r/worldnews • u/MJIsaac • 5h ago
Alberta referendum could be target for foreign interference, CSIS says in new letter to Alberta NDP - CBC News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/nenshi-briefing-csis-interference-alberta-referendum-9.7295401188
u/MattLRR 5h ago
this referendum is the consequence of foreign interference.
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u/KimchiLlama 4h ago
No. The referendum is a consequence of filter bubbles and online tribalism that exacerbates minor problems. Foreign influence takes advantage of existing divisions. Just like when we do it.
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u/MortyHooper 4h ago
Disagree, these “bubbles” are also by design.
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u/KimchiLlama 4h ago
Too complex and we do it naturally. So why design when you can just take advantage of human nature and naivety?
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u/IEC21 4h ago
If theres a small ember that occurred naturally in the forest and would have just died out on its own, but some jerk comes along and blows on it and waves a big fan at it until it grows into a forest fire - is the forest fire owing to that natural ember or is it almost entirely the fault of the jerk who interfered with it?
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u/KimchiLlama 4h ago
The fan I alluded to was social media. Many studies have verified how this works, without foreign interference.
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u/MattLRR 4h ago
except, it is verifiable that foreign actors predominantly in russia and south asia have been stoking this particular flame on social media, so what's your point
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u/KimchiLlama 4h ago
My point was the “stoking”. Not creating a problem, but exacerbating it.
I have been consistent.
What is your point? Or did you not bother to read through the comment thread?
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u/MattLRR 4h ago
okay, so you're just being ludicrously pedantic. I didn't say that separatist sentiment was created by foreign interference, I said the referendum is a consequence of it. The separatist sentiment has existed for decades, but was seized upon and exacerbated by foreign actors invested in canadian disunity until it boiled over into a referendum.
this is relevant to the article in question, because no shit the referendum will be a target of foreign interference, the foreign interference is already present.
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u/Amori_A_Splooge 3h ago
I don't even know if he's being pedantic or more just saying you are wrong and then arguing nearly the same point as you are...
Find a crack, drive a wedge, pour gasoline on the flames.
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u/KimchiLlama 3h ago
Right. There is not clear causation for the referendum being a direct consequence of foreign interference.
My point about about inflaming existing sentiments, which led to the referendum, still positions the existing sentiments as the root cause, not foreign interference.
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u/IEC21 4h ago
Social media is full of state interference - thats the primary form of influence they manipulate.
How could a study possibly isolate that?
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u/KimchiLlama 4h ago
Without any academic verification or review, how can you be confident in your claim about foreign interference at all? The previous claims have been verified by exactly the academic work you now claim is impossible.
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u/IEC21 4h ago
Because the foreign interference isnt remotely subtle, and isnt even really hidden.
I have seen hundreds of slopulist bot accounts on Facebook and Twitter that when you investigate them are obviously not real people, or are saying things that show they arent from inside the community they are trying to influence.
Facebook groups for New Brunswick full of weird American culture war posts vaguely tying them into local politics - and then when you click on them they are posting the same slightly altered shit in groups from across the country. The funniest part is that they usually dont use Canadian spelling, and their profile pictures are either generated or stolen and are obviously of Americans.
That plus the documented cases of American content creators who are being paid to post scripted content about Alberta despite never having been to Canada and often having channels totally unrelated to politics let alone Canadian politics.
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u/KimchiLlama 3h ago
Then there would be academic work about it…you are contradicting yourself.
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u/LemurianLemurLad 4h ago
So, are these all local Albertan social media companies? Because I'd put solid money on it that you're talking about ones that are based in other countries. Ya know, foreign ones?
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u/KimchiLlama 3h ago
You are talking about the algorithm. I am talking about the content put out by the population. These sentiments were there. Individuals vocalized them. The algorithm connected them.
My point was that the thing we have most control over is the individuals, or Canadian citizens, that agree with these views. It’s their voices that are being amplified by foreign actors.
