The Decibel - How some Alberta separatists are courting U.S. support

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

A secret meeting with Republican strategists near an airport hanger, and talks of access to Alberta water and royalties from oil. These are some of the revelations from a Globe investigation looking into some separatists courting American support in their pursuit of independence.Carrie Tait, a reporter in the Globe’s Calgary bureau, Globe investigative Grant Robertson and Globe international correspondent, Nathan VanderKlippe are behind the investigation. Carrie and Grant are on the show to explain what they’ve learned.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In their pursuit of independence from Canada, some Alberta separatists are courting support from the U.S. The provincial referendum is on October 19th, and the globe has learned new details of how the separatist side is pursuing their goal. It involves a secret meeting with Republican strategists near an airport hangar, access to Alberta water and royalties from oil. Three globe reporters uncovered these details. Carrie Tate, who's a reporter in the Globe's Calgary Bureau, Grant Robertson, an investigative reporter, and Nathan Vandercliffe, an international correspondent.

Today, we're talking to Carrie and Grant, and they'll help us understand what they've learned. I'm Maynicka Ram and Wilms, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Carrie, Grant, thank you so much for both taking the time to be here. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Grant, in this reporting that you did with Carrie and Nathan here, you've learned some new details about how some Alberta separatist are courting support from the United States. Just give us an overview here on a really high level.

What are the new key details that you've learned? What we're seeing is a pattern that's emerged around this referendum. It's a pattern of separatist factions in Alberta seemingly all too eager to engage the U.S. and their plans for succession. And then American actors who appear to be willing to assist, ready and willing to assist, either, you know, privately in secret meetings or openly. And what this investigation found was that there was evidence of Republican political operatives on the ground in Alberta this year, assisting the separatist campaign in their bid to leave Canada.

At the same time, these people also harbor their own aspirations for Alberta to succeed from Canada and possibly for the U.S. to annex Alberta. The investigation also found that when Alberta's separatist leaders went to Washington to meet with the U.S. State Department, they had offered up key assets from the province's resource portfolio. This includes access to fresh water, royalties on crude oil. These are really the crown assets of the province in talks with the U.S. administration in exchange for support of independence. Okay. So these are some big things that you've uncovered here, this idea of Republicans being on the ground to assist the separatist movement and also offering of Alberta resources here. Let's break them down.

We're going to start with the first here with the Republican operatives on the ground in Alberta. Carrie, this goes back to January of this year, January 2026. What do we know about what happened? Right. So this meeting took place on January 26th. And that was a pretty big day for the separatists. It was essentially their kickoff rally for their petition to convince the government to put separation on the ballot. But prior to that big rally, that big public rally, there was a private invite-only meeting near the airport.

And that was with the leader of the Alberta Prosperity Project, Mitch Sylvester. He's one of the kind of the faces of the separation movement in Alberta, some of his team. And then there was David Parker, who is a conservative activist. He is an organizer. And he brought in fellows from Michigan, this company called 10x votes. And that was where we see the introduction of. of Republican political strategists with boots on the ground. And when you say 10x votes, this is like 10 times the vote then.

Right. It's a get out the vote tool. And at that point, the separatists, you know, are looking at the numbers that if they are going to win this, they are going to need all of their friends and all of their friends' nieces and nephews. And to do that, you need to identify as many people as possible and you need to track it. And so they were in the market for finding a program that, would help them get across the line. Carrie, do we know who brokered this meeting between these guys from the states and these separatist leaders? The folks from the Alberta Prosperity Project had told us on the record that David Parker brokered the meeting. He was the one who brought in the people from Michigan.

We were also told he did most of the speaking. The meeting started with a prayer. It was then David Parker largely pitching this program, which he spoke very highly publicly. He's talked about how he thinks it is revolutionary in politics. One of the problems that they had was when they were asking questions, you know, the Albertans, the separatists, it wasn't as though they didn't like it. It was very powerful, quick and easy to use, but they didn't know how it would be populated. Where would the information come from? So this gets into how this software is actually working. I think we need to understand this a little bit. So we've got David Parker.

He's the separatist organizer, very involved in the movement. He's excited about this 10x vote software. Let's break down what this software does a bit. Grant, I know that it was used in Michigan during the 2024 presidential election. And when Republicans won the state, which they flipped, they flipped control of the state then. Grant, can you explain what this software is and how it was used in Michigan? That's right. As Kerry mentioned, it's a sort of a technological twist on the age-old concept of getting out the vote,

which means if you can find enough people who support your point of view or your cause and get them to the polls on voting day, you can help increase your numbers. Now, 10x basically supercharges that by starting with the voter database and having data on who has and has not voted and then layering data sets on top of that, where they can really identify through things like, do you have a hunting license? Do you own a boat? Which church do you attend? Things like that. Wow, this is a lot of information. A lot of data in Michigan. Even known magazine subscriptions, the layer on they say 200 data sets.

