We talk a lot about “foreign interference” in Canadian politics, but we don’t very often talk about the single biggest source of interference in Canada’s political discourse:  the United States.  For decades, we have quietly accepted the presence of American ties to various political groups and lobbying efforts, either turning a blind eye, or out of some naive belief that the US and Canada are much the same and therefore it’s not really interference when there is cross border collaboration between various politicians and parties. 

Conservatives in particular have taken advantage of this, appearing regularly at US conservative conferences and networking events like the CPAC conference or the “Prayer Breakfast” events.  These connections are well documented, and sustained by events like Danielle Smith travelling to Mar-a-Lago, or former PM Harper’s 2018 visit to the White House.   Visits like Smith’s and Harper’s are not mere social calls – they are very much “kiss the ring” moments where a “client” leader swears fealty to a more powerful leader.  That’s important to recognize.  

American influence in Canada’s politics is everywhere – it’s so pervasive that we often don’t think about it or give it the consideration it deserves.  The events of the last couple of weeks should give Canadians pause and motivation to reconsider that.  Let me draw you the picture I see emerging.

The Signs Of Interference/Influence

I first became aware of the myriad of shared connections between Canada’s conservative movement and its American counterparts in the 1990s when I learned about how Reform conservatives were travelling to the US to attend courses put on by “Leadership Institute”, people like Rob Anders (remember him?) got their start in politics taking on campaign worker jobs for GOP candidates, and prominent figures like Preston Manning from the Reform movement started popping up in attendance at Prayer Breakfast events (long before Canadian versions of those same events appeared).  Marci MacDonald documented this in detail in her 2009 book “The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism In Canada” (If you haven’t read this book, I strongly urge you to do so – it will give you an excellent foundation for much of what I’m writing about here). 

Once Stephen Harper ceased to be Prime Minister, and became leader of the International Democrat Union (IDU), things really accelerated.  We started seeing increasing alignment of conservative Premiers across Canada – sometimes seemingly sudden changes.  Scott Moe pivoted dramatically shortly after hiring Stephen Harper’s consulting company.  

You can look at that and say “well, that’s just Canadian conservatives collaborating, right?”.  That’s true to a degree, but not the whole picture.  We started seeing explicit alignment in the talking points of IDU aligned conservatives on the international stage.  For example, immigration became a big issue in Europe, and suddenly conservatives in Canada started spouting exactly the same talking points about immigration that were gaining traction in Europe.  

Organizations that move money around for conservative political interests like the Atlas Network started to provide funding outside the United States – funding so-called “think tanks” that were ideologically aligned not just in the US, but in countries like Canada and the UK.  This is not accidental – as Prime Minister, Harper demonstrated that he was very capable of organizing and aligning the otherwise fractious groups that make up the conservative world.  He appears to be quite successful in doing so at a larger scale from his seat at the helm of the IDU. 

Private media ownership in Canada is particularly troubling, with Postmedia controlled primarily by a US hedge fund that dictates what gets written in its publications.  Large (conservative) conglomerates also control most of the private television networks in Canada, and that substantially influences how news is presented – often giving preferential treatment to “studies” created by conservative aligned think tanks like the Fraser Institute, and the use of “both sides” reporting strategies.  

All of this points to an increasingly coordinated, and well funded, network of collaboration that is homogenizing conservative politics not merely between Canada and the US, but across the world.  

Current Events 

Federal Politics

As I have discussed elsewhere, the federal Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) is in deep trouble with its polling at the lowest levels in 20 years, and its leader polling well behind the party.  This has led to some rampant speculation on how much longer Pierre Poilievre can hang on to his position as party leader.  While Poilievre did lead the CPC to a record high percentage of the vote, his seeming similarity to Trump in rhetoric meant that the CPC still lost the election.  (For some reason Canadians didn’t like the idea of a Prime Minister who they thought wouldn’t stand up to Trump … can’t imagine why)

Since the 2025 election, Poilievre has struggled to find a footing from which to attack the Liberal government.  His schtick of angry three word slogans where he substitutes Carney for Trudeau just hasn’t been making contact with voters, and the party’s overall polling has been sliding steadily downwards. 

Meanwhile, every time the US administration opens its mouth about Canada, Prime Minister Carney gets a boost in the polls.  

