Last Saturday, a large crowd of people rallied for Alberta’s independence in front of the legislature in Edmonton. Disappointed that the federal election didn’t deliver their preferred result, many in the group felt a boost when the government of Alberta introduced Bill 54, which will lower the threshold for citizens to trigger a referendum. But that bill has also stirred up anger with another group: Indigenous peoples across the province.

Several First Nations leaders across Alberta have argued the law blatantly disregards Treaty rights. Many in our communities, including in my home Nation of Fort McKay, are outraged and emotional — and understandably so. But today I invite all frustrated Albertans to consider wisdom drawn from the path towards reconciliation.

Anger and alienation towards the government is a feeling that’s all too familiar for Indigenous peoples. The failed extermination of Indigenous cultures, languages and traditions fuelled those exact emotions, and far worse, for generations. Those sentiments have run deep, and have been an unfortunate fact of life with roots dating back before Canada’s Confederation.

But despite having more reasons than anyone to be bitter and resentful, Indigenous peoples are overwhelmingly rejecting separatism. We respect the Treaty relationship we made with the Crown. At times we have had to fight in the courts and negotiate hard to enforce the Treaties, but we have not walked away from the Treaty relationship.

Thanks to that determination, some Indigenous people of today’s generation are starting to see results — tangible improvements to their lives that are directly tied to our demand to be treated with the dignity and respect called for under our treaties with the Crown. But progress is uneven.

In truth, we are only on the first few steps of the road towards reconciliation. For Fort McKay First Nation, that has included making strides on economic reconciliation. After decades of work, today we are both a strong partner in the energy sector that drives Alberta’s economy, and we are environmental stewards developing innovative solutions to protect our land for the future. We got there by working hard, acting in good faith, and being persistent. We built our own financial success, one contract and one company at a time. When we needed to, we fought hard: we first negotiated and then litigated the Moose Lake Accord, which created a protected zone preserving our traditional lands from expanding oilsands development.

Our Nation is a living example of how a commitment to reconciliation and respect for Treaty rights can generate results. We advanced our interests by being reliable partners, using reason, and playing the long game.

Today, Canada is at a crossroads. We are living in a tense, critical time when Canadians’ livelihoods are threatened by a neighbour to the south. The pressure on leaders to make the right decisions is enormous. But the rewards for accomplishing it would be tremendous. For Indigenous peoples, that includes getting a permanent, overdue seat at the table, using new tools to forge our own prosperity, and creating better lives for our children.

Despite the many real frustrations, the threats to our economy have aligned the people of Canada on common goals to a degree that would astonish our ancestors.

A recent poll from Angus Reid shows a clear majority of Canadians, including in Quebec, support expanding the country’s oil and gas pipelines to reach new markets and secure our economy. The federal Liberal and Conservative parties, which together will make up 90 per cent of the seats in the new House of Commons, agree that there is an urgent need to get our natural resources to fresh customers, and to build the infrastructure to do it. In a recent report, RBC pointed out that 73 per cent of the major energy projects that are currently planned for Canada would run through Indigenous territory. For both Canada and Alberta, there is a clear path to opportunity, and the public will to take it.

As human beings, we must always acknowledge our own emotions. Frustrated community voices also have a right to be heard. But it is our responsibility as leaders to act practically, and to be constructive. We must not make a challenging situation even more fraught by feeding our most destructive instincts. The stakes, and rewards, are great enough already.

We must meet the moment. It’s time for us to put the division aside, and get to work together.

Special to National Post

Raymond Powder is the Chief of Fort McKay First Nation, in Northern Alberta.

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TOP STORY

Mere weeks after Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that bilateral relations with the U.S. were “over,” he’s leaned into a pro-American stance that is almost entirely at odds with the position he took during the federal election campaign.

In a video posted to Carney’s social media accounts on Wednesday, he featured smiling images of himself and U.S. President Donald Trump, and of U.S. Marines holding the Canadian flag. “Canada and the United States are stronger when we work together,” Carney says in a narration.

