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On Thursday's live stream, Tamara Ugolini and Sheila Gunn Reid reacted to a new report published by 'DisinfoWatch' that asserts Russia is covertly amplifying Alberta's independence movement.

As covered by CTV News, the report concluded that Russia was engaged in amplifying the independence movement in part because the topic became one of the most frequently mentioned Canadian topics across 'known disinformation networks.'

The report claims that Russia is fuelling separatist sentiment in Alberta to stoke distrust, division, and tensions.

“Russia, for example targets any number of issues. It just happens to be that in the last few weeks and months, that the amount targeting Alberta has quadrupled compared to any other province,” said Brian McQuinn, a co-author of the report and co-director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Data and Conflict at the University of Regina.

Tamara discussed her doubts about the report, noting the RCMP released a statement shortly after it was released saying it found no evidence of foreign interference within Alberta's separatist movement.

"The same day, the RCMP obviously caught wind of this. They're like, hold on a minute, and so they issued this press release ... that they found no evidence of foreign interference within Alberta's separatist movement," she said.

Sheila also condemned the study, pointing out that it came to its conclusions based on unreliable information. "The study relied on an increase in the number of news articles at Pravda, RT, other Russia-linked agencies," she said.

"And they said, oh, between December 2025 and now, that news coverage ramped right up, and they found that ok, Canadians and Albertans are sharing this content that's being written by these agencies and thus that amounts to a Russian disinformation op," Sheila continued.

"But nothing in the articles from what what I could see, because I went back and started looking, was actually disinformation. They were just covering the fact that within those four months, the signatures were being collected, so obviously it was newsworthy," she added.

The report, released May 6, 2026, and co-authored by Brian McQuinn and Marcus Kolga, also flagged U.S.-based actors aligned with pro-Trump networks as amplifying Alberta separatism alongside Russian efforts.