The Current - How Russian and U.S. Actors Are Fuelling Alberta’s Separatist Debate

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

As Alberta prepares for its referendum on October 19th, new research shows that foreign players are paying attention and trying to affect the vote. Brian McQuinn with the Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Data and Conflict at the University of Regina tells us what his research has found. And Patrick Lennox, security consultant and a former director of intelligence with the RCMP and Liberal MP candidate, tells us why that's important. 

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in your favorite podcast app, including YouTube. This is a CBC podcast. I'm Lindsay Duncombe, and this is the current podcast. I want to be a free Albertan because I'm tired of sending all the money down east. For Albertans who want to leave Canada, that is a familiar feeling. On October 19th, Albertans will be voting in a referendum over whether they'll decide to remain in Canada or start the process to hold a binding referendum on leaving. But new research shows that groups outside of Canada are trying to influence that vote.

Some are covert operations from countries like Russia. Others are more overt approaches from Americans. People like American National Security commenter Brandon Weikert. Here he is speaking to former Trump advisor Steve Bannon earlier this year. Alberta is the linchpin. So when Trump says Canada is going to be the 51st state, he's having a little fun, but what he's really saying, because I know a lot of the guys in charge of the Alberta and separatist movement or their prosperity movement, they're getting out of the Canadian Union, they're going to become an independent state, independent country, we're going to recognize them, and that's going to put them on the pathway to becoming the 51st state. Brian McQuinn has been studying foreign influence and interference in the Alberta referendum.

He's the co-director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence, Data, and Conflict. at the University of Regina. He is also the CEO of Cipher AI. Brian, good morning. Good morning, Lindsay. It's a real pleasure to be here. What evidence is there of foreign influence and interference as we get closer to the referendum in Alberta? So those two words are kind of slightly technically different, but let's just talk about influence for now.

There is quite a bit of evidence, and people can go online with a lot of our research and look at some of the articles. but we have hundreds and thousands of articles being published every week and every two weeks is what we track that basically sort of pound in on Canada and try to basically divide us as a society and to poison us against each other and to create information that no longer can be trusted by anyone. You mentioned there's a difference between those two concepts of influence and interference. Can you break that down? So this is, obviously there's a lot of controversy over this because of some comments made by senior ministers saying that the RCMP have told us that there is no such thing. I think sometimes we can talk past each other on a lot of these terms. There are, because of new legislation, sort of technical terms, like crimes associated with foreign interference. But I think what we're talking about is how Russia, China, and U.S. influence, just like the example that you had at the beginning of the show.

who are trying to change and often manipulate what is a democratic discussion and what, you know, Canadians airing grievances and discussing the future of Canada is important. Our research looks at how that's being manipulated, how that's being amplified in order to change the outcome, but also just to basically polarize us against each other. Let's talk about Russia. What do we know about who is behind content from there? So it's always important in the first question that often is asked is, why does Russia do this? You know, most Canadians, you know, don't think of Russia very often.

And so, you know, it's strange to think that they would be sort of pounding billions of dollars of disinformation into our ecosystem. But you have to remember that from Vladimir Putin's perspective and from Russian perspective, they are at war with the West and therefore by extension, Canada. This was the case even before the full-scale invasion. But now, you know, because we are supporting Ukraine's basically different, of their own country, we are seen as the enemy. And so they, Russia is at war with Canada. And so they can't start a war because then, you know, Article 5 and NATO kicks in. So they do

everything short of starting a war to be able to harm us and to disrupt our society. And so we have, you know, there's, I mean, a huge amount of evidence as to who's doing this, you know, RT and Pravda, there's an entire network and ecosystem that basically takes these messages and kind of launders them through so that basically the average Canadian begins to start seeing some of these disinformation campaigns. Is that campaign led by the government of Russia? It is. But it also, they often are very decentralized.

So they have multiple networks, multiple actors who they pay to do these kinds of things. But then you have a lot of self-interested actors who sort of use that information for their own purposes and in order to get attention in order to be able to amplify their own, you know, followings online and this becomes then an entire ecosystem because it's always important to remember that the most effective disinformation is actually passed on by the average Canadian. So 83% or so of disinformation in Canada is actually passed on by the average Canadian. That's the goal because if you receive something from something that you know, you're more willing to trust it than if it just comes from some random account. And so their goal is to use truth, sort of half truth and

and conspiracy theories to try to get you to forward something or to basically send it to your networks that you might agree with the title, but embedded in all of that is a lot of disinformation and conspiracy theories that are trying to poison society in multiple ways. Your report calls that laundering the content because you might trust it if it comes from someone that you know. Exactly. And so, and this is the ultimate goal. And it's important.