This is the start of a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the United States. pic.twitter.com/HCJATcpndZ

— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) May 7, 2025

This followed on a Tuesday summit with Trump in which Carney offered effusive acclaim to the president in front of reporters.

Although Carney told the president that Canada is “not for sale,” he paired it with an extended paean to Trump’s leadership.

“Thank you for your hospitality, and above all for your leadership. You’re a transformational president focused on the economy with a relentless focus on the American worker. Securing the borders. Ending the scourge of fentanyl and other opioids. And securing the world,” Carney said.

And the paean was one of the few things that Carney said throughout the entire appearance. A video analysis of the half-hour press conference by the X account Vesper confirmed that Carney only spoke for three minutes as compared to 30 minutes for Trump.

This included Carney sitting silently as Trump went on multiple extended rants about the need for the U.S. annexation of Canada, and the abolition of the “artificially drawn line” between the two countries.

Trump also claimed to have won Carney the election. “I was probably the greatest thing that happened to him, but I can’t take full credit. His party was losing by a lot and he ended up winning,” said Trump, to laughter from the Canadian leader.

The whole approach is markedly different from Carney’s signature campaign pledge that he would take a tough line with the United States, and that Canada’s future lay in severing ties with its continental neighbour.

Carney’s first statement upon winning the Liberal leadership in early March was to accuse the United States of threatening to “destroy our way of life.”

In the first week of the election campaign, Carney declared “the old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over. It’s clear the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner.”

Just last week, Carney’s election night victory speech framed Trump as an existential threat to Canada.

“As I’ve been warning for months, America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country. These are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so America can own us,” he said.

Polls repeatedly showed that Carney’s meteoric rise in public support was due largely to voter perceptions that he was the best equipped to take on the United States.

An Abacus Data analysis of electoral trends concluded that of the millions who flocked to the Liberal banner under Carney, most of them did so out of fear of Trump. “President Trump detonated a bomb that upended Canadian politics,” wrote Abacus Data’s David Coletto.

An Ipsos poll published just before the election call found that nearly half of Canadian voters saw Carney as “a tough negotiator who would get the best deal for Canada from President Trump.”

In Carney and Trump’s first phone call, the Canadian leader reportedly told Trump that he would be talking tough against the U.S. as a campaign tactic.

Although an official Canadian description of the call said it was “a very constructive conversation about the relationship between the two countries,” in the final week of the campaign a source told the National Post’s John Ivison that this description omitted Carney’s praise of Trump as a “transformative leader,” and the Canadian leader’s heads-up that his campaign rhetoric would necessarily need to be anti-Trump.

Carney’s sudden conciliatory approach to Trump is also very different from the tack taken by Carney’s predecessor, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Although Trudeau was civil in his various meetings with Trump, he frequently threw shade at specific aspects of Trump administration policy. Most notably, when in 2017 he publicly pitched Canada as a refuge for those turned away by Trump administration immigration policies.

All of this might be why Trump has been conspicuously cordial to Carney. The U.S. president has spared the prime minister the usual nicknames and insults he’s been known to throw at other senior Canadian figures, such as his penchant to refer to Trudeau as “Governor Trudeau.” On Tuesday, Trump even threw out an aside at former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, calling her a “terrible person.”

But Trump has repeatedly indicated Carney as his preferred candidate in the recent federal election, saying that Carney “hated him” less than Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. Soon after Carney’s swearing-in as prime minister, Trump said in an interview that he’d “rather deal with a liberal than a conservative.”

In the immediate wake of Carney’s White House visit, Trump wrote on his Truth Social account, “It was a great honor welcoming Prime Minister Mark Carney to the White House today” – along with an image of them both giving the thumbs up.