And from that, they'll get a probability score of whether you're likely to vote Republican or Democrat. And then what they do is target the people who they think would vote their way and have people sign up and claim people and make sure those people get out to vote. voting day. And, you know, it seems simple, but it was really effective, they say. And even the Democrats in Michigan told me they think this really had an impact in the 2024 election in Michigan. So it sounds like they're not really trying to convince people who wouldn't otherwise necessarily vote Republican, but just kind of getting people to the polls who might be likely to vote Republican, then. Is that how it worked? It's a mixture of pure pressure. It's a mixture of identifying people who just aren't typical voters who would vote your way, you know, and a mixture of just mobilizing

But it's a much more effective, quicker, scaled up version of what Get Out the Vote would have been 20 years ago. Okay. So, Grant, this is how the software works. We've got the representatives with this software from Michigan coming up to Alberta in January for this meeting. I guess I wonder about these people who are bringing the software. Do we know anything about their views on Alberta separation? And who are these guys? Yes, the company 10X is essentially three people. The two co-founders are, Drew Bourne and Drew Weirda. Both of them come from longstanding powerful Republican families in Michigan, very wealthy donors to the Republican Party. And then the third person is a man named Lance Griffin, who's the face of the company who goes around the state of Michigan, getting people to sign out for it. Drew Bourne and Lance Griffin have been very vocal in line with an anti-Canada sentiment. Drew Bourne has been a proponent of annexing Alberta. He's called, called for the annexation of Alberta. On Canada Day this year, he put out on social media that he hopes this is the last year

that Alberta spends within Canada. And he's talked online about, you know, praying for Alberta separation to which, you know, David Parker responded to him, so do I. So when they came to Canada for this meeting, you know, this company has a point of view. It has an opinion on the outcome of this referendum in Alberta. And that is what is usual. This isn't necessarily just a software deal. This is a software deal, you know, between the Alberta separatists and a group of Republican strategists, which is what they are.

They strategize elections in Michigan for the Republicans. And these are people with an agenda. Okay. So, Kerry, this meeting with these individuals with the 10x vote software happens in January in Calgary. What comes of that meeting? As it turns out, not much. The big question that the representatives from the Alberta Prosperity Project had was, where will you get the data relative to Alberta?

What Grant just described, this sets up the American context, where in Canada we are much more protective of our data, of our privacy, and voter lists are not a free-for-all in Canada. They're restricted to registered political parties and only for certain activities. So they were presented with this very powerful. tool, but there was no way to get the names in it. And that was the question. Sure, this looks great. How is it going to work in the Alberta context? So they couldn't answer that. They couldn't answer questions about money. Now, within the separatist world, Mitch Sylvester had told us that

David Parker's suggestion was that they could start building the database with the membership list of the Alberta Prosperity Project. And Mitch says at that time he had about 250,000 names, which is a ton. That is a huge start. But Mitch, Sylvester says that he was concerned about the privacy. And he was also concerned that David Parker was making a play to solidify a leadership role within the separatist movement for himself. Sounds like maybe a little bit of infighting there almost or concern. When Mitch Sylvester was recounting this to me, he said that one of the things that made him uncomfortable was he just couldn't understand why these Republican political operatives from

Michigan would fly in on a private jet. That was his understanding. To see him. Like, who are you? What are you doing here? And what's going on? What do you want from me? The way he tells it is that he was uncomfortable with it.

So after this meeting, it sounds like this 10x of vote software. This doesn't really go anywhere with the separatist movement. But it's not actually the last that we hear of this then. Yeah, it certainly wasn't the last we would hear from 10x votes in this software. We'll be right back. Okay, so, Carrie, we left off talking about this meeting between the Michigan Republicans and Alberta separatists kind of going nowhere. But then David Parker, the separatist, who initially brokered that meeting between Republican strategists and separatists. He kind of goes out on his own with this 10x software.

What happens next, Carrie? All right. So a few weeks later, David Parker launches a new sort of political organization vehicle called the Centurian Project. It's online. People sign up. And, you know, he's saying this is for the separatists, it's going to get us over the hump. You search someone's name or their address and pop, it pops up on your screen. And then the idea was for, you know, aspiring separatists to go in and basically find your friends. And, you know, It raised eyebrows because the question was where did this data come from. The information that would pop up on the screen was quite detailed. It was legal first names, last names, addresses, electoral divisions, and their polling subdivision, which is pretty specific. And of course, there was concerns that it was the list of electors. What ended up happening, the globe was granted access to it using a corporate email address and discovered a security vulnerability. that allowed us to access the underlying database. And what we found was the sensitive private

information belonging to nearly three million Albertans once we knocked out the duplicates. It was first names, last names, middle names, unique elector identification numbers, and there were over two million phone numbers. And that was information that we were able to access. with just the regular login credentials that we were granted from the Centurion Project. So anyone with that type of technological savvy could access that massive database. So that sounds like a bit of a privacy breach. If all of this information, it could be accessible to almost anyone. Right.

