For Alberta, the 'existential threat, it’s from Ottawa,' Danielle Smith says
“Albertans feel an existential threat from Ottawa,” says Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. “I think the rest of the country may feel an existential threat from Donald Trump. Alberta feels the same thing — but the existential threat, it’s from Ottawa.”
Nanos Research polls published one week after the federal election indicate nearly 30 per cent of Alberta residents support separation from Canada.
“The polls I’m seeing now,” Smith reports in a recent conversation, “suggest 30 to 40 per cent. That’s the highest I’ve ever seen.”
The premier agrees the surging numbers could reflect the possibility Albertans believe secession is a more viable option, particularly given U.S. President Donald Trump’s willingness to lend legitimacy to a unilateral declaration of separation by a Canadian province. Or, she suggests, it’s “just an indication of how mad people are at the treatment they’ve had for the past 10 years and the despair they’re feeling that it might continue.”
Perhaps even more worrisome, the same Nanos Research poll points to a generational divide. Younger Albertans are less likely than their parents or grandparents to believe being part of Canada would be better for Alberta’s economy. Alberta is a young province — the youngest in Canada — and Smith knows she’s got a job to do, to convince young people that Alberta, Canada is a place where you can realize your dreams.
The “Alberta’s Calling” campaign launched a month before Smith became premier “worked like gangbusters,” she exclaims. “We’re attracting young minds and the best and brightest.” But, after the federal election outcome, some of these young people haven’t hidden the fact they aren’t happy with their seniors chewing up resources and making decisions they don’t agree with.
“There was a TikTok phenomenon of young people doing videos,” Smith acknowledges, “saying, ‘I understand, mom and dad or grandma and grandpa, Canada is very good for you. You have a good life, good job, good income, good retirement. But I don’t have that same future, so think about me when you’re voting.’”
Setting the course for prosperity for future generations is a priority for Smith, and she doesn’t hide her annoyance with the suggestion, by some, that Alberta is already the wealthiest province: Why aren’t we happy with our lot?
“We don’t just say, ‘I guess we have wealth, so let’s just start figuring out how to wind it down. Let’s have an emissions cap so we can figure out how to wind down two million barrels of production. Let’s figure out how to wind down the development of our industry because we’re not allowed to build more electricity. Let’s just not be aspirational and have data centres because we’re not going to be able to have them come on stream anyway,’” the premier says, with obvious sarcasm.
That’s what the future looks like, she cautions, under Liberal policies. It’s not just a matter of standing still; it’s a matter of winding things down. “We are not going to do that as a province,” she concludes, in an even voice.
As Alberta’s premier, Smith sees it as her job to take the secessionist threat seriously. At the same time, she recognizes her job is to try to make sure support for separation from Canada doesn’t gather steam. To that end, Smith notes, she’s obliged to work with Prime Minister Mark Carney and has been very clear: “We’ve heard a lot of talk for a lot of years, a lot of talk during the election. But there’s going to be some concrete actions that will need to be taken if (Carney) wants to make sure that it doesn’t tip over and become a majority.”
She sees Pierre Poilievre as an ally in this work; she’s delighted the Conservative leader is going to be running for a federal seat in the province of Alberta and delighted, she says, “he’s going to be able to hear the same feedback that I get every single day, about the frustration with Ottawa.”
Smith’s hell-bent to convince Canada’s new prime minister of the need for a workable process to get pipelines and economic corridors built, to support the growth of the energy industry. “It’s not even that young people are necessarily going to work in oil, in gas,” she explains, “they might work in carbon capture, and they might work in geothermal, and they might work in the nuclear industry, and they might want to see natural gas power plants fuel AIs.” But the development of the energy sector fuels everything else, and over the next six months, she hopes to see a breakthrough with this new prime minister.
Most of the nation-building projects individually tabled by Canada’s premiers require collaboration, across provinces and regions. Smith’s looking forward to conversations with her peers at the upcoming Western premiers conference, to be hosted in Yellowknife in a couple of weeks. “I think there’s an opportunity, a huge opportunity,” she enthuses, “for B.C. and Alberta to work together.” And she’s already pitched Carney on the idea of the Port of Prince Rupert, connected to an economic corridor, as a gateway to Asian markets for a range of Canadian exports. “But we’d have to end the tanker ban,” she quips, “and we’d have to have a commitment that we’re going to develop that corridor.”
“The question will be,” she adds, “can we act on it in a reasonable period of time, or are we going to stay with the cumbersome process that has no end in sight, like we have right now? That is really the challenge for the private sector.”
Smith understands what’s at stake. In the U.K., former prime minister David Cameron opened the door to the Brexit referendum as a way to placate or remove the irritant of U.K. citizens complaining about being shackled to bureaucratic EU decisions made in faraway Brussels. Momentum built, the Brexit vote narrowly won, and shortly afterwards, Cameron resigned.
But Smith assures me, she’s not lying awake at night worrying about that potential outcome. “I trust the people of Alberta,” she says with conviction. “I think that they know what issues to put forward, and when they have an open debate, they’ll come up with the right answers.”
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