A conversation I had with Alberta s Prime Minister, Danielle Smith, on the 15th of February, 2019. She is the Iron Lady of Canada and I admire her for standing up for what she believes in and fighting for her province of Alberta.
00:00:00.000Hi, it's John, and welcome to the channel, 347 AM, Sunday, February the 15th. I hope
00:00:08.720you're having a great start to your Sunday and a great weekend as well. I tip my big
00:00:12.760blue mug of coffee to you. And by the way, I don't do this often at the beginning of
00:00:17.940my videos, but if you would please click on subscribe, I would appreciate it. I'm getting
00:00:22.900close to 50,000 subscribers here. And keep in mind, clicking on the big blue mug does
00:00:27.920not subscribe you to the channel. Just click on the button below. So today I was going
00:00:32.300to do a video that was a little more philosophical, dealing with today's date in a couple of different
00:00:38.260ways. But I might leave that until later because I want to address one thing. In fact, I want
00:00:42.820to speak to a person here today. You're welcome to hang around for the conversation I'm having
00:00:47.540here. I want to speak with my Premier, Danielle Smith, who I admire very much. I think she's
00:00:53.900the Iron Lady of Canada. You might agree a lot of people don't like her because she sticks
00:00:57.860up for what she believes in and she sticks up for her province of Alberta. But Premier
00:01:02.040Smith, I have a question for you. How does this sound to you? Republic of Alberta, Prime
00:01:08.520Minister, Danielle Smith. How would you like to be the Prime Minister of a brand new country?
00:01:14.140Because Danielle, we would love to see you come over to our side, the independent side.
00:01:20.420You have signed a memorandum of understanding with Mark Carney and the Liberal Party of Canada.
00:01:25.540Making a deal with the devil here, Danielle. And the memorandum of understanding will fail.
00:01:32.120I've said it. Lots of people have said it. Lots of people have said it's not worth the paper that
00:01:36.300it is written on. But you're holding out hope that you can keep Alberta and Canada and we can have
00:01:42.560prosperity out here working with the Liberal Party and Mark Carney. But it's not going to happen.
00:01:48.360This article, first off, this tweet, I guess, talking about an article from Peter Menzies confirmed
00:01:53.960there will be no new pipelines. Alberta has been conned. Enbridge says it's not willing to take on
00:01:59.480development risk of Alberta pipeline project. And here is the headline. Unfortunately, it's behind a
00:02:04.880paywall. But the headline says it all. There will be no pipeline. Nobody wants to take on the risk.
00:02:12.920And then, Danielle, I think deep down inside, you're an intelligent woman. You knew this was never going
00:02:18.760to happen. And here's the thing we need to understand, Danielle, is that Mark Carney and the Liberal Party
00:02:24.560want you to fail. They want Alberta to fail because they have their own agenda. And it's not oil and gas.
00:02:32.020It's not natural resources. It's not helping out the West.
00:02:35.560You know who Mark Carney is. I know who Mark Carney is. This is who Mark Carney is. The co-chair of G-Fans,
00:02:45.360the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, and the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance.
00:02:52.580You know who these people are. They do not want you to succeed.
00:02:59.540This is you talking about Mark Carney and the Liberal Party.
00:03:02.920To the new Prime Minister and the Liberal Party, I have one message. Alberta has had enough.
00:03:10.280Enough with Ottawa trampling over our provincial jurisdiction like Canada's constitution doesn't
00:03:15.580exist. Enough with the meaningless virtue signaling climate policies that only make Canadians poorer
00:03:22.500and threaten our energy security. Enough of their screw the West will take the rest mentality.
00:03:28.880Everything you said there was absolutely true. The start of that clip said Alberta has had enough.
00:03:35.380Have you had enough, Madam Premier? You keep going back for more. Around this time last year,
00:03:41.360maybe a little bit later in 2025, you were on to something. You were laying down the law about
00:03:48.060bad laws that were passed by the Trudeau government and the Liberals. Have those laws changed? Have the
00:03:55.800Liberals changed? For the past 10 years, our federal government, led by Justin Trudeau, put in place a series of
00:04:02.420laws and regulations designed to target and phase out of existence Canada's largest economic sector, oil and gas.
00:04:09.520First, they made new pipelines virtually impossible to build through the passage of the unconstitutional C-69
00:04:15.580No New Pipelines bill, which added so much confusion, uncertainty and red tape that Canada earned the reputation as one of the very worst places in the world to invest in resource projects.
00:04:26.200They didn't stop there, though. The federal Liberals then specifically targeted the world's most valuable single deposit of natural resources, the Alberta oil sands. They banned all oil tankers off the northwest coast of BC, landlocking a trillion dollar asset that would have enriched the lives of millions of millions of dollars.
00:04:33.580Canadians for generations. And then to cap it off, the federal government announced an impossible to achieve oil and gas emissions cap that makes new oil and gas production effectively impossible.
00:04:55.580Landlocking a trillion dollar asset. That's true. And for those of you who don't live in Alberta, where I am sitting right now, below my feet, there is money flowing underground and we can't get it out. People in the future will think we're nuts.
00:05:16.120But John, we have a new prime minister and he wants to work with Alberta on a pipeline. Come on, folks. We know who Mark Carney is.
00:05:24.620Now, so far, carbon prices have been applied sparingly. They've been set far too low.
00:05:29.960A relentless focus on net zero is called the Glasgow Financial Alliance for net zero for a reason.
00:05:34.360So we can't meet our ultimate objectives, which is to get to net zero emissions.
00:05:40.380We can't get there unless we do not just have a cap on emissions, but those emissions are brought effectively to zero.
00:05:47.360To reach net zero, every country, every company, every bank, every investor, every pension fund around the world will need to make some big changes.
00:05:56.700Companies' responsibility, first and foremost, is to reduce their absolute emissions.
00:06:00.980And as the report says, they need to first reduce, then report, including net zero plans.
00:06:06.220I'm sure we'll get into the specifics of that.
00:06:08.180So the companies and those who invest in them and lend to them, who are part of the solution, will be rewarded.
00:06:15.380But those who are lagging behind and are still part of the problem will be punished.
00:06:20.220Premier Smith, with all due respect, don't be naive.
00:08:13.560But unfortunately, Ottawa keeps getting in the way.
00:08:16.580We don't have to remain economically weak.
00:08:19.200We don't need to rely on any foreign nation for our economic well-being.
00:08:24.120Our success is a guarantee if, and here's the key,
00:08:28.560if our federal government and a couple of provincial ones will simply agree to unblock and unleash the power of our oil, gas and natural resource sectors.
00:08:38.040Let me just read back a little of what you said there, Premier Smith.
00:08:42.420We don't need to rely on any foreign nation for our economic well-being.
00:08:49.040You can't even rely on your own nation for our economic well-being here in Alberta.
00:08:56.700You said we don't have to remain economically weak, but we will as long as we stay in Canada.
00:09:02.820That's why I'm asking you, Premier Smith, to change your title to President Danielle Smith of the Republic of Alberta.