People were concerned about just the information that regular users could access. You could look up somebody's address or who lived at any specific address. You could look up somebody's name and find where they lived. but to have this trove for basically every eligible voter in Alberta is an incredibly rich and valuable and dangerous piece of data to be floating out there. Okay, so it sounded like that list was then provided to maybe David Parker, this project here. Do we know what happens after this? What came of this revelation? Well, this is still unfolding. There's investigations underway with Elections Alberta, with the RCMP,

It will be quite some time as all of that unfolds. Right now, the Centurion Project is dark. There were cease and desists that were issued, of which the Globe received one, along with other registered users. And it blew up in the initial, at the end of April and May, and people were very, very angry. However, when we reported this weekend that there were Republican operatives on the ground that really reignited curiosity and in anger because it felt to Albertans so much more involved. Rather than just organizations using a software, somebody came to, multiple people came to

Alberta to pitch separatists on this. It just felt different to people than subscribing to software. Yeah. And if people remember the story from the spring, now we understand a little bit more about where this project, where the software, where this idea actually originated from. Elections Alberta, the RCMP, are looking into allegations that the Centurion Project had inappropriate access to the Alberta's list of electors. It's also looking at the Republican Party of Alberta's role in that. None of the allegations have been tested in court. Mr. Parker has declined to comment to us on that.

since May and for our story that we just published, the Republican Party of Alberta declined to comment. All right. So we've talked about this first revelation in your reporting. I want to move to the second thing that you mentioned off the top grant. And this is the high level meetings that separatists had with U.S. officials in Washington last year. The Globe had previously reported on these meetings, but you did learn some new information about proposals from the separatists. What did you learn about what they put on the table. Yeah, the existence of the meetings was known, but what we didn't know was what they talked about. And so what we were able to find out in the investigation and what my colleague Nathan Vandercliffe

was able to find out about some of these meetings is that they met with U.S. officials at the headquarters of the U.S. State Department. But the separatists have always been very vague about who they met with and what they've talked about. Certain ideas were put on the table that. that the Alberta separatists would give to the Americans in exchange for support for their cause. Now, this is very surprising. We're seeing things like Alberta's prime resources, access to fresh water, crude oil royalties, being posited, being put on the table, essentially, in discussions about construction of a pipeline to the Pacific Coast that would run through Washington, or to help Alberta adopt the U.S. Greenback as its currency after separation. at par and offering up access to oil royalties for that. Now, what's interesting about that is typically oil royalties flow to the owner of the

resource. They don't get paid out in the other direction. But the separatists were essentially saying we can give you some of these oil royalties and certainly having no mandate to have that kind of conversation on behalf of the people of Alberta. And there were other ideas talked about in there. One thing U.S. President Donald Trump talked about in its first term was maybe having a railway to Alaska. And, you know, the separatists talked about land easements that would make that

possible. They also talked about other resources, whether it's precious metals, forestry, things like that. They really put a lot of things on the table. I mean, this is pretty incredible to hear, no grant, like the idea of offering up water and oil royalties access for a railway to Alaska, these are major things. It's highly unusual. It's remarkable. And it was done in a document that was put on the table during one of the meetings, which was described by Dennis Modry, a former Alberta Heart Surgeon, who's co-founder of the Alberta Prosperity Project. He talked about this document, which he said was outlining, quote, the potential benefits of Alberta sovereignty to the United States of America and to Alberta. And so that was the basis of their discussion at the

headquarters of the O State Department. And, you know, there's some dispute between Dr. Modry and separatist leader Jeff Rath, who arranged the meetings in the U.S. about what those discussions included. Rath says we were just talking. There were no offers made. Just to be clear here, Grant, these separatist leaders, they don't have the right to offer up any water or resources to the Americans, correct? No, these people are unelected. They don't represent certainly the people of Alberta at this point. and then were Alberta to separate after referendum, that would be an open question as to who would lead the province. I would also add that the separatists don't even agree that these people represent the separatists.