And this is where, you know, we often feel, I think, little overwhelmed by some of the global forces disempower us, but disinformation is actually where the average Canadian has the most power. Because the most disinformation is passed on by Canadians, what we always talk about is take a look at what you are passing on. Most people click things through without actually reading it very closely. And that's actually the key point is if you actually read something and you agree with it, absolutely send it on. But just make sure you're reading all the way through because embedded in those messages are often a lot of conspirators. theories, and that is actually what the goal is. And it's important to always sort of figure out why

Russians are doing this. Their ultimate goal is to poison us against each other so that we no longer see, and you can see this in the United States, we no longer see another Canadian as someone who has a disagreement with us, but as an existential threat. And that amplification where disagreements become, you know, fights become almost violent. That's the purpose. And so before you send something off, what's the tone of that email? Is that the kind of like dialogue and way in which you want Canada to be able to interact with each other. We heard that clip off the top from American National Security analyst Brandon Weikert. What about the American influence on the Alberta referendum?

What has that look like? How is it different from what we're seeing from Russia? So most of what Russia does, as your introduction said, is covert, where this is done through sort of proxies and they're not therefore seen as doing it because it's more effective. In the U.S., it's quite different. I think as every Canadian knows, Donald Trump is talking about, you know, Canada's the 51st state, but they are trying to dominate and subjugate Canada's economy and therefore, by definition, Canadians. And so it's much more overt.

It's not something that they're trying to hide. They're doing it explicitly. And there's an entire ecosystem underneath, the sort of MAGA influencers and a lot of this U.S. influence underneath Donald Trump and in that ecosystem, who pick up his messages and then just start, to sort of advance those narratives. And it's important to always remember that Canadians use primarily U.S. social media platforms. So all of that ecosystem is basically sort of already connected into Canada.

And we have a lot of overlap between our far right and the far right and the far left as well, frankly, on both sides in Canada. And so that's how messages start to kind of influence our communities. But they're quite interested in trying to understand. undermine our cohesion. So pitting Alberta against the rest of Canada because we are in trade talks. And the more that they can disrupt and look like Canada is not cohesive and especially cause conflict between the provinces and the federal government, the weaker the federal government is in those negotiations with the White House. Before we let you go, I'm curious if your research shows you

if this kind of influence is having an effect on voters in Alberta. Is it changing how they're thinking about the referendum? This is always. the million dollar question, and it's extremely difficult to be able to discern that because there is so much disinformation already in the ecosystem in Alberta that finding a sort of example before to be able to test how is it changed. But we do have both anecdotally, but then there's some ways that we've been trying to test this. So for example, when we talk about how, you know, the intentions of China versus Russia and how certain communities and extremist communities feel about Russia, there's a lot of defense. You know, Russia's not a problem. Russia. Russia's not a problem.

Russia's, you know, why would Russia harm us? But if you would say the same thing about China, those same networks have much more of a sort of negative view of China. And we would argue part of that is because Russia has been so effective at co-opting certain communities and certain extremist groups and extremist networks within Canada to be supportive of Russia and to basically undermine support for Ukraine and therefore sort of pull our society apart by focusing on our divisions as much as possible. Thank you so much for breaking this down for us, Brian. My pleasure. Thank you very much, Lindsay. Brian McQuinn has been studying the foreign influence and interference on the Alberta referendum.

He is the co-director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence, Data and Conflict at the University of Regina, and he is the CEO of Cipher AI. Between tariffs, trade battles, and an ongoing war in the Middle East, the lazy days of summer seem to have skipped Washington this year. So our podcast, two blocks from the White House, is here. Here to keep you caught up even if you're in vacation mode. Join me, Katie Simpson with correspondence Paul Hunter and Willie Lowry and other journalists from our DC Bureau for a front row seat and what this all means for Canadians. Find and follow two blocks from the White House with new episodes every Wednesday in your favorite podcast app, including YouTube.

Let's go now to Patrick Lennox. He is a security consultant and a former manager of intelligence with the RCMP. He's also the author of an upcoming book on treason, Alberta's separatism, foreign interference, and Canada's survival in a revolutionary age. It is being released in September. Patrick Lennox also served as the Liberal Party candidate for Edmonton Grisbach in Canada's 2025 general election. We have reached Patrick in Edmonton. Good morning. Good morning, Lindsay. Nice to be with you. You have said that this kind of influence poses a national security threat. What do you mean by that?

Well, I mean, I think we need to really understand that using secession referendums as a way to try to fracture the rules-based liberal international order is an explicit objective of Vladimir Putin's foreign policy. And so to learn yesterday and today that Russia is, is pushing hundreds, if not thousands of pieces of disinformation into our information ecosystem in Canada with the intent of trying to disrupt us and to break us apart and to interfere with this so-called democratic process that we're going to be having in October. Obviously, that is a very profound national security threat. That is something that really puts Canada on a ballot and exposes us to very significant forms of foreign interference from not just Russia, but also, as we've learned from the United States and from other countries as well. Earlier this month, Alberta NDP leader Nahed Nenshi posted a letter from July.

