Officials in the Donald Trump administration discussed loaning the oil-rich province of Alberta hundreds of millions of dollars to help it become independent from Canada, a prominent separatist is claiming. 

“I met the senior U.S. administrative officials just a couple steps away from the president himself,” recalled Dennis Modry, the former CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project, a group devoted to pushing Alberta toward self-determination through a provincial referendum.

“When we walked into the conference room, the first comment was ‘we recognize and support Alberta becoming the sovereign nation for the first time,’” he said.

Modry was a member of The Commonwealth of Alberta Delegation to Washington that in April traveled to the U.S. Capitol to outline the supposed benefits a sovereign Alberta and its vast energy resources can provide to the United States.

No media outlet has yet reported on what was actually discussed in meetings with Trump officials. But Modry revealed some specifics during a recent Alberta event promoting a Western independence agenda that was attended by DeSmog. 

“We talked about a $500 million transition loan that we would only draw down on as necessary as we work with the U.S. to transition from a province to a country,” said Modry. He also claimed that they discussed a plan to prop up Alberta’s currency where “the U.S. agrees to take every Alberta citizen’s Canadian dollar and then exchange it for one U.S. dollar.”

The prospect of America recognizing Alberta as the 51st state isn’t currently on the table, but it could be if separatists manage to get enough signatures to trigger a referendum declaring Alberta’s sovereignty from Canada and then win enough votes to pass the referendum, he added.

“Alberta, of course, can provide energy security,” he said. “It can also provide water security, agricultural security, forestry security, metal security, coal security, plus an industrious workforce. So there is tremendous benefit to the U.S., to work with us.”

DeSmog reached out to the Alberta Prosperity Project and the Trump administration seeking more clarity about Modry’s claims but didn’t receive a response.

Separatists Gather In Alberta

Modry’s remarks came during a mid-June separatism event in Red Deer, Alberta, that was organized by the rightwing political website Rebel News. One of the title sponsors was the America Fund, an organization that believes “in a bold new future — one where Alberta joins the U.S. as the 51st state.”

Attendees expressed praise for policies and actions undertaken by the Trump administration, including its escalating deportations of immigrants.

When a member of the audience asked how an independent Alberta would control immigration, Peter Downing, speaking on behalf of the America Fund, said, “Well, they [America] got this wonderful agency called ICE,” referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that has triggered massive protests across the U.S. due to its aggressive raids on immigrant communities.

America, Downing explained, has “got a lot of bad dudes, tough dudes with guns,” and ICE is “willing to deal with it and send them all back.”

Some media reporting in Canada has framed the separatist movement as being primarily motivated by a lack of political representation in Ottawa and federal regulations that limit expansion of Alberta’s oil and gas industry.

But David Parker, a former federal and provincial Conservative staffer who is the founder of Take Back Alberta, a conservative political advocacy group, highlighted mass immigration as a key motivator for seeking provincial independence.

“If Canada continues to bring in the number of people that they are at the rate that they are, it will be a failed state,” he said, “It’s being used to dilute the population. They’re degrading our quality of life, our medical system, our health care, our education system. It’s all falling apart because of mass immigration.”

That was echoed by Cameron Davies, leader of the Alberta Republicans, a separatist political party. Davies, who recently lost the provincial by-election in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, cited recent hopes of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to get the mid-size city of Red Deer to a million people by 2050. “That is a leftist agenda policy,” he said of the conservative premier’s plan, “and it needs to be rejected by every conservative.”

These and other remarks were met with frequent applause and occasional whoops and hollers from the mostly middle and senior-aged audience gathered at the Red Deer Curling Club.

Albertans Compared to Americans

The identity of Alberta in opposition to the rest of Canada came up a lot at the event.

Albertans can be narrowly defined as ‘hard-workers’, according to The Western Standard publisher and president Derek Fildebrandt, adding that Albertans are less deferential towards institutions compared to Ontarians.

The province has always had “a more American ethos,” he said. “It was not peace, order, and good government; it was life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.”

Yet admiration for the U.S. was linked by one speaker to a very specific brand of American ideology promoting small government. Davies, from the America Fund, noted approvingly that some U.S. states are attempting to pass legislation that severely limits the jurisdiction and power of the federal government.

Dozens of these states, Davies explained, “have either passed legislation or are passing legislation for the Convention of States.” He was referring to the movement with ties to the Texas evangelical pastor and oil billionaire Tim Dunn, which aims to implement Project 2025-like policy through permanent constitutional change and is receiving endorsements from politicians such as Sarah Palin, Fox News host Sean Hannity, and numerous members of the Trump administration and cabinet.

Support for Trump and his policies is stronger than might be expected in Canada. The Washington Post recently cited polls suggesting that many Conservative voters in Canada held a more favourable view of Trump over Kamala Harris during last year’s American presidential election.

Modry said that if the separatists at the event were successful in passing an independence referendum, they could potentially count on Trump or the U.S. Secretary of State to back the outcome.

He claimed that this is a request he made to U.S. officials during their meeting in Washington: “At the time of the successful referendum, you acknowledge Alberta sovereignty, to the Alberta government and to the rest of the world.”