Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he expects US President Donald Trump to “respect Canadian sovereignty” following reports that Alberta separatists met with US officials numerous times.

“I expect the US administration to respect Canadian sovereignty,” Carney said in Ottawa on Thursday, flanked by premiers from Canada’s provinces. “I’m always clear in my conversations with President Trump to that effect, and then move on to what we can do together.”

The prime minister said that Trump has never brought up the issue of Alberta independence during their meetings.

Carney’s comments came after David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, accused a group of Alberta independence activists of “treason” for meeting with the Trump administration.

Commenting on a Financial Times report that White House officials had met with activists collecting signatures for a possible plebiscite on Alberta independence, Eby told reporters Thursday he understood their desire for a referendum and to “talk about the issues you want to talk about in Canada,” but said it was inappropriate at a time when Canadians should be standing together amid tensions with the United States.

“We’ve got free speech, that’s important. But to go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that, and that word is treason,” he said.

The oil-rich province of Alberta, which is generally more conservative than the rest of Canada, has a vocal independence movement. Separatists there have long argued that Albertans are too over-taxed and under-represented to remain a part of Canada’s federation.

Asked about the meetings, a White House official told CNN that “administration officials meet with a number of civil society groups. No support or commitments were conveyed.”

A delicate moment

News of the meetings comes at a delicate moment in US-Canada relations. Trump has repeatedly threatened to turn the country into the 51st state. Meanwhile, Carney has made it clear that he believes Canada must steer a course outside of US influence after a year of trading tariffs and counter-tariffs with the United States.

Eby’s voice wavered with emotion as he expressed his disgust with the separatists who went to Washington, saying he would not “describe them as Albertans.”

“It is completely inappropriate to seek to weaken Canada,” Eby said, “to seek to go and ask for assistance to break up this country from a foreign power.”

Jeffrey Rath, a lawyer and independence activist who told CNN he was part of the group that met with US officials, responded that “David Eby wouldn’t know a real Albertan if one walked up and punched him in the face.”

Rath said he and other separatists are heading to Washington again next month to explore the possibility of obtaining financial credit from the US in the event of independence.

“We’re not soliciting funds,” Rath said. “We’re doing a feasibility study to find out what’s possible.”

Alberta separatism has a long played a minor role in provincial politics, but the Liberal Party’s win in the 2025 elections reignited the movement, which regards Carney’s center-left politics as the antipathy of Alberta’s conservative values.

Ironically, Carney is an Albertan himself; he was raised in Edmonton, the provincial capital.

The Alberta government approved a petition for an independence referendum earlier in January, and activists have until May to collect 178,000 signatures from eligible voters.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Thursday that she didn’t agree with the aims of the separatist movement but cautioned against demonizing its supporters.

A recent poll from Ipsos found that approximately 28% of Albertans might vote “yes” in an independence referendum, a level comparable to the French-speaking province of Quebec, where separatism is a major cultural force.

“When you look at the polls, they suggest as many as 30% of Albertans have lost hope – that’s about a million people,” Smith said, “and I’m not going to demonize or marginalize a million of my fellow citizens when they’ve got legitimate grievances.”