A Federal CPC Leadership Race?

There are signs that a Federal leadership race is likely in the CPC.  With the Liberals now holding a majority in the House of Commons, the next Federal election isn’t likely to happen until 2029.  That gives the CPC a pretty decent amount of runway at present to replace their current leader.  While the Liberals held a minority, a CPC in the throes of a leadership race would be exceptionally vulnerable if a snap election were to occur.  So, that’s the first thing to recognize.  

I suspect the timeline works like this.  Poilievre likely has until the end of the fall sitting to shift gears and get some traction in the polls.  If he doesn’t, expect him to resign sometime in the winter or early spring of 2027.  That gives the CPC most of 2027 to conduct a leadership race, and 2028 to introduce the new leader to the Canadian public.  That leader (theoretically) should be in their “honeymoon” phase with voters while the public may have become tired (or frustrated) with Carney and the ongoing trade war with the US. Similarly, in the US, assuming fundamentals of the rule of law remain in place, Trump should be exiting office.  

Which brings me to the question of “who is going to run to replace Poilievre?”.  I’m not going to speculate too widely here, because I want to focus on one MP in particular here – Jamil Jivani.  It’s been apparent for a while that he has ambitions of higher office, and I suspect a lot of his actions are directly aimed at setting up to run for CPC leader in the near future. 

Jivani Campaign Setup

The first major part of Jivani’s setup emerged in September 2025 when he launched his “Restore the North” campaign.  This campaign was/is loosely based on Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA campaigns, and focuses heavily on dragging young men into his version of the Mano-sphere, with an emphasis on how young men have been “hard done to” by feminism and cultural change over the last 5 or 6 decades.  This campaign creates a base of young, and energetic people who will serve as the rank and file of Jivani’s political organization during a leadership run.  The important thing to draw in here is Jivani’s open borrowing of strategy from Charlie Kirk.

Add to that Jivani has begun openly pandering to the CPC’s “Social Conservative” wing, and has been openly critical of DEI (which is the latest progressive idea to come under fire from religious conservatives. It’s no secret that you will not win CPC leadership if you don’t garner that vote.  I’m not asking you to agree with, or disagree with any of those positions.  Just recognize that Jivani has been adopting them, and using them in his comments.  

Then we get to the foreign interference part of things.  Jivani is “good friends” with US VP J.D. Vance.  Now, I don’t especially care who is friends with whom in this world … until there are hints that it’s more significant.  In Jivani’s case, we have some concerning issues.  First, comes when Jivani makes an unscheduled trip to the White House, and apparently meets with both Trump and Vance during a time when trade negotiations are actively ongoing.  Then, in the past week, we have Vance praising Jivani’s “role” in negotiations (spoiler – he has no official role or capacity to speak on Canada’s behalf), while similarly dismissing Poilievre as irrelevant.

Vance said he asked Jivani why he was helping the Liberal government and the MP responded that he cares about whether Canada wins.

Vance said Jivani effectively advocated on areas where there was a “win-win,” including energy and automobile tariffs.

The vice-president and Canadian Conservative MP for Durham have been friends since they both attended Yale. Jivani has previously written about their close relationship and that he spoke at Vance’s wedding.

The vice-president noted their close relationship Wednesday, calling Jivani a “very good dude.”

Jivani has travelled to Washington on numerous occasions, including for an April meeting with Canadian business interests and Greer.

Especially given how tense things have been the last two weeks, this particular set of comments by J.D. Vance is more than a little concerning.  To this writer, it suggests not merely friendship, but active political engagement between these two men – that could prove to be exceptionally problematic should Jivani ever be having to safeguard Canada’s interests in the face of American aggression (and Vance is aggressive). 

Then there is Jivani’s immediate reaction to the collapse of trade negotiations on Friday, August 21, 2026, where Jivani quietly ignores the fact that American negotiators slid in a series of “poison pill” clauses that would have undermined Canada and its sovereignty at the last minute.  Jivani tries to say that Canada is being unreasonable, and we should “take longer” to negotiate things (sure, Jamil … let’s do that when the other side slips a poison pill in the day before concluding the deal … how does that work again?).

