In this episode, Premier Danielle Smith talks about her recent trip to Mar-A-Largo with Prime Minister Kevin O'Leary, her recent visit to Washington, D.C. for the Inauguration, and her recent meetings with President Donald Trump.
00:00:00.000I am Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show. We have a great episode for you
00:00:11.160today. I'm so excited. We're going to go straight into an interview today and I'm so pleased to be
00:00:16.080joined by the Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith. Danielle Smith, thank you so much for joining the
00:00:21.580program. It's great to have you. My pleasure and congratulations on your new venture. I'm looking
00:00:25.520forward to seeing it grow. Thank you so much, Premier. Okay, so I want to talk about your recent
00:00:30.860diplomacy and your advocacy. Typically, the Premier of Alberta wouldn't be a diplomat going
00:00:36.220down to foreign capitals and advocating on behalf of the country. But frankly, you have done a better
00:00:41.840job. Our viewers and our subscribers tell me that they feel like you represent Canadians more than
00:00:46.600any other federal leader on the stage. So I'm wondering, Premier, if you could take us behind
00:00:51.140the scenes a little bit to your recent trip to Mar-a-Lago. You were down in Washington, DC for
00:00:55.900the inauguration. I believe you were there again last week with the other premiers. So tell me,
00:01:00.580what was it like to meet President Trump? And what do you think has been the most impactful
00:01:04.860and productive of these meetings? I had an opportunity to go to Mar-a-Lago at the invitation
00:01:10.020of Kevin O'Leary. And so we were able to be at a table that was right next to the president. And
00:01:16.880then the next day went to a golf club and went to many, many inauguration events when I was down
00:01:22.220there. And then you're right, also returned just last week to be there with the premiers. And this
00:01:28.100is the first time all 13 premiers have been down. So I think that part of the reason is that what
00:01:34.560I've observed is that if we're going to be able to have somebody at the table to go toe-to-toe
00:01:40.100in negotiations, we need someone with a four-year mandate. We have a prime minister who's going to
00:01:45.400be there another 17 days, followed by another prime minister who may be there another 30 days
00:01:51.040or longer, followed by after an election, perhaps a third prime minister. And so if we want to
00:01:55.760maintain the diplomatic relationship and start building those ties, it's really going to fall
00:02:01.220to those of us who do have a mandate and who do have relationships with governors and members of
00:02:06.640Congress to have some influence on the people who are assisting the president in his decision
00:02:12.980making. What I would say about what I've learned in the trips that I have taken is that I think
00:02:20.080this is a president who's going to be making a lot of the decisions of his administration
00:02:24.880directly. And maybe that's not going to surprise anyone after seeing his first few weeks on the job
00:02:30.220with the number of executive orders that he's written before he's had a cabinet in place
00:02:34.800without having to put legislation through Congress. I think he's going to be the kind
00:02:40.200president who does a lot of these kind of executive orders. And what we need to do is make sure that
00:02:47.480those who share our common interests are armed with the information so that they can influence
00:02:52.280his decision making. And that's part of what I've done is why I've built relationships with
00:02:56.840the Secretaries of Energy and Interior, various members of the Senate, other governors who are
00:03:04.280influential on the president. And I'm beginning to see some signs that our message is breaking
00:03:09.880through. Well, that's great. One of the interesting tidbits that I learned in reading a Calgary
00:03:14.560Herald column written by Rick Bell was he said that the evening that you met President Trump,
00:03:20.100he was in the ballroom. There's hundreds of people there. Everyone wants to talk to the
00:03:23.700president. And he, President Trump, walked into the room, this is according to the recounting by
00:03:28.320Rick Bell, and he said that President Trump beelined to you, that he was so keen and so
00:03:33.540interested in talking to you and pleased to meet you, that he went right to you. And I, you know,
00:03:39.220I think that that really shows Premier how serious he is about trying to improve the relationships with Canada and trying to make a deal with us.
00:03:48.380Well, I had let a few members of the administration know that I was going to be there.
00:03:53.600And so they put in a word to let the president know.
00:03:57.200And I was pleased that he was able to come over and share a few words.
00:04:00.400What I wanted to know, because we had heard a lot of discussion in the press about, I think he had just recently said, we don't need Canada, we don't need your autos, we don't need your timber, we don't need your oil and gas.
00:04:13.940And I thought, well, is that really true? Does he really not want our oil and gas?
00:04:17.920And I wanted to get to the bottom of whether or not that was the case.
00:04:20.880And so I asked him, pretty frankly, do you want to buy more oil and gas from Canada?
00:04:24.960And he told me yes. So that says to me that whatever our current issues that we have with
00:04:30.840the president are, I think that we can begin the discussion once again of how Canada can assist
00:04:36.620with American energy dominance. I think that's one of the messages that was well received and
00:04:42.460clearly got through. And I'll give you an example why I think that's the case is when you look at
00:04:47.880the initial tariff that was being threatened to come in, I believe it was February 4th,
00:04:53.380It was to apply 25 percent across the board. But some of our allies, whether it was with them within the administration or the American Petroleum Institute or the refiners, were able to to make the case that America benefits from being able to get oil and gas at a discount so that they can upgrade it in their refineries and provide low cost energy to Americans and then also be able to export their WTI internationally.