It said that CIS, the CIS director, Dan Rogers, it was monitoring the risks and saying that the referendum could be a target for foreign influence. Given your background at the RCMP and investigating intelligence, how prepared do you think Alberta is for what we're seeing coming from both Russia and the United States? Well, the province of Alberta is not prepared at all. they have zero capacity whatsoever to deal with this type of a threat. They're not, they don't have a security and intelligence community within the province itself. We'll have to rely on the federal apparatus to click in here. And it's good to hear that ceases is taking this seriously. But, I mean, ultimately, the government of Alberta has made a decision by executive order to expose Canada to this very dangerous.

referendum process with zero safeguards in place to defend us against foreign disinformation. We reached out to the Alberta government to ask about foreign interference and influence in the referendum and what they're doing about it. The Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Services sent us a statement. I want to read you what it says in part. Alberta's government will continue to work closely with law enforcement partners to identify and address potentially interference where credible concerns are identified, they will be referred to the Public Security Intelligence Office, which works closely with law enforcement and CISIS to assess and respond to potential threats. You were commenting there on how important the federal role is in this.

Do you think that both of these governments passing it on to the federal authorities can make a difference in the threat we're seeing? I don't know. I guess we'll see. I mean, I think it's a very brand new process that we're trying out on the fly. I mean, you have to understand that we've been dealing with foreign interference in a serious way in Canada for over a decade. The last three general federal elections have been, you know, an evolution of a process that's been very, you know, controlled and scripted and protocoled and planned at the federal level with the entire security intelligence community and PCO and the federal government. There's a plan in place. You know, that's what the whole commission was all about. There's a plan in place for what to do

when foreign actors try to interfere in our democratic process at the federal level in a general election. There's no plan in place for this. They're doing this on the fly, and they're crossing their fingers, I suppose, and hoping for the best. But I don't expect good things. If, you know, if what Brian's telling us is, is true, and I have no doubt that it is, you know, we are going to be bombarded by missiles of disinformation aimed at our society by Russia, by the United States, probably by China and other nations as well, with the intent to break us up. What people have to understand is that authoritarian regimes see democracies as a threat, and they see secession referendums as an opportunity to break democracies apart.

And we are being exposed to this intentionally by the UCP, and we need to ask why. You mentioned the rest of the world. Where else globally are we seeing this kind of foreign meddling happening from foreign actors? Well, I mean, you can, the first time this really came back into play was the Scottish Devolution referendum in 2014. In that same year, there was also a referendum in Crimea that led to the annexation of Crimea by Russia.

Following that in 2016, there was. was obvious and clear interference in the Brexit referendum in the UK, which has led to severe economic consequences for the UK and for Europe. And Russia's efforts in that referendum proved quite successful, as we know. And, you know, I think we can go from there to, there was a, there was a referendum in Catalonia, in Spain, that was also interfered with severely by the Russians and was used as a way to try to break Spain apart. We saw referendums in Lujans and Dinesk in the Ukraine, in the Donbass region of the Ukraine that preceded the invasion of those regions of the Ukraine as well.

Is anywhere handling this well? I'm curious what you can tell me about the situation in Finland, where they've had to deal with Russian misinformation for a long time. Well, I mean, I think their entire society is well. aware of the threat coming from from Russia and they have an under they have a comprehensive understanding of psychological warfare and what and how it would be aimed at their society and so they teach in schools how to discern this type of disinformation and these types of techniques and tactics that are going to be used against their society and so I think you know they're they're relatively well armed

intellectually and culturally to to handle this type of threat we we don't have the same kind of resilience necessarily built into our society. I mean, hopefully we do and we can find a way through the basis of our public education system and whatnot. But I think ultimately, you know, we have never really had to deal with this. The last time we had a referendum in Canada was 1995. It was probably the best year in the last 100 to have a referendum.

You know, the international system was very stable at the time. Russia was on its back heels. China was a developing economy. The relationship with the United States was very chill. compared to now. And, you know, this is probably the worst time in human history to have this type of a vote. So it sounds like the solution is long-term education to build up resilience. We don't have a lot of time before Alberta goes to the polls.

Just quickly, before we let you go, what should we be doing in the next couple of months? We shouldn't be having this referendum at all. We have to understand that this is entirely voluntary. These are the 10 questions that are going to be put to Albertans in October have been put there by executive order by Premier Smith. This is totally unnecessary. We have to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us, Patrick.

You're welcome. Patrick Lennox is a security consultant and a former manager of intelligence with the RCMP. He is also the author of a new book called On Treason, Alberta Separatism, Foreign Interference, and Canada's survival in a revolutionary age. Patrick Lennox also served as the Liberal Party candidate for Edmonton Grisbeck in Canada's 2025 general election. He joined us from Edmonton. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.