When does a separatist movement become a threat to Canada’s national security?

This is a question hanging in the air in Alberta. People are asking how it can possibly be that the very same individuals who are leading the separatist movement can also be three meetings deep into a relationship with senior officials of the Donald Trump administration in Washington, with a fourth scheduled for this month.

Treason. Sedition. Traitorous. These are words that are ricocheting around the radio talk shows and the social media channels.

In the aftermath of the United States’ move on Venezuela, people are genuinely concerned that Canada could also be “on the menu.” There is a growing recognition that resource imperialism has become the basic orienting principle of US grand strategy. And that Canada, as a resource-rich and militarily poor nation, has become exceptionally vulnerable to it.

A sovereignty referendum engineered by a group known as the Alberta Prosperity Project at a time like this takes on exceptional, existential risk to Canada’s continuance as a sovereign nation in the western hemisphere.

It’s important, therefore, to understand where the line between political movement and national security threat is drawn in Canada.

It is, as we know, entirely legal in Canada to advocate and campaign in support of a province or territory leaving Confederation. This is covered by the Clarity Act but also by the Charter, which protects the rights of citizens to free expression, assembly, and association.

Any organic political movement that is based in a genuine desire to achieve an outcome of their design is free to pursue that through whatever lawful means are available to them. Foreign interference in such movements, however, is where the line between lawful advocacy and dissent crosses into territory that constitutes a threat to Canada’s national security.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act is clear on this. CSIS itself does not have a mandate to investigate “lawful advocacy, protest or dissent” unless these forms of activity are carried on in conjunction with the range of activities which the act defines as threats to the security of Canada.

Those threats include espionage or sabotage harmful to Canada’s interests; covert or deceptive foreign-influenced activities that undermine Canada or threaten individuals; support for or direction of serious violence against people or property to achieve political, religious, or ideological goals; and covert, unlawful acts aimed at undermining, overthrowing, or destroying Canada’s constitutionally established system of government through violence. In short, the act draws a clear line between protected democratic activity and conduct that involves foreign interference, secrecy, violence, or efforts to subvert the state itself.

In relation to separatist movements, Canada has grappled with where the line between political movement and national security threat can be drawn in the past. In the late 1960s, through the Royal Commission on Security, this issue was addressed in the context of the Quebec separatist movement.

The commission argued that separatism in Quebec, pursued legally and democratically, should be dealt with in a political rather than a security context. But, if evidence of anti-democratic, subversive, or seditious intentions or “any suggestion of foreign influence” were to be present, then that did necessitate treating the issue as one of national security. At the very least this ought to compel the government to “take adequate steps to inform itself of any such threats.”

The threat environment of the time was remarkably simple by comparison to today. Back then, the commission assessed that the “main security threats to Canada are posed by international communism, and the communist powers, and by some elements of the Quebec separatist movement.” It recommended that security policy concerning separatism should be clearly stated and that the federal government should be seen to be taking steps to prevent the infiltration of the Quebec separatist movement “by persons who are clearly committed to the dissolution of Canada, or who are involved with elements of the separatist movement in which seditious activity or foreign involvement are factors.”

The commission’s findings and recommendations remain instructive today. The line between political movement and national security threat is highly charged in the current context........

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