An opinion piece in the National Observer by Supriya Dwivedi raises the spectre of shady, foreign-based disinformation campaigns bent upon influencing Alberta’s upcoming referenda. Like most of the writings on this subject, it is long on speculation and short on evidence.

The column begins with a quote from CSIS director Dan Rogers, who said in a CBC interview last May that Alberta’s referendum could be a target “for the sort of disinformation or foreign interference that we've seen from players like Russia in the past.” Quite an ominous warning, but since then, there has been no solid evidence that Russia has taken any interest in Alberta’s referendum, much less been actively trying to influence it.

The column treats a real but limited finding that a cluster of low-quality, AI-generated websites as proof that Alberta’s referendum is being hijacked by foreign actors and that governments are ignoring a live threat to the vote. That leap is not supported by the evidence the column itself relies on.

The investigation the author cites is explicit: it is unclear who built the sites. What it actually found is narrower. U.S. hosting and domain infrastructure, a Florida email address in generation code, a Florida developer briefly tied to a server, and a dashboard containing Let Alberta Decide lawn-sign and targeting data. Florida residency is not the same thing as direction by a foreign government. Sites are hosted all over the world. This is hardly a revelation.

That is a U.S.-linked private or campaign-adjacent mess, not a demonstrated Russian, Chinese, or even U.S. government operation. The people contacted denied involvement. Some pages disappeared after reporters called. That pattern is consistent with sloppy contractors, SEO operators, or an embarrassed campaign ecosystem. It is not proof of a hostile intelligence service.

The Observer’s own investigation said it was “difficult to know whether the campaign has swayed Albertans” and that only about half the sites had even been indexed by Google. One of the sites incorrectly listed the referendum date as being on October 26. There is little indication that the reach of this lone (now gone) site confused or had any impact on voters. The October 19 date is rather well advertised on official and media sites.

The Alberta independence movement did not arrive from Florida. Hundreds of thousands of Albertans signed petitions on both sides. Smith put a question on the ballot after a court fight and internal pressure. These things all came about from real citizen activity on the ground. Not a foreign-run campaign.

The foreign interference line is a popular one being trotted out by opponents to the referendum process; thus, it is used often to spread fear. The articles are always packed with terms such as “might”, “could”, “perhaps” and “possibly” but rarely offer definitive words because they just can’t find solid evidence when implying foreign interference. The Observer column is typical in finding a small cluster of websites of little significance and trying to inflate their existence into a larger conspiracy of interference from foreign actors. That in itself is a form of misinformation.

There remains no solid evidence that there is any significant foreign interference happening in Alberta's referendum campaign. Much less that it has had any measurable impact on voter intentions.