Early last May, news media reported that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith had been granted “Top Secret” security clearance. Really?
A report in The Globe and Mail Saturday with new details about what a group of self-appointed separatist leaders got up to in Washington D.C. in 2025 raises intriguing questions about Ms. Smith’s security clearance.
According to the detailed weekend Globe report, when leaders of the so-called Alberta Prosperity Project met with as-yet-unnamed U.S. State Department officials on three occasions in 2025 they offered “access to fresh water and royalties on crude oil, in exchange for help transitioning to independence.” Or to put that another equally accurate way, for help breaking up Canada.
With her Top Secret security rating, one would think Ms. Smith would have been told about this at her first briefing. Or did Canada’s security agencies have no idea what happened at those meetings in April, September and December last year?
Back on May 7, Ms. Smith’s press secretary, Sam Blackett, told reporters for various news organizations that the premier had been granted what the federal government says publicly is its highest level of security clearance so that she could “receive briefings on issues related to national security.”
This followed news stories in March that quoted Premier Smith complaining that the RCMP wasn’t telling her what she needed to know about foreign interference on security issues related to the Oct. 19 separation referendum, which is now only two weeks away.
“The RCMP does not brief our government, I made that clear, and no, I’m not happy with that fact, which is why we have to go to alternative sources to be able to get intelligence,” Ms. Smith said on March 18. She indicated that she wanted to be briefed by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
It was obvious at the time that Ms. Smith was peeved when she learned that B.C. Premier David Eby already had Top Secret security clearance. Perhaps she was also irked because Mr. Eby had sharply attacked the very same Alberta separatists named in Saturday’s Globe story, who seemed to be political allies of Ms. Smith at the time. “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,” the B.C. premier said in February.
In a follow-up story yesterday to the Globe’s Saturday scoop, Mr. Blackett was quoted as saying that his boss “has no knowledge of these alleged meetings.”
This is difficult to believe, since the occurrence of the meetings has been widely reported and confirmed by participants, although some of the details offered up by the Globe this weekend were new. Presumably, though, what Mr. Blackett meant was that she has no knowledge of what happened during the meetings.
But does that mean that Canada’s security agencies didn’t know either? Or just that they didn’t tell Ms. Smith? Or what?
Certainly Mr. Blackett’s assertion raises interesting questions about the true nature of Ms. Smith’s security clearance.
Even without her pro-American ideological history, I wrote back on May 10, “Ms. Smith is temperamentally a bad risk for a security clearance. She is a political opportunist and a blabbermouth. Conservative commentator Andrew Coyne recently compared her to a magpie. There is no way, given secret information she could use to her political advantage, that she will be able to resist the temptation. This, we can be confident, Canadian security agencies understand.”
It is not entirely clear who is responsible for giving security clearances to politicians. For government employees, CSIS is said to do the investigation. According to news reports at the time, the Privy Council Office – that is, the cabinet’s secretariat – is responsible for issuing security clearances to provincial officials.
I wondered at the time if we could take it on trust that the security clearance given Ms. Smith was really Top Secret, as Mr. Blackett believed. “Most likely the PCO decision was purely a political one, and the secrets to which Ms. Smith will have access – in the form of oral reports only – will definitely not be off the ‘top’ shelf, let alone unspecified levels above Top Secret,” I wrote then.
And now Ms. Smith’s office says she knew nothing about the information uncovered by the Globe. This suggests several possibilities, none of which can be proved, and none of which are particularly reassuring. These include:
- That the premier just made it up about having Top Secret clearance and no one contradicted her.
- That she wasn’t really issued Top Secret clearance but was told that she had been.
- That she was issued Top Secret clearance but never went back and asked for a briefing about the 2025 meetings in Washington.
- That she’s been briefed about the APP “negotiators” antics and is not being truthful when she says she knows nothing.
- That Canada’s security services had no clue about what happened at the meetings.
Perhaps someone could ask Alberta Public Security Minister and Deputy Premier Mike Ellis. Last spring the former Calgary police officer was said to be seeking Top Secret clearance too. There seem to be no reports on whether or not he succeeded.
Canada requires a legal prohibition of freelance diplomacy
Yesterday’s Globe follow story focused on a call by Calgary Confederation Liberal MP Corey Hogan to consider a law that would ban such freelance negotiations with foreign governments.
Ironically, if the shoe had been on the other foot and, say, Minnesota separatists had been seeking Ottawa’s help to separate from the United States, their activities would have been clearly illegal.
Since 1799, the Logan Act has made it a crime for an American citizen to carry on unauthorized negotiations with foreign governments. That includes well-intentioned negotiations, as well as outright efforts to betray the country to foreign powers.
The Logan Act has remained on the U.S. law 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 21st Century. Its mere presence is a useful reminder of the necessity of a nation’s government holding a monopoly on diplomacy.
The need for a similar prohibition in Canadian law on freelance diplomacy remains a matter of urgency in defence of the realm. Perhaps this would be a good project for Mr. Hogan.
