So you want intelligence on foreign interference?
Or, Danielle Smith reaches out, a bit
The subject of potential foreign interference in the Alberta separatist endeavour, with a proposed referendum spear-headed by a group called the Alberta Prosperity Project, has got a lot of attention in the province and across the country.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has come to understand she has some vulnerabilities over the issue and has, as reported by the Globe and Mail’s Matthew Scace, decided to ask the federal government to grant her a security clearance so that she can receive classified briefings from CSIS. [1]
Why? So that she can know whether any foreign interference is happening in Alberta. This is both naïve and an admission. The naïve part is that foreign interference will happen if any foreign entity, state or non-state, decides to pursue such a campaign in its own self-interest. There is, let us be honest, a huge potential for foreign interference from the United States in the separatist process in Alberta, not least given US attitudes towards Canada and all the 51st state rhetoric emerging from the White House and right-wing social media platforms. The Alberta Prosperity Project has made efforts to sidle up to the Trump administration, on multiple, semi-clandestine meetings in Washington. That opens a big barn-door, should US entities choose to walk through.
The confession part in Smith’s request for a security clearance is a clear acknowledgement that provincial bodies have no capacity to understand the prospects of foreign interference targeting Alberta. The Premier has also complained that federal agencies like the RCMP and CSIS have not been forthcoming about security matters surrounding the separatist petition and potential referendum. [2] That’s not surprising. You can’t share classified information with a person or office that does not have the requisite security clearance.
Will getting a security clearance, presumably at the Secret level, with CSIS, solve the ignorance problem for the Premier? Well, it’s a start, but a very limited one.
There are two reasons for this. One is that a Premier wholly unversed in intelligence and with no expertise to backstop her within her own government structures will not be in a good position to understand what she is being told, both the strengths and limitations of the intelligence. Intelligence is not about the simple delivery of truth, just the facts stuff. It’s about partial information drawn from an-ever shifting information and national security threat environment, delivered with best judgements (assessments) attached. Compounding this problem is that while the Premier could, I am sure, get a secret clearance relatively quickly, her government may lack the apparatus for storing classified intelligence, so she may find herself, at least for a time, restricted to oral briefings. (Sorry, Premier, we can’t give you the documents and we can’t allow you to take any notes away). Such are the demands of secret information but they are not popular with politicians.
A second important reason why just getting briefings from CSIS will only be the start of a solution to the foreign interference knowledge problem, not the end, is that CSIS will want to steer clear of political controversy and must abide by its legislative restrictions, set out in the CSIS Act, originally laid down in 1984. CSIS can’t just collect intelligence within Canada will-nilly. It has to have reasonable grounds to believe that collecting intelligence on a threat matches its lawful mandate. This is where the definition of foreign interference (or influence) in the CSIS Act comes into play. CSIS can only get involved in collecting intelligence on foreign influence threats if they fit this definition in section 2 of the CSIS Act:
threats to the security of Canada means
(b) foreign influenced activities within or relating to Canada that are detrimental to the interests of Canada and are clandestine or deceptive or involve a threat to any person, [3]
Sorry to be lawyerly, but this is the handcuff we put on CSIS. What about open-source intelligence, drawn from publicly available information? Yes, CSIS can do OSINT, but again, it must relate to its mandate.
This is not to say that having access to whatever information CSIS might be prepared to relay to a security-cleared Premier is not of value. Just that it will be partial, and constrained.
To tackle the foreign interference threat, the Alberta government would need to be willing to reach out much more extensively to the federal security and intelligence system, in particular to request the assistance of the intelligence fusion body known as the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force (SITE TF), and to some of its constituent members, including the Communications Security Establishment for cyber threat briefings and assistance in cyber defences, and to Global Affairs Canada’s Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) for threat briefings on foreign disinformation campaigns. Above all, the provincial government would have to take a leaf from federal government practices, as they have evolved and strengthened since 2018, around public communication and transparency regarding detected foreign interference campaigns. The very best weapon to respond to foreign interference is to be able to tell the public that it is happening.
Would the Smith Government make itself so beholden to the feds? Would it be willing to tell the people of Alberta about the potentialities and realities of foreign interference in the separatist petition/referendum process?
Both would be big asks of a Premier who positions herself as a champion of the province, resisting federal capture, and as a politician who seemingly cannot afford to straight out denounce (a.k.a. “demonize”) the intentions of the Alberta Prosperity Project.
[1] Matthew Scace, The Globe and Mail, “Alberta’s Smith says she wants CSIS clearance, citing threats to referendum,” March 19, 2026, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-danielle-smith-national-security-clearance-from-csis-foreign/
[2] Ibid
[3] Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, s2, definition of threats to the security of Canada, https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-23/section-2.html
1. If she wants to know what foreign governments are doing to interfere in Alberta's referendums (seperation, and all the others), all she needs do is ask her caucus, office staff, party executive, and circle of friends. They've all made no secret of cozying up to the US, and anyone else snuggling with right wing Americans brings along, like Russia.
2. Maybe the reason the RCMP have not been 'forthcoming' when they talk to her is she, and all of the above, are already subjects of referendum foreign interference investigations. It's the same reason the Organized Crime unit doesn't do coffee klatch with the head of the Hells Angels.
Ha ha ha ha! I'm not laughing at your briefing, Mr. Wark. Rather at the fantastical postings by the trolls here. Yowzers.
Thanks for the factual info about what's needed to get a security clearance if you are a provincial politician. Likewise, for the info about the limits and uncertainties entailed in security reports.