IN OTHER NEWS

As Alberta leans into separatism like never before, there’s been a very different reaction from the two usual standard-bearers of Quebec separatism:

The leader of the provincial Parti Québécois offered unqualified tribute to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith

, and her efforts to ensure greater sovereign powers for her province. “I totally agree with provinces that stand up, that are loyal to their own Parliament, that are capable of showing a strong hand. And that’s the key word, strong hand,” 

said Paul St-Pierre Plamondon

.

The federal Bloc Québécois, by contrast, said Alberta lacks a culture and doesn’t deserve to be a nation

. In response to a question about what “tips” he would offer Alberta separatists, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said “the first idea is to define oneself as a nation. Therefore it requires a culture of their own, and I am not certain that oil and gas qualify to define a culture,” he said. Although, Blanchet also admitted that his own nationalistic visions haven’t worked out as planned. “Our success so far does not place me in a position to give them tips about what to do, but I could give them tips about what not to do,” he said.

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• ‘It’s done’: Trump’s 51st state comments are ‘behind us,’ says U.S. ambassador to Canada
• More than half of Canadians say Alberta separation should be taken seriously: poll

On May 1, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a bombshell 409-page

report

laying bare the troubling state of paediatric gender medicine. This moment presents yet another opportunity for Canada to reckon with a medical scandal that has long gone unaddressed.

The HHS report highlights the exceptionally weak evidence used to support puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries for youth who identify as transgender, exposing how ideology dominates over science in the field of gender medicine. Its conclusion is damning: the medical establishment has failed vulnerable young people.

The review was commissioned by an

executive order

from U.S. President Donald Trump, whose directive was laced with politically charged and inflammatory language. In sharp contrast, the

report

itself is measured and grounded in evidence. Its recommendations echo the

cautious, evidence-based approach

to gender-affirming care now taking hold across much of Europe, contradicting the ideological positions of all major medical associations in the

U.S.

and

Canada

.

 

Acknowledging the political controversy surrounding the issue, the as-yet anonymous authors move past slogans and ideology to deliver a methodical, yet scathing, assessment of the current state of paediatric gender medicine. At the heart of the report is an “umbrella review” that synthesizes all the existing systematic reviews for these interventions, including those conducted in Sweden, Finland, England, and Canada. Unsurprisingly, like every one of those prior systematic reviews, the HHS review concludes that the evidence is of “very low” quality.

 

That’s because the research in this field, particularly surrounding claims that hormonal and surgical interventions improve mental health or reduce suicidality, is methodologically weak, lacking control groups or long-term follow-up. Meanwhile, the known risks of such interventions — infertility, reduced bone density, disrupted psychosocial development, and impaired sexual function — are not theoretical. They are documented outcomes of these interventions.

Until now, the typical response to this lack of evidence has been to call for more research, but the HHS report makes clear that, given what we already know, further research cannot ethically be justified. It does so by invoking the Nuremberg Code — the bedrock of international research ethics — citing that the anticipated results justify the performance of the experiment — and the Belmont Report which report emphasizes that no trial should proceed unless the intervention has a “favourable risk/benefit profile.” In paediatric gender medicine, every systematic review to date has found that the risks outweigh any potential benefits, making further research unjustified.

One of the most important sections of the report centres on psychotherapy. In a cultural climate where

talk therapy is often dismissed or derided

as being equivalent to gay conversion therapy, the HHS report makes a strong case for this non-invasive approach to replace life-altering medical interventions.

Echoing the U.K.’s landmark

Cass Report

, the authors call for gender dysphoria to be “de-exceptionalized,” meaning therapists need to approach treating these young people in the same way they would any other distressed patient. Instead of viewing them as “transgender adolescents” in need of powerful hormones and drastic surgeries, the report suggests that therapists should help these young people “develop self-understanding, engage with emotional vulnerability, and build practical strategies for managing distress.”

