B.C. Premier David Eby is not backing down after calling the Alberta separatist movement seeking foreign assistance an act of treason — but one analyst is warning against using such serious language during a time where Canada needs to stand united.
Eby’s comments last week came amid meetings with fellow Canadian leaders in Ottawa, in response to reports that members of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration have met with members of the Alberta Prosperity Project, a group pushing for Alberta to become independent.
The group is seeking a $500-billion US line of credit from the U.S. Treasury to help bankroll the new country if they are successful in a referendum. An official with the U.S. State Department confirmed the meetings, but said “no commitments were made.”
“To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that, and that word is treason,” Eby said last Thursday.
In an interview on CBC’s The Early Edition on Monday, the premier doubled down on his comments.
B.C. premier doubles down on calling Alberta separatists seeking U.S. support ‘treason’
“If you are crossing a border to seek the support of a foreign government to break up our country because you don’t have the support and the resources and the ability within our own country to advance that conversation, and you’re asking the Americans or any other government, I mean that is the definition of treason,” he said.
“If we can’t agree on that … then what actually are we standing for as Canadians?”
He said he supports every province’s right to have conversations and debates about Canada’s national structure — but figures the timing could be better, as Trump threatens to “take” Greenland and impose significant tariffs on Canadian goods.
“It feels like the worst possible time to be having [these conversations].”
According to Canada’s Criminal Code, treason applies in a number of circumstances, including communicating to an agent of a state other than Canada something “that may be used by that state for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or defence of Canada.”
The punishment for treason is prison.
Whether the word treason truly applies to the Alberta Prosperity Project’s meetings with the U.S. administration isn’t clear, but project co-founder Jeffrey Rath has called the characterization “defamatory.”
“It’s a childish temper tantrum on behalf of a spoiled NDP politician.”
Either way, Calgary-based data analyst John Santos warns that that kind of language could push people toward separatism.
“There is a danger here that what is currently a minority sentiment snowballs, cascades into a possible ‘yes’ vote,” Santos told CBC’s On The Coast, pointing to the Brexit referendum in 2016, in which the U.K. ending up leaving the European Union.
“The two sides are too busy insulting each other,” he added. “The people who are separatist-curious but not necessarily ready to vote for separatism get pushed toward a separatist camp because they feel that their concerns aren’t being listened to.”