What games are the UCP and Danielle Smith playing? That’s a good question. They can’t be trusted.
This all makes me think first of Seargeant Schultz in the old TV show Hogan’s Heroes who often said “I know nothing, I see nothing” when faced with a dilemma of knowing something that could cause him difficulties. Lest we forget, Smith was already called out on something else publicly when another Premier said something to the effect of that he knew she was told something she was teting to pretend not to know. So clearly the woman is capable of acting dumb when she feels it suits her politically.
Then there is Coyne’s “magpie” theory. Just because Smith has a security clearance, or has been told she has something that sounds like it to shut up her incessant whining, does not mean she should be told everything.
So it is possible in this case the security people decided there was no benefit to tell Smith, or even maybe risk from doing do. I kind of lean towards this explanation. It would be somewhat reassuring if our national security people actually were careful about who they shared information with.
Regardless, either possibility does not reflect well on Smith and even more so on the separatists she has seemed to be too cozy with at times.
I don’t know if a Canadian version of the Logan Act would help much. As much as it is talked about, it seems to be disregarded in the US now. However, it probably also does not help the separatists’ cause in Alberta to be repeatedly going to the US to discuss or try negotiate whatever, when they have no authority to do so.
So the real punishment for this type of behaviour should probably be political and whatever existing laws may be relevant here.
I can’t tell you how angry I am at the separatists’ free-lance ‘diplomacy’ with Trump’s America. Even if we forget the traitorous aspect of this behaviour, to promise the U.S. a cut of Alberta’s oil royalty is separatist hypocrisy of the highest order.
Alberta needs to come to its senses and realize that Danielle Smith is a destroyer, not a builder. She destroyed two major political parties and now she aims to destroy her province and the entire country. Her name should live in infamy in Alberta, mentioned in the same angry tones that Albertans reserve for the NEP and the name ‘Trudeau’.
Given Smith’s Wild Rose tenure *why* would she be given this clearance, in the first place?
They’re investigating *her* associations. Do you tell the mafia don that you’re investigating his old neighbourhood buddies in the bootlegging ring so he can tip them off to dump the bottles and stash the cash?
Given the premier’s friendship with David Parker and his role in organizing this meeting with the Americans in Calgary to give away our resources in exchange for power, how likely is it that CSIS would give her information? How likely is it that CSIS didn’t know about David Parker and his activities? He hasn’t exactly been quiet about his plans.
We still want to know why she did nothing to protect Albertans who had their privacy violated by that same friend of the premier, and why instead of protecting us after our personal information went public, she called a referendum reliant on the stolen voters’ list.
No wonder she’s emotionally labile these days. So many balls to juggle.
My choice would be number 4. I think she is fully aware of what is going on and would prefer to lie about these things to appease her separatist friends rather than tell the truth that she knows what’s going on. This whole thing is turning into a real bag of snakes for Smith. As noted in the post yesterday, we need to send Smith a real big message about her stupid antics. She seems to think this pipeline thing is a real big win for her, but the money they are spending could build a badly needed new hospital in Edmonton, which somehow the UCP completely refuses to do. The question is how long is going to take to get enough donations from the public to build the new Stollery, 5 years, ten years, 20 years? The UCP certainly are not putting any money in the project.
Like pretty much everything that is labeled “conspiracy theory”, the October Surprise theft of the 1980 US presidential election turned out to be a thing. The Logan Act didn’t do much to dissuade those people. Like the heart, the CIA wants what it wants. All of Canada’s intelligence agencies are enmeshed with the Five Eyes, including CSIS, the RCMP and the CSE. There is no federal Canadian intelligence apparatus independent of the U.S. and U.K. Canada does things like spy on Cuba for its master. The secession problem in Alberta is viewed favourably by the Blob, so it stands to reason no Canadian agency uttered a peep about the traitors meeting with US officials. Elbows up!
The UCP trying to break up the country. What a surprise!
As a proud Canadian this makes me sick. We all have known what Danielle Smith is all about from day 1 and we just continue chapter after chapter until the very catastrophic end. What does it take to smell a traitor? Why do we have a prime minister and security forces and the rule of law and still we allow this kind of events as if somehow we cannot take action. It is not surprising to me we are where we are and no wonder democracies are on the way out. What we need is a true rule of law not circuses.
Anyone think that Smith’s press secretary looks like a young J. Jonah Jameson?
I probably wouldn’t have thought that, except for the fact that Jameson was always kicking the heroes and promoting the bad guys.
You raise a very serious question about our Alberta magpie and her being “a political opportunist and a blabbermouth.” Isn’t it enough that she has misappropriated billions of public dollars? She has walked a white line with the law before, which helps explain why she wants to rid Alberta of the RCMP. If she has been accorded the level of security you suggest, it now becomes a matter of urgent national security, and redress it immediately.
Short and sweet, she is full of shit and these Separatists should be thrown in jail!
Excellent post on an important and otherwise overlooked matter.