Canada separatists accused of ‘treason’ after secret talks with US state department

Alberta activists’ covert meetings with US officials revealed, outlining group’s increasingly emboldened efforts

Covert meetings between separatist activists in the Canadian province of Alberta and members of Donald Trump’s administration amount to “treason”, the premier of British Columbia said on Thursday.

“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,” David Eby told reporters.

“It is completely inappropriate to seek to weaken Canada, to go and ask for assistance, to break up this country from a foreign power and – with respect – a president who has not been particularly respectful of Canada’s sovereignty.”

The revelations that far-right activists met US state department officials first emerged in a Financial Times report outlining the efforts a group of increasingly emboldened separatists are taking in their attempt to secede from Canada.