Calling Out Canada's MAGA Traitors

MAGA Premier Danielle Smith is doing her "should we break up Canada" roadshow through Alberta. It is raising the trolls and the ragers. For example, the other day, I received a hate rant from someone on Facebook who accused me of being a "f—king, left wing drag piece of s—t, garbage."

He ended his rant with the usual right-wing troll accusation of calling me a traitor.

Yup, someone committed to ripping our country apart as we face an unprecedented threat from the United States. And he called me a traitor.

So maybe it's time we reclaimed the word 'traitor' and put it in its proper context.

Traitor: (noun) a person who is not loyal to his or her own country, friends, etc., a person who betrays a country or group of people by helping or supporting an enemy. — Britannica

Defining traitors isn't the kind of thing Canadians had to worry about over the last 80 years, but when Donald Trump came to power, everything changed.

He said our border wasn't real. He vowed to use economic force to break our economy and force us to beg to join the United States.

Call me suspicious, but the timing of Trump's threat to our nation and the sudden rise of a militant separatist movement in Alberta just seems a little too convenient.

When Donald Trump threatened our sovereignty, Canadians responded with incredible solidarity. A nationwide boycott of all things American sprouted up in every community across the country.

Canadian leaders vowed to work together to defend our sovereignty.

Well, most of them did.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith refused to stand with the other premiers. Instead, she opted to head to Trump's lair in Mar-a-Lago.

She didn't go with a powerhouse TEAM ALBERTA crew of business and labour leaders to argue Alberta's or Canada's case. She hung out with Kevin O'Leary, the grifter promoting the sale of Canada to the U.S. and Jordan Peterson, the right-wing guru who has quit Canada and moved to the U.S.

The American-owned newspapers in Alberta gave Smith the thumbs up. And nobody had anything negative to say when she appeared with MAGA influencer Ben Shapiro who ridicules our nation as a "silly little country" and a nation run by "schmucks."

Here's Shapiro on Canada:

"We can annex it and then just call it an outlying territory or something like Puerto Rico, but of the North… Trump has basically proposed that we annex Canada, and I feel like they will greet us as liberators at this point."

You would expect Smith to defend Canada in some way.

Not a chance.

"I come in peace," she smirked.

She wasn't coming in peace on behalf of the people of Alberta, who were standing firm like other Canadians in defending Canadian values and sovereignty. She came in peace to gab with a fellow MAGA warrior.

And when it became apparent that Canada’s right-wing MAGA candidate Pierre Poilievre was not going to win the recent federal election, Smith and the Alberta far right began driving the notion that Alberta would separate from Canada if Canadians didn’t vote Maple MAGA.

The media have been eating this up.

CBC didn't dig into the bogusity of such claims or ask why the MAGA premier was so on point with the message of the MAGA president. Instead, they dispatched their flagship shows to travel to "oil country" to listen and learn from the anger coming from the oil patch crew.

I was in Alberta for the Resistance Tour, where I met with an incredible outpouring of national pride and determination to stare down the Trump threats.

But the national media much prefer the story of Alberta rage. Every utterance of the tiny separatist movement is blown up and given major coverage.

Fortunately, we have some independent media like Press Progress that provide a clear picture of how politically marginal the break Canada mob really are. The photo of the “victory night” party for one separatist candidate can be filed under… Lol.

But Danielle Smith isn't marginal. She is driving wedges wherever she can find them. Consider the boycott.

As ordinary Canadians were doing their part to boycott American products, Danielle Smith was putting American booze back on the shelves. A unilateral surrender. Or more likely, another attempt to undermine the Canadian message of solidarity.

Can you say quisling?

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Parcel of Rogues

Let's look at those who would break our nation apart.

First we’ve got Alberta Republican Party leader Cameron Davies, described by Global News as a long-time member of the United Conservative Party and a key member of the Wildrose party.

They don't bother to mention that this individual is a former U.S. Marine.

A U.S. Marine.

His profile reads: "I believe in Faith, Family & Freedom. Proud Patriot."

Patriot to who?

The dude swore an oath to "support and defend the United States… and obey the orders of the President of the United States." Now he's deeply embedded behind enemy lines, doing his best to turn our nation over to his President.

Then there’s Jeffrey Rath, who’s been getting a great deal of media attention for the drive to make Alberta the 51st state. The media have been giving this guy soft gloves treatment, but former Premier Jason Kenney calls him a “treasonous kook”.

Now we learn that the Alberta Law Society has launched an investigation into Rath over allegations he may have "threatened criminal charges, including for murder, in an attempt to gain a benefit for a client…"

The Law Society writes that these are “unproven allegations” but are moving ahead with a hearing on the matter.

And let’s not forget Mitch Sylvestre, who the Calgary Herald has given glowing praise for "leading the charge." Journalist Rick Bell didn't mention that Sylvestre's slideshow of grievances portrays Canada's relationship with Alberta as on par with the mass murder of six million Jews.

Such comments are disgraceful and harken back to the ugly history of Holocaust denial and diminishment in Alberta's far right.

Where are the talking heads and pundits who should be asking why Danielle Smith, a former right-wing talk show host, has thrown her lot in with these punters rather than standing with the patriotic Canadians from coast to coast to coast who are stepping up and looking out for each other?

Some have suggested that Danielle Smith isn’t serious about separation but is trying to appeal to the extremists in her base.

If true, she is playing with fire as Canada threatens to burn.

Already, online forums are being swamped with fake front groups ridiculing Canadian resistance and trying to divide the regions from one another. We saw this in convoy when a huge amount of the supposed “grassroots” sites were generated offshore.

Who is funding the toxic sludge of anti-Canadian disinformation?

The so-called populists and their media cheerleaders need to understand that they are playing with forces they will not be able to control. As JFK warned: those who think they can ride the tiger of rage often end up in the tiger's belly.

One has only to look at Brexit, where Prime Minister David Cameron agreed to push a referendum calling for a split from the EU. He did it to silence the fringe in his party and it was believed that the referendum would fail badly.

What the British establishment didn't bank on was the massive role of electoral interference and the ease with which digital mercenaries may have helped upend the vote.

One of the accused companies was Canadian Aggregate IQ, located above a shop in Victoria, BC. I attempted to get answers from these characters during the Canadian investigation into the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal.

This footage gives you a sense of the world of shadowy digital players who have developed the tools to spread disinformation and undermine elections.

Is anyone naïve enough to believe that a referendum vote to break up our nation won't be interfered with at every level by foreign actors and offshore interference operations?

Danielle Smith is playing toxic politics and is betraying the people of Alberta. They are doing their part to build a better Canada. But the MAGA machine is trying to divide us from each other in a moment of unprecedented crisis.

In this time of threat, Canadians have two choices — Vichy or Vimy. I know that the vast majority of Canadians are determined to be standing on the ridge when this threat to our nation has been defeated.

But this means naming the fifth columnists who are working openly to undermine our beautiful country.

Yes, in 2025, "T" does stand for traitor. It’s time we started to call them out.

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