This therapeutic approach mirrors what has been implemented by leading

European health authorities

. It reflects a

growing awareness

that gender dysphoria among adolescents, especially girls, is a complex symptom of deeper psychological distress. And yet, while these developments are reshaping care standards across Europe, 

Brazil

, and now the United States, one country remains notably absent from this evolving consensus: Canada.

Despite mounting evidence that a major medical scandal is unfolding, Canada has yet to launch a review of the practices in its paediatric gender clinics.

Canadian guidelines

 remain closely aligned with those of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (

WPATH

), an organization that has been discredited for prioritizing ideological commitments over scientific rigor. To date, only Alberta has

taken concrete steps

to shield vulnerable young people from a medical establishment that has abandoned science and basic ethical principles. In December 2024, the Alberta government banned puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for youth 16 and under and placed restrictions on access for those age 17 and 18.

Canadian activists may

insist

the science here is settled, but that claim is becoming increasingly untenable. Science does not respect national borders. Canada has witnessed the same

dramatic surge in referrals

, the same

demographic shift

from mostly young boys to predominantly adolescent girls, and our gender clinics were

among the earliest

and

most enthusiastic

in adopting these experimental medical interventions. If other countries lack solid evidence or ethical justification for this treatment, the same holds true for Canada.

And yet,

calls

for a Canadian Cass-style review have so far gone unheeded, and the political environment continues to render even cautious scepticism as taboo.

Canada’s inaction on this issue has already brought shame on the nation. There are two

lawsuits

underway, and there will undoubtedly be many more over the coming years as

the number of detransitioners steadily rises

. Our government should take the publication of the HHS’s sobering report as a cue. If the rest of the world, including our closest neighbour, can reassess the science and revise their standards accordingly, there is no excuse for Canada to remain on autopilot. In the face of mounting international consensus and rising domestic concern, doing nothing is its own action — one that puts ideology before evidence and vulnerable youth in harm’s way.

Mia Hughes specializes in researching pediatric gender medicine, psychiatric epidemics, social contagion and the intersection of trans rights and women’s rights. She is the author of “The WPATH Files” and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

National Post

• Mia Hughes: Canada’s courts must protect women’s sex-based rights, like the U.K.
• Mia Hughes: Kids deserve more than slogans when it comes to gender medicine

Various Indigenous leaders have complained vocally about Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s roundabout way of engaging with the province’s separatist movement by making it easier for organized citizens to arrange for referendums.

But the moment they have me nodding along in understanding, they pull their own sovereigntist card: arguing that the numbered treaties situated in Alberta are a higher, purer form of authority; that secession talk violates treaty rights; and that treaty land is literally their property and thus untransferable.

We get statements like the one by Grand Chief Greg Desjarlais of Treaty 6, who

wrote

that Smith’s referendum-friendly amendments were a “direct violation of the Treaty relationship that exists between our Nations and the Crown,” adding, “Our Treaties are internationally binding, solemn covenants and cannot be broken by any province or political party…. These Lands were never ceded, nor surrendered.” What he meant by “internationally binding” wasn’t clear, and he certainly wasn’t correct about cessation. Treaty land is by definition ceded land — it was surrendered in exchange for benefits provided by the Crown.

Meanwhile, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs took greater liberties in

explaining

their view of the law, making the case that Alberta isn’t a “nation” at international law, but that First Nations are, per the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Provinces, says the assembly, are “administrative regions within the Canadian federation and do not possess the right to self-determination,” while First Nations have sovereignty and self-determination rights.

It’s a nearly malicious retelling of how Canada works: First Nations aren’t sovereign — they’re Crown subjects like anyone else; provinces have a large degree of self-determination power, which is detailed in the constitution. The fact that UNDRIP validates the existence of Indigenous groups around the world doesn’t make other levels of human organization illegitimate.

Similarly, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations released a

statement

arguing that “Any process of separation that fails to honour the true spirit and intent of our treaties would violate both constitutional and international law.”

