Alberta separatists’ Washington junket – some dare call it treason, including B.C. Premier David Eby

British Columbia Premier David Eby yesterday said what a lot of Canadians have been thinking – to wit, that the Alberta separatists gallivanting off to Washington to get the Trump Administration’s support to break up Canada are committing treason. 

Holders of this opinion would include a lot of Albertans, as a matter of fact. 

“I read an article last night in the Financial Times about a group of people from Alberta – I won’t describe them as Albertans – who went to the White House seeking the assistance of the United States to break up our country,” an obviously irritated Mr. Eby said before entering the first ministers’ meeting in Ottawa. 

This was a reference to meetings in Washington – although presumably not at the deconstruction zone previously known as the White House but at the U.S. State Department in nearby Foggy Bottom – in which leaders of the so-called Alberta Prosperity Project claim to have participated.

We need to view those statements cautiously, of course, because lawyer Jeffrey Rath, who is treated by media as the Alberta separatist crowd’s spokesperson, won’t say who they met or what was actually discussed. It’s certainly true they met someone. Whether that someone has influence is not as clear. Nevertheless, Barron Trump, the American Dauphin, has been tweeting about Alberta, so that presumably means there’s something to this. 

“Now I understand the desire to hold a referendum to talk about the issues we want to talk about in Canada,” Mr. Eby continued. “We’ve got free speech, that’s important. But to go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that, and that word is treason.”

That’s not the whole quote, but it’s enough to get the gist of what the B.C. premier was saying. 

After that, things on this side of the world’s longest undefended border – a situation that may soon have to change – unfolded fairly predictably.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith naturally sprang to the defence of the separatists. This is no surprise because the APP has for all intents and purposes become the most important internal faction of the United Conservative Party, and it likely has the power to remove Ms. Smith from power if she were to displease them. 

“Ten years under Justin Trudeau’s government, our province was relentlessly attacked, not only for our economy, but also for … our provincial rights and also our personal freedoms and our way of life,” Ms. Smith lied brazenly. 

“When you look at the polls, they suggest that 30 per cent of Albertans have lost hope,” she added, merely tendentiously. “That’s about a million people, and I’m not going to demonize or marginalize a million of my fellow citizens. …”

As I predicted in this space on Tuesday, confronted with criticism of her coddling of the many separatists within the UCP, the premier would respond: “We respect all constituents’ beliefs! We don’t want our dual citizens to feel bad! Yadda-yadda.” That prediction was close enough for government work, I’d say. 

Ms. Smith may be waiting to see which way the wind is blowing before deciding what to do in order to remain in power. Or she may have been a separatist from Day 1, playing her cards close to her blouse to keep legacy Conservative voters on side. A case can be made for either interpretation of her actions.

Doug Ford called the alleged mystery meetings in Washington unethical and unacceptable – and one has the feeling that the Conservative Ontario premier included Ms. Smith in that general opprobrium. Gone are the days, at any rate, when Mr. Ford and Jason Kenney, Alberta’s previous UCP premier, could boast they completed one another’s sentences. 

Likewise predictably, Prime Minister and host Mark Carney tried to get Ms. Smith and Mr. Eby to sit down and play nicely, an effort that doesn’t sound as if it were completely successful. Afterward, Mr. Eby called the tone of the meeting “borderline friendly,” so at least no punches were thrown. 

Everyone in Ottawa yesterday seemed to agree that they expected U.S. President Donald Trump to behave himself, which was also completely predictable and, as we all understand, more aspirational than meaningful. 

Meanwhile, separatist supporters fired off rude tweets in several directions, while the chattering classes did what they do best and argued politely on social media about whether or not it’s fair to call the separatist sojourners traitors. 

One faction argued that since the Criminal Code of Canada does not include in the definition  of treason negotiating with foreign officials in peacetime for any reason, including breaking up the country, therefore no one has any business calling the APP delegation traitors. 

Others argued that the common English language definition of treason is much broader, in effect simply betraying your country for any reason at any time, thus people are naturally going to brand such behaviour treasonous.

For the record, I side with the many Canadians who agree that treason is a fair comment on what has been going on, while nevertheless recognizing that nothing we have been told at this time reaches the threshold of section 46 of the Criminal Code. 

As was argued here last summer, this situation illustrates why Canada needs a version of the United States’ Logan Act, legislation that since 1799 has made it a crime to carry on unauthorized negotiations with foreign governments.

The Logan Act has remained on the books ever since – for the obvious reason that there is a real need to prevent such interventions, all the more so in the globalized and corporatized world of the 21^st Century. Its mere presence is a useful reminder of the necessity of a nation’s government holding a monopoly on diplomacy.

Ironically, if American separatists from, say, the state of Minnesota had come to Ottawa to seek assistance separating from the United States and perhaps a few hundred billion Loonies for miscellaneous expenses, they most certainly would have been charged under the Logan Act. 

The need for a similar prohibition in Canadian law on freelance diplomacy remains a matter of urgency in defence of the realm.