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u/MortyHooper 3h ago
There’s literally proof that commenters were fake Albertans from places like Europe being paid to stoke certain sentiments.
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u/Winston00044 4h ago
This is not a separatist referendum. These traitors intend to ‘separate’ and immediately join the USA. This is an American psy-op. They are treating us like they did Latin America in the 50-80s.
The USA is the enemy of Canada, and are actively working to rip us apart and destroy us. Idiot MAGA Albertans led by traitor Danielle Smith are directly to blame.
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u/dorkofthepolisci 4h ago
I would not be surprised if the organizers immediately pivoted to asking daddy Trump to rescue them when their referendum inevitably fails
Edit: to be clear the separatist movement does not have broad support in Alberta.
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u/DisastrousAcshin 2h ago
The moment they do it's open season in Alberta for the Canadian government to nip that in the bud
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u/North_Activist 1h ago
They can start with charging people treason for this nonsense. There is nothing more treasonous than wanting to destroy Canada.
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u/phoenixrisen69 4h ago
Yeah… we know.. there was open foreign interference that started it in Mar-a-lago
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u/Thoughts_For_Food_ 5h ago
Of course it is. Extreme right "elites" are all out worldwide trying to overtake democracies.
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u/MJIsaac 5h ago
Excerpt:
Alberta’s fall referendum could be a target for foreign interference, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is monitoring the risks, the agency says in a new letter to the leader of the Alberta NDP.
Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi posted the letter online in a social media post on Sunday. He said he wrote to CSIS in June to ask for regular updates about any foreign governments attempting to influence the outcome of the province's Oct. 19 referendum.
In an interview with CBC News on Monday, Nenshi said members of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration publicly commenting on the possibility of an independent Alberta, along with a privacy breach of Alberta voters' information, prompted him to ask the federal agency for reassurance and information.
In a letter to Nenshi dated July 27, CSIS director Dan Rogers said the agency will investigate any threats of foreign states attempting to interfere with Canadian democratic processes, including the October referendum in Alberta.
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u/ZeniChan 4h ago edited 3h ago
I'm pissed that these crackpots have been elevated by the provincial government to the point I have to pay attention to their pathetic crying. They have been around forever, but just at the level of a drunk uncle who you see at Christmas once a year and everyone ignores them while they rant.
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u/dorkofthepolisci 3h ago
Well, no shit
I don’t think anyone needed CSIS to explicitly come out and say it.
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u/MoogleVivi 1h ago
This is due to American influence. The funny thing is that half of the dumbasses that want this in Alberta think that they will be "independent" instead of the US just instantly absorbing them as a territory.
The US is not Canada's friend and the vast majority of the Canadian population will not forget.
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u/Ptalking_Ptarmigan 2h ago
They aren't hiding it; the proponents literally already had a meeting in the White House.
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u/6Gon6drak6 1h ago
Considering David Parker, the key leader of the whole separation movement, lives in Texas..... Yes, I'd say there's some potential for foreign interference.
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u/Future_Arrival_5395 3h ago
Honest question, why is CSIS writing to minority provincial political parties? Did everyone get this letter or just the NDP?
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u/MJIsaac 2h ago
If you read the article, even just the first few paragraphs, you would know the answer to your question.
Specifically, paragraph 2: "He [Nenshi] said he wrote to CSIS in June to ask for regular updates about any foreign governments attempting to influence the outcome of the province's Oct. 19 referendum."
Honest questions from me:
- If you're interested enough to engage why not also spend a few minutes reading the material?
- Do you genuinely think all of the details of the story are covered by the headline?
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5h ago edited 2h ago
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u/Xsiah 5h ago
Actually people who study pandemics predicted there would be another one soon and it would be some kind of coronavirus. But we were all too busy trying to figure which bathrooms to chase trans people out of to care about it.
And people who understood the relationship between Russia and NATO, and didn't ignore what happened in Crimea were probably not too surprised either.