00:05:17.000One of the arguments I've made is the Americans consume about 21 million barrels a day of oil, and they only produce 13 million barrels a day.
00:05:24.440So they need to get the rest from somewhere else. And if you're looking for heavy oil, there's not a lot of good places to get it from.
00:05:29.880They can get it from Venezuela and Iraq and Iran, or they can get it from us.
00:05:34.240And so I think that that argument had some resonance.
00:05:38.180But when you look at how we wrote up the order as well that would have provided a lower tariff, it wasn't just oil and gas.
00:05:43.940It was energy resources, which he has defined in his declaration of an energy emergency to include critical minerals.
00:05:56.640Many of our provinces also export electricity.
00:05:59.280So if we can make that argument and be successful, I think we can be successful on a number of fronts.
00:06:05.340We can make the same argument about our integrated food system, the same argument about how they can benefit from timber to create lower lumber prices, to have a cheaper housing.
00:06:13.940and how we can talk about intermediate goods, like auto parts, as a way of being able to lend
00:06:19.400themselves to building out the U.S. auto industry. So I think we just have to be prepared to make the
00:06:25.940argument directly, have advocates in the United States, make friends, and hopefully chip by chip
00:06:31.720be able to have that kind of influence so that we can continue to enjoy this tariff-free
00:06:37.400relationship. So I love that approach, and I think that that is the way to go. But it seems,
00:06:42.700premier that so many people particularly federal politicians um have taken trump's words and yes he
00:06:49.020he uses very bombastic terms like this idea that canada would be the 51st state um or that that
00:06:54.380that there's going to be some kind of annexation uh they take that very literally and sort of use
00:06:59.500it as a kind of a wedge issue in politics to say that you know this is a serious threat the
00:07:04.460americans are our enemies now and you know canada needs to stand up against this i i don't see that
00:07:09.980approach from you at all and i'm wondering like what like like what what do you think
00:07:16.300do you think trump is is literal when he says that he wants canada to be the 51st state
00:07:20.780uh i don't know what his intention is when i when i spoke with dominic leblanc who was at that
00:07:24.700initial table in mar-a-lago when they went down with the the prime minister he said it was it
00:07:30.380was accepted by the table as a joke everyone laughed at the time but the the fact that it
00:07:34.940it keeps getting repeated it becomes less funny with each repetition and as you can you can clearly
00:07:40.300see that canadians are are are getting frustrated with being disrespected i mean i i don't like
00:07:46.140seeing the u.s national anthem booted hockey games i think the national anthem is there to
00:07:51.500to honor our veterans um men and women in uniform who fight for our countries and we fought many
00:07:57.260many wars and shed a lot of blood with our american compatriots i don't like seeing that
00:08:02.140and that's been kind of the outcome that uh that has resulted from that but but what i do think is
00:08:08.300that the positive side of canadians deciding to come together has been look at what has changed
00:08:15.260we now have politicians of all stripes talking about building pipelines east and west and north
00:08:20.940we we've talked about accelerating our own permitting process so that we can develop our
00:08:25.420critical minerals we've talked about tearing down all of the inter-provincial trade barriers
00:08:30.060and creating new comprehensive mutual recognition agreements so that we can trade more with each
00:08:34.380other than we do with our southern neighbors so i think that uh the the fact that we've had a
00:08:40.780positive uh uh outcome with us really taking stock of what it means to be canadian that i think is
00:08:47.900important i think it makes us stronger i think we can turn to the positive i think we can find
00:08:52.060new markets and i think we have to be prepared to do that i don't know if this recalibration
00:08:57.420with this president is going to be a short-term issue or if it's going to be something that lasts
00:09:02.780his entire presidency or if it's going to be something that if there is a republican presidency
00:09:08.300to follow that this might be the the new reality of dealing with our american neighbor for the for
00:09:14.060the next decade or more but if that is the case then we've got to take some some uh some action
00:09:19.340to ensure that that we've got diversified markets that we are also able to to to trade more with
00:09:25.260with each other than we are with our Southern neighbor.
00:09:52.640And we had David Haskell, a professor from Wilfrid Laurier
00:09:55.180the show yesterday and he talked about the idea that Alberta is not getting a very good deal
00:10:00.700in Canada right now and maybe perhaps Trump and the Americans can offer something more appealing
00:10:06.700to Americans. Surveys show almost 50 percent of young men would take American citizenship
00:10:13.420if offered to them. I think the number is highest in Alberta in terms of people who
00:10:19.100would be interested in this. Do you take the idea seriously at all?
00:10:21.820I can tell you why people feel that way. Because I know that the federal government likes to say,
00:10:28.420oh, well, Trans Mountain Pipeline got built, and Coastal Gas Link got built. And those two things
00:10:34.980are very true. But you know what both of those do demonstrate is just how much stronger we are
00:10:41.400when we're able to build those kinds of big projects to have more diversified markets.
