repeat the mistakes of the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom. As governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, Carney saw first-hand what happened in the United Kingdom when people thought they could use the vote as a negotiating tool against the European Union to gain concessions.

Carney called the pitch for separation a “very dangerous bluff.” And he pointed out that Albertans did not vote for this in the last provincial election. Nor was it part of the UCP election platform in the 2023 election.

How to fight separatism in Alberta has its own dangers. Pollster Janet Brown cautions both Carney and Opposition Leader Poilievre against inflaming tensions in Alberta. Just back from a trip to London, Brown told journalists that Brexit was a cautionary tale. “If the elite start banging the drum about how separation is a bad idea, how people who are considering it are crazy, that could backfire on them in exactly the same way it backfired on the ‘stay’ campaign for Brexit.”

But if there are dangers associated with standing up for Canada, there are also perils in flirting with separation. Ian Cooper, a senior research fellow at Dublin City University’s Brexit Institute, told CBC, “I’m having a feeling of déjà vu.” The Brexit scholar grew up in Alberta before going overseas to study EU politics. He said, “I think that Brexit has a lot of lessons to teach Albertans about the dangers of... a referendum on separation.”

Cooper pointed out the parallels between Premier Smith and then-U.K. prime minister David Cameron. “He was a Conservative and he was in favour of ‘remain’ but he called the referendum thinking that would put the issue to rest for a time. But he was also trying to appease the hardliners in his own party.” Smith appears to be following an eerily similar path.

Cooper cautioned that public opinion can be unpredictable when it comes to referendums. Unexpected events such as Europe’s 2015 migration crisis had a profound effect on the vote.

It remains to be seen if Alberta’s relationship within Canada will endure. For now, the numbers suggest that it will. But as events in the United Kingdom prove, numbers can and do change.

The nation Christian extremists want

There is one more fact to bear in mind. One of the founding principles considered by UCP members in 2017 was “loyalty to a united Canada.”

It failed to pass a grassroots vote at the party’s founding convention in 2018. That means the party currently in power in Alberta is clearly open to leaving the country. The United States’ openness to Alberta separation makes that threat all the more dangerous.

Key separation organizer and fundamentalist Christian David Parker has spent time touring with Tucker Carlson and studying U.S. voter mapping and canvassing technology.

Doug Wilson, a prominent U.S. church leader, has declared his strong support for the Alberta independence movement. Wilson is a proponent of Christian nationalism, the belief that U.S. society should be governed by Christian principles. According to the Globe and Mail, Wilson has prayed in the Pentagon and counselled U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

In an interview with the Globe, he said: “I believe the essential Christian political dogma is that government must be limited, and I would see the successful secession of Alberta as a wonderful limitation on an overreaching government.”

In Canada nearly a dozen churches of his denomination, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, have been established — some with the belief that an independent Alberta should adopt Christianity as an official religion.

According to Wilson, in the United States a Christian nation would revoke the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. He also believes positions of authority should be reserved for men.

For former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, the pastor’s backing of the separatists is proof that MAGA is paying attention and wants the movement to succeed. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and controller of the vast, disinformation-ridden X platform, is now back in Trump’s favour and has also come out in support of Alberta independence.

Standing up for Canada and keeping Alberta in the country is as urgent as it is complex. Time will tell if the Carney government is up for the task.