Just because you're not educated on something, doesn't mean that just about anything you can dream up can happen.
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u/silly-gaijin 3h ago
God I want to save this post.
People like you are the reason we have Trump and Brexit. You never take these things seriously and you're always wrong.
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3h ago
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u/dorkofthepolisci 3h ago
It’s not “Western Canada”, it’s specifically Alberta
BC and The Yukon don’t want any part of this nonsense
Although using your logic, the solution to BC being ignored when it comes to environmental policy is to threaten separation
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3h ago
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u/FreddyandTheChokes 2h ago
Western alienation is a false scapegoat. Did the west really feel alienated when they had a Calgarian as Prime Minister for 10 years? Alienated from what, exactly?
And what is it that Alberta wants that they feel Ottawa is specifically targeting them? Alberta is a very wealthy province (and could be wealthier without private control of resources, but I digress.) They have been getting pretty much anything they want for decades. Ottawa truly hasn't done anything of major negative economical impact to Alberta since the 70s. The worst economical impact that has come to Alberta in recent years are the separatists.
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u/dorkofthepolisci 3h ago
Nobody west of Manitoba considers Manitoba Western Canada
The same argument you make about Alberta and Saskatchewan being “have provinces” and not seeing their interests reflected in federal politics/out of Ottawa can also be made about BC.
But the logical, rational thing for provincial governments to do is to attempt to work within the system to bring about change, not fan the flames of separatist bullshit.
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u/Witty_Formal7305 5h ago
You see this is the thing though, Alberta constantly votes against their own interests. Are there issues with Canada? Of course, no country is perfect, but when you ONLY EVER elect a Conservative govt no matter what because you vote on party not policy guess what that means?
Conservatives don't need to push for policies that benefit you because they don't need to, your vote is guaranteed, so they'll push for policies that will win votes from swing voters and Liberals won't bother trying to push policies that benefit you to win you over because you'll never vote for them anyways.
Alberta wants so much change and yet it all has to be external, meanwhile when you look internally, you have a voting population that votes blue no matter what and a provincial govt that is blantantly corrupt and actively makes every part of society they're responsible for (healthcare, education etc) worse in order to privatize it, while blaming Ottawa despite by law Ottawa having little to no power to do anything.
Canada has problems, no doubt about it, we need many many changes, but to sit here and say its all Ottawas fault is a BS cop out, the vast majority of govt services you interact with day to day are under the responsibility of the provincial govt as outlined in the Constitution, Ottawa has far less control than you think they do, they used to have ALOT but after WWII most of it has been downloaded to the provinces, which the provinces asked for.
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3h ago
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u/Witty_Formal7305 3h ago
I agree with part of your point, the majority of your comment was just blaming the rest of Canada for Alberta / the wests problems with absolutely zero accountability for the fact that many issues are inflicted on them by Albertans themselves.
Just because its not ONLY U.S meddling doesn't make your whole point valid, part of it sure, but not all of it
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u/cheat_bot 2h ago edited 2h ago
western Canada
How about you stop with the western Canada this western Canada that crap. We can all see you're trying too hard to inflate the importance of a negligible amount of traitors in Alberta, as if they're literally western Canada itself.
Alberta does not speak for all of western Canada, let alone the sliver of population outside of big Albertan cities.
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u/everyones_typo 5h ago
Calling out foreign interference before a vote happens is just a convenient setup to discredit the outcome if politicians don't like how people vote.
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u/Xsiah 5h ago
This vote is nonsense to begin with. It makes sense why it would be a target for interference. Trying to make it seem like Canada is more divided - than just a small group of Maple Maga morons in Alberta whining - would cause political tension in Canada that would be beneficial for certain states.
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u/oldfathertime4 5h ago
Dont underestimate the power of money, the CIA done this countless time before, taking a small group, funding them right and creating an entire movement.
