Outside Influence 5
Trump's Threats, Russian Influence and Western Separatism As Peas in a Pod
This is a brief update, ahead of tonight’s leaders’ debate, to address one issue.
What the Bots Are Saying
Twitter/X, TikTok and WeChat remain broadly favourable to Carney. On Twitter/X, ten percent of recently sampled posts relating to Carney or the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) were negative, compared to fifty percent for Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC). YouTube remains more balanced.
US Dimension
Official US threats to Canadian sovereignty are back in the news. In response to a question from CBC reporter Katie Simpson at an April 15 press briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt revisited Trump’s hostile claims:
Some Canadian media questioned why this issue was being revisited after senior US officials had avoided it in the campaign so far:
But has the ‘51st state’ issue really been dormant? A quick survey of campaign-related reporting and social media indicates it has not.
According to multiple reports, ‘Alberta separatists’ have intensified their efforts to organize in recent weeks. A website entitled ‘Next US State’ is inviting Canadians to urge CPC and People’s Party of Canada (PPC) candidates to support a referendum on joining the US. A coordinated network of pro-51st-state accounts on Twitter/X also dabbles in Kremlin-friendly issues such as ending support for Ukraine.
In other words, the accounts pushing Trump’s threats most energetically on Twitter/X have all the hallmarks of Russian proxy assets used in active measures. Is anyone even surprised given Trump’s near-complete alignment with the Kremlin?
Incidentally, LPC operatives recently caught distributing fake buttons like those above at a conservative conference in Ottawa were promoting slogans such as ‘Wexit’ that Russian information operations have pushed in the past.
While such shady campaign tactics have been widely condemned, it’s not at all clear to what extent, if any, US/Russian agitation is expanding Trump’s constituency here. National polls find Canadian support for joining the US to be as low as ever, while other surveys indicate as many as three-in-ten in Alberta and Saskatchewan would be in favour of leaving Canada if Carney’s LPC are elected.
Foreign-Backed Proxies
Whatever the case, Trump’s 51st state rhetoric remains the principal driver of the LPC rebound in the polls since the start of 2025. Are Russia’s active measures strategists, who supported Brexit and Trump’s three campaigns over a decade, deliberately using western separatism and MAGA-fied manifest destiny to fan flames of Canada-US conflict? There’s plenty of evidence to support this thesis. It would also be true to form since Moscow has traditionally backed separatist and other divisive movements and, for a very long list of reasons, Trump must be considered a Russian proxy.
Trump’s unfriendly tariffs and dismissal of Canadian sovereignty – as supported by Russian online assets and active measures – remain by far the most significant foreign-backed influence operation in this election. As leaders make final preparations for the French language debate (starting in ninety minutes), it’s more clear than ever that the winner is likely to be the party with the most credible response to these threats and the most compelling plan to preserve Canada’s national unity.