Does this demonstrate American interference in Canadian politics?  Not wholly, but the seemingly cozy relationship between Jivani and Vance is concerning.  Vance all but endorsing Jivani as a replacement for Poilievre is unusual in international discourse – usually such questions are met with “I don’t comment on other nations’ internal business” type comments. 

The current US administration’s clear intentions to undermine Canada have been stated repeatedly.  Now we see the form of how they want to see things unfold:  

– Conservative messaging turns to “Carney can’t get a deal” (he’s a failure messaging)

– Replace Poilievre with Jivani who might be more successful creating a “Youth Maple MAGA” movement

– Attack Carney on not getting an agreement (while the White House administration continues to cosplay negotiating) through 2028

Whether this works or not isn’t the point, it’s the emerging shape of how conservative politicians are coordinating their efforts on both sides of the border.  

Alberta Politics

I was going to title this “Provincial Politics”, but when Quebec took itself out of the separatism referendum world until after “Trump is gone”, the issue of foreign interference (and especially American interference) in Alberta became the focus of this piece. 

Alberta is, by far the most “Americanized” of the provinces, and long has been.  Alberta separatists have long claimed links with the Trump administration, including travelling to Washington DC to allegedly garner financial and political backing for their enterprise.  It should be no mystery that there are a lot of “Alberta 51”, “Republic of Alberta”, and “Alberta Republicans” organizations floating around.  These groups are largely a collection of people who are separatists who think that Alberta should immediately become the 51st State (that won’t happen for a whole bunch of reasons – one only has to look at how the US treats its “territories” outside the continental US).  

Alberta’s economy is unquestionably tied to the US oil energy systems, and the chances of that becoming disentangled anytime soon are slim to none given that some 40 years of integration has connected Houston and Alberta both physically and commercially in the Oil and Gas industry.

The Alberta Republicans have a particularly shady history.  Cameron Davies, the party’s current leader is a long time right wing operative in Alberta, part of the machine that helped build the UCP in its current form.  But more curious is the fundraising history of the Alberta Republican Party … where in 2025, an all but brand new party “raised” over $190,000, only to see donations drop to a few thousand in 2026.  To be nice about things, something doesn’t add up here – especially when that same party seemingly made its voter list available to David Parker’s “Centurion Project”.  When this little mess blew up, Parker disappeared off to Texas for quite some time (that might be coincidence, it might not).  

To me, this collection of “coincidences” speaks far too loudly of the connections between Alberta separatists and US interests.  

Coincidentally, Smith is hinting loudly within UCP circles that a binding referendum on separation is possible in 2027.  This is also interesting from the point of view of keeping the Carney government off-balance at home.  It’s very hard for a Federal government not to become ensnared in a separatism referendum, especially when the Clarity Act becomes an active part of the discussion.  Smith has also been generally silent about Trump’s aggressive stance towards Canada, instead preferring to talk about “negotiating”.  Her response to the collapse of trade talks on Friday was muted at best, only presented on her radio show (mostly listened to by party faithful) on Saturday afternoon. Given Smith’s past trips to Mar-a-Lago, it’s hard not to imagine that she wants to avoid anything that might antagonize Trump, so she either avoids saying anything at all, or makes calls for “more negotiation”.  

I am less charitable – I suspect this is all part of a larger gambit by conservatives to gain a “hat trick” where they control the federal government and 7 of 10 provinces, allowing them to ram through major amendments to the constitution (and in particular The Charter).  The Charter is a target because right now it is worded in a way that means the more absolute approach to rights we see in the US is impossible.  

Is there direct US interference going on here?  Absolutely.  When the US ambassador to Canada is hosting people central to separatist movement in Alberta at his “4th of July” party, I think that’s a pretty clear signal where his government is aligned.  I would not be in the least bit surprised if a sizeable chunk of the money that the various separatist groups have is a result of “straw donations” where money is given to one party specifically to pass on to another while appearing to conform with campaign finance rules. 

Closing Remarks

The whole point of this post is that there are significant signs of American intervention in Canada’s politics, and we should not blind ourselves to that in a time when the President of the United States has decided that it’s time to shred the current order of things and starts musing out loud about territorial conquests of his neighbours. 

Were it up to me, the entire network of “think tanks”, “media outlets”, and political operatives would find themselves under deep scrutiny right now.  The dark money system and the social connections involved deserve to be investigated in depth.