MAGA has its sights on Alberta

But it is the repeated reference by MAGA enforcers to Alberta that should be ringing alarm bells in Ottawa. The Alberta Prosperity Project has sought support and engagement from the Trump Administration, with some success, meeting White House officials to discuss financial aid. This is the party whose CEO, Mitch Sylvestre, was quoted in the Edmonton Journal as saying that it is federal government policy to replace white Canadians with other races, and expressed his belief that it will soon be a hate crime in Canada to possess a Bible or Quran.

Only one-fifth of Albertans would vote to separate, according to Pollara Strategic Insights. It remains a fringe movement that has yet to confirm it has the 178,000 signatures needed to be accepted by Elections Alberta as the basis for a referendum.

But we live in an age where disinformation is an “existential threat” to Canada’s democracy, in the words of Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, commissioner of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Canadian elections.

Could the Americans try to manipulate the electoral process in Alberta, or Quebec, where the sovereigntist Parti Québécois is predicted to have a 99 per cent chance of winning a majority in the election that must be held by Oct. 5? (PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has promised a referendum in his first term. Polls suggest the “yes” side already has 35 per cent support — rising to 56 per cent among 18-34 year olds — and Plamandon has called for a “closer relationship” with the U.S. if Quebec becomes independent.)

Marcus Kolga, founder and director of DisinfoWatch, which analyzes and exposes foreign disinformation and influence campaigns, said it wouldn’t surprise him if the Administration and U.S. government agencies were to boost and support Alberta’s separatists, given the access they have already had.

“The Trump Administration did this in Greenland six or seven months ago. Why would we believe they wouldn’t do it in Alberta or Quebec? This is something we should fully anticipate them doing, and we should be preparing ourselves to push back on those sorts of operations,” he said.

Kolga said Canada has become practiced at dealing with Russian and Chinese interference in recent years but has not prepared for a threat coming from the south.

He said countries like Sweden and Estonia have distributed pamphlets to their citizens, alerting them how to respond to any form of crisis, whether it’s a cyber-attack, information warfare or physical warfare.

The Hogue report concluded that our democratic institutions to this point have been robust and there have been only “isolated cases” where foreign interference has had an impact in a nomination contest or affected a result at the riding level.

But the emergence of generative AI has created a new player in the disinformation game. A study of posts about Carney in the 2025 election by Cyabra, a cybersecurity company, looked at 2,451 online profiles that generated 3,418 posts. Negative sentiment dominated one-third of these posts. Of those, 76 per cent referred to the Liberal leader’s acquaintance with jailed socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — often accompanied by fabricated images.

Carney once briefly met Maxwell, who went to school with his sister-in-law, but there is no evidence that he even met Epstein.

Kolga said the government needs to disrupt disinformation campaigns by identifying the actors, using the same Artificial Intelligence that is being weaponized by foreign actors.

Does anyone believe that Trump wouldn’t use this powerful tool if it destabilized Canada and gifted him his cherished 51st state? If there is, please get in touch — I have some very reasonably-priced, crocodile-infested mangrove swamp to sell.

In the meantime, before crowing about Alberta being the “gateway to the Arctic,” MAGA might want to consult a map.