Their frustrations make sense. Constitutional protection and the stability of a long relationship with Ottawa and hammered-out expectations are worth a lot. Plus, it’s the federal government that provides funding and benefits while laying off on the thorny matters of financial disclosure. The current federal government has been generous in signing billion-dollar settlements,

including

one for $1.4 billion last year in Alberta.

But in voicing their arguments, they often run high on emotion. In truth, it’s incredibly hard to predict the fate of the numbered treaties and the federal responsibility for Indigenous matters in a secession scenario.

When Quebec was rushing for the exit, the Supreme Court in 1998 weighed in on the requirements for legitimate separation; the Indigenous issue was brushed upon only lightly, concluding it was “unnecessary to explore further the concerns of the aboriginal peoples in this Reference.”

Scholarship has since tried to brainstorm what secession looks like on the Indigenous front, but it’s all speculation without the real thing, or at least, a real court decision that does explore the issue further. Bradford Morse, a legal scholar and former land claims negotiator who went on to become the dean of law at Thompson Rivers University,

covered

the what-ifs in a 1999 essay: it could be that Independent Quebec would inherit its treaties with the First Nations from the feds; it could be that Independent Quebec would have to re-negotiate them; or it could be something else. There were too many unknowns to be sure.

“Firstly, lawyers would have a field day debating the many procedural as well as substantive aspects that directly flow from secession generally, not to mention the added complexities that arise in the Aboriginal law context,” Morse concluded. “Secondly, dramatic and far-reaching arguments would be made, many of which cannot be dreamt of yet, given the uncertainties surrounding how the secession might occur and on what terms…. The last thing of which I am certain is that it will be a mess.”

Weighing in on Alberta, Dwight Newman, a constitutional law professor, Indigenous rights expert and Canada-Research-Chair-holder at the University of Saskatchewan, told me the treaties would raise “genuine issues” were the province to separate.

“It would seem plausible that there could be a state succession to a treaty…. People generally haven’t suggested that Quebec would be incapable of separating due to treaties,” he wrote in an email Wednesday.

“At a broad level, Alberta could likely take on the obligations associated with the treaties to ensure that they continue on. I do see it as appropriate that Indigenous peoples are part of the conversations.”

As for what involvement the federal government would have, Newman said that the duty to consult would be triggered “when there is a decision under contemplation that could affect Indigenous rights” — this could include early decisions and even negotiation stances. Obtaining actual consent from the First Nations for enabling separation would be ideal, he added, but he saw “little in law to say that it would be absolutely mandatory.”

The numbered treaties, however, haven’t been treated as international treaties. Newman noted that if they were, that would make everything a lot more straightforward, “as there are established rules on state succession to international treaties that have been applied in cases of secession.”

For me, it’s hard to take either side all that seriously. The most extreme parts of the Indigenous side have been arguing for ethno-sovereignty for years, embracing the freemen-on-the-land-like “land back” movement and urging for an expansion of unique treatment under Canadian law. They use UNDRIP, memetic news stories, and “reconciliation” as levers to pull for even more state benefits and permissions, and the current federal government almost never says no.

Their exaggerated understanding of Indigenous sovereignty — on display in their statements about separation — and their hold on Canadian land is voraciously lapped up by our own media, which often presents these views without counterpoints, giving them the appearance of legitimacy. Sure, they claim to love the Crown now, but just wait until it’s convenient to once again blame it for all their woes.

The Alberta separatists, too, put blind faith in the UN — in particular, a treaty that appears to guarantee port access for landlocked states (but in practice, does not). They, too, have outsized claims about their hold on these lands, drunk on nostalgia for a libertarian utopia that will never exist because the majority of the province doesn’t indeed want it. The provincial government doesn’t tell them to buzz off, and instead amends its laws to better accommodate their desires.

Though both are exercising their rights, they’re also antagonistic to the Canadian project. If only they used their voices to do something productive instead of trying to carve out bits of territory for their own.

National Post