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Is It Treason to Ask America to Help Break Up Canada?

The growing relationship between Alberta separatists and US political actors demands a response

In my view, one of the best things about Canada is how the country found a way to settle fundamental differences—including debates over the future of the country—through democratic means. Even as other major democracies endured decades of violence and repression related to separatist causes, Canada collectively agreed to keep violence out of the question as it worked through the complex question of Quebec sovereignty. When things went too far—whether in the form of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) crisis or in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police running amok in the years that followed—Canadians again and again found a way to take a step back, change course, and settle things peacefully, democratically, and within the rule of law among ourselves.

That last point is crucial. Conversations about the future of Canada must be the purview of Canadians alone. Here, too, history is a useful guide. When Charles de Gaulle made his notorious speech from the steps of Montreal’s City Hall in 1967, declaring “Vive Le Québec libre!” the Canadian government responded immediately. The prime minister at the time, Lester Pearson, was reportedly loathe to elevate the affair but agreed with his furious cabinet colleagues to put out a polite but blunt two-sentence response, as quoted in the New York Times:

Pearson expanded further in a press conference after the cabinet meeting,........

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