There's such infighting within the movement that that isn't even clear that people who agree with them on the idea of independence believe that they are empowered or have any right to be having discussions, let alone negotiations with any foreign power. But Carrie, I guess help me understand this. Why do the Alberta separatists, why in general, why do they want American support here? Like, what do they gain from putting these proposals on the table? Whether we like it or not, the USA is still the elephant in the room. It is still the decision maker in global politics. I think part of what they're looking for is if this referendum is close or, you know, if the separatists somehow come out on top, right now the way it is striking. is that there would then, you know, Alberta would go away and start the legal process for a second referendum, you know, consult with First Nations. And it would be this nice, orderly, very Canadian following of laws and constitutions, except part of the reason why you would want somebody like the United States in your corner, particularly with Donald Trump in the White House, is that you could probably bypass all of that by the United States saying we recognize

Alberta. And that's what they're looking for, is recognition on the global stage. Yeah, that's a good point, Kerry makes. Not all separatists in Alberta are in favor of becoming a 51st state or joining close relationships with the U.S. However, it is something that some separatists have dangled at town halls in Alberta to people as a reassurance for a separatist vote. There was one town hall in Red Deer in early August where Dennis Kalma, who's a member of a self-appointed group called the Alberta Transition Council, which is supposedly formed to devise a path to sovereignty after a referendum win. He said at the town hall that he had inside knowledge that,

you know, in the event of a successful referendum vote to secede from Canada, that there would be international recognition, quote, particularly from the Americans. And he told the audience personally, and I have reasons to believe it that I can't speak to, that we will have almost immediate recognition. And not just from the Americans,

but five or six other countries. Now, he was very vague and noncommittal about this, but he was very clear in his attempt to sort of entice the audience with the spectre that they would have support from the U.S. So this now leads me to the question of what the U.S. has to gain from these relationships here. Some U.S. officials even have publicly addressed the Alberta separatist movement. Of course, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett. He talked about Alberta as a, quote, natural partner, for example. So, Grant, what is the U.S. have to gain here? Well, they're currently in the middle of a very tense trade negotiation with Canada.

So any instability, particularly with the province that has the most energy resources, which is our biggest export to the U.S., is potentially beneficial to the American side. But in general, at a time when the U.S. has talked about expansionism, there are factions within the conservative right and maga politics in the U.S. that would like to see the U.S. expand. And we're seeing a lot of comments made by prominent Republicans about the idea of the U.S. cozying up to Alberta. At the end of August, you know, on an interview on a redwing cable news network called Newsmax,

there was a Republican congressman Andy Harris who just simply wondered aloud why the U.S. wouldn't have designs in Alberta. And the issue he pointed to was that there was tremendous oil reserves there. So, you know, whether it's instability, destabilizing, or whether it's, you know, future oil reserves, you can see why there would certainly be concern on the Canada side as to why there would be designs on Alberta. All right. These are some very important revelations that your reporting has uncovered here.

Just in our last couple of minutes here, I want to ask you both about the reaction to this reporting because these new details have been out for a few days now. What has been the response to this new information? Carrie, let's start with you. This story really took people, not. people back quite a bit. I spoke yesterday or on Sunday with Corey Hogan. He is the lone liberal MP in Calgary, one of three liberal MPs in Alberta. And his take was, he doesn't believe that this rises

to the bar of treason, which is, there's a lot of people calling for heads and throw them away. He thinks, okay, everyone calm down. That's a step too far. But he said, sure, maybe it's not treason, but it doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel right, right? Like a principle seems to have been violated here, even if a rule hasn't been violated. And I think as lawmakers, we have to ask ourselves, do we have all of the tools in the toolkit that we need in 2026 with the internet the way it is, with the world the way it is, in order to protect Canadians, protect Albertans, protect our Canadian way of life. Then you have somebody who, like Jason Kenney. That's, of course, former Premier, Jason Kenney you're talking about, yeah. Right, of course. Who says, look, I don't think it's treason either.

You know, this is not to like sharing national secrets, for example, with a foreign state. But it's certainly disloyal and unpatriotic. There's lots of ways to send a message about the need for reform in the Federation without turning these mega bootlickers into a major part of Alberta politics. And then, of course, we've got reaction from the separatist side. And a lot of that is fighting over who said what in Washington and pointing fingers and, you know, people trying to throw water on what Dennis Mojuri had said when he told Nathan about water and oil, railways and pipelines. I think what we're seeing in the reaction to the story also is a lot of concern from Canadians across the country, but also. in Alberta as to what they've opened the door to by holding this referendum. There's always been concerned that this type of thing would happen.

And now I think in these examples we've uncovered, we're seeing that play out. And we're only weeks away from this referendum. And there's concern about the Pandora's box here. Carrie, Grant, this was a really fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for being here today. Thanks for having us. Thank you. That was Carrie Tate, a reporter in the global.

Calgary Bureau and Grant Robertson, who's an investigative reporter for the globe. That's it for today. I'm Manika Ram and Wilms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy McLaughlin. Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.