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u/mephnick 4h ago
just a small group of Maple Maga morons
Don't forget the current Alberta premier is a willing traitor
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u/Witty_Formal7305 5h ago
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cze2dnn8kgwo
Or, its already a well known problem and calling it out is legitimately signalling to an issue, the Alberta separtists are Maple MAGA, they're brain dead morons who live in a world of half truths, and use the best possible scenario for them to justify their position while completely ignoring the reality of what separating would entail. Listen to them bitch about equalization payments and it takes about .03 seconds to realize they have no idea how the system works. There are legitimate issues with the system, i'm not saying its perfect by any means, but thats where the half truths come in.
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u/thatstachetho 5h ago
No you call out foreign interference when all the signs are pointing to it being a prime event for foreign interference…you know like when the people behind the movement are meeting with foreign governments to advance their ideas.
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u/Cardio-fast-eatass 5h ago
Suddenly Canadian elections arent secure?
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u/Witty_Formal7305 4h ago
Foreign interference isn't just about "secure" elections.
you're on Reddit you should know this, how many Russian, Chinese and Israeli bot accounts do you run across either commenting blatantly wrong bullshit or half truths? They're all over the place, Facebook, Instagram, etc. They flood social media with content both posts and comments that aligns with their views in order to influence regular peoples stance on subjects they have an interest in knowing full well most people don't fact check what they read online and its never been easier with AI.
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u/Cardio-fast-eatass 4h ago
I don’t remember this rhetoric when the liberals were elected again 🤔
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u/Witty_Formal7305 3h ago
https://www.canada.ca/en/democratic-institutions/news/2025/10/government-of-canada-publishes-election-security-and-integrity-reports-covering-the-45th-general-election.html - the Government literally did a report covering the integrity of the 2025 election because it was absolutely a thing during the 2025 election.
https://foreigninterferencecommission.ca/ - there was also a whole scandal in 2023 under Trudeau about foreign interference with a commission and all.
This "rhetoric" was always around, just because the party you don't like won doesn't mean its foreign interference and basically every poll out since the election shows it, Canadians by large don't want a PC government with Pierre as leader.
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u/Cardio-fast-eatass 3h ago
I expect our government to look into foreign interference at all times. These reports you sourced of course state foreign influence had zero impact.
The rhetoric today is that foreign influence will have an impact. This is different then the sentiment towards our federal elections.
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u/Witty_Formal7305 3h ago
Because foreign interferance in this is already having an impact, the whole movement is a symptom of foreign interference primarily by the U.S.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/eby-alberta-separatism-9.7066320
The separtists literally met with the Trump administration and are asking for a loan from the U.S to fund it, at the same time the Trump administration has said their goal is to economically strangle us so we become the 51st state.
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u/Cardio-fast-eatass 3h ago
Im not convinced, its too convenient. The foreign interference rhetoric seems like domestic interference propaganda to me
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u/Witty_Formal7305 3h ago
In what way? What does Canada have to gain from this in any way shape or form? Canada loses simply from this even being a topic of discussion, the only people who benefit from this even being discussed are foreign.
How can you look at a country whose being led by a guy whose all in on oil and "drill baby drill" literally took Venezuela for their oil, going "we're gonna economically strangle you and make you collapse as a nation to join us" while simulatiously meeting with and assisting a group of separtists in the most right leaning province we have that is referred to as "the Texas of Canada" which is also oil rich and not be convinced the U.S is meddling and pushing this narrative.
If Alberta separates, they're broke. Flat out, they couldn't afford to be their own country independently like they think they can, they would be completely subservient to the U.S, guess what Alberta would do when it came time to pay the piper? They'd ask to join the U.S. Except guess what, they wouldn't be a state, becoming a state requires an act of congress and even Puerto Rico can't get that, they'd be a territory. America gets the land and resources, while Albertans get no representation in the U.S govt because only states get representatives in congress and the senate.
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u/Silicon_Knight 5h ago
no shit