00:10:45.800And it was not easy getting there. And in fact, yes, we got those two bills, but we have 176 billion in proposed projects that got canceled, multiple LNG projects, Northern Gateway, which would have been the most important pipeline to get Canadian product international, the Energy East pipeline, which would have helped to support energy security and independence for Ontario and Quebec, rather than having to rely on the US and international.
00:11:15.800for most of their product we when keystone got cancelled we didn't have any defense from our
00:11:22.220from our national level of government big oil sands projects like tech's frontier mine also
00:11:28.560got cancelled so these are the things that that really cut to albertans is that the number of
00:11:34.340ways in which the federal government has interfered with our ability to develop our resources and get
00:11:39.400them to market. And the fact that we're now having a new conversation is important because
00:11:45.100one of the reasons why I took great umbrage to the various politicians musing about throwing an
00:11:53.560export tax on Alberta exports as a way of generating revenue for Ottawa is it's how dare you
00:12:00.480after everything that you have done to try to kill this industry, keep it in the ground,
00:12:04.940tax us out of existence, regulate us out of existence. And I don't think that it's some kind
00:12:09.540of a playing chip to play when it's convenient. That is just not going to be on in Alberta.
00:12:15.100The reason why we sell so much product to the United States is because our neighbors and other
00:12:20.300provinces wouldn't let us sell it to them. And I've been very clear about that, that if we actually
00:12:26.060want to change the way this country works, part of it comes down to let's build these big nation
00:12:30.520building projects. Let's build pipelines, transmission lines, and let's support each
00:12:34.200other and getting products to market. And I'm pleased to see that we're beginning to have that
00:12:37.740conversation. It's one that's overdue. Well, I want to bring in Mark Carney into the conversation
00:12:43.240because it looks like he's going to be the new prime minister selected by liberal insiders
00:12:47.400to lead the country. And he has long believed, I mean, he wrote a book in 2021 called Values,
00:12:53.460very committed to the green agenda, very committed to the concept of carbon tax. I think that carbon
00:12:58.460taxes aren't politically popular right now. So even liberal leader candidates are saying that
00:13:02.420they would do away with them. But then Mark Carney says that he would propose an industrial
00:13:06.000carbon tax as well. So how do you think Mark Carney plays into this equation? And do you
00:13:10.380think that will hurt or will it benefit the discussion with President Trump and that
00:13:14.440administration? Well, I don't know. I keep hearing that the liberals are a feminist party. There's
00:13:18.240three women running. Don't you think that maybe one of the women might be chosen as the successor?
00:13:25.320All kidding aside, Brock Carney is no friend of Alberta.
00:13:31.320He is the architect of the net zero banking policy and alliance, which was designed to stop funding oil and gas projects.
00:13:41.320It was designed to stop insurance companies from insuring oil and gas projects.
00:13:47.320projects, the offensive agenda that we have, whether it's emissions caps or net zero electricity
00:13:54.620regs, all generate from Mark Carney, who's been pushing that agenda for a long period
00:14:01.800So if you think that I would meet the potential of his leadership with any enthusiasm, let
00:14:07.260me tell you, I think he'd be even worse than what we see out of Justin Trudeau and Stephen
00:14:13.120Gibault, because he's been the one who has been advocating for these policies internationally and
00:14:18.180causing us such great harm. So that's going to require, I mean, I think any politician now who
00:14:24.780aspires to lead this country has to realize that there's certain things that are not on.
00:14:32.200Accelerating and inflating the price of energy, which is making everything more expensive for
00:14:37.580everyone, from groceries to home heating to home electricity, that is not on anymore. Punishing
00:14:44.340one region of the country out of some ideology that is being led by international bodies,
00:14:50.940that is not on anymore. Pitting one province against the other, not on anymore. And so I
00:14:56.860don't know if the liberals are going to be able to shift in their perspective, or if that
00:15:02.400particular leadership candidate will be able to shift in his perspective, but you shouldn't be
00:15:06.080I was surprised to hear me say that the political leader that most allies with the aspirations of Albertans is actually Pierre Polyev.
00:15:13.080And I think that the kind of commentary he's talking about, making us proud to be Canadian again, saying we need a new trading partner, each other.
00:15:22.080Those are the kind of things that we all want to hear.
00:15:25.080That's really where I think Canadians are at right now.
00:15:27.080Well, I think one sort of silver lining of this all is that suddenly everybody wants more interventional trade.
00:15:33.080just I want to ask you a final question because we had Mark Carney last week in Kelowna speaking
00:15:37.480to an audience and he said that he would take any measure possible to grow the economy to get
00:15:43.240projects done he even said he would use the emergencies act if necessary to get pipelines
00:15:47.320built and then a few days later he was speaking on French CBC and he was asked by the host would you
00:15:53.800force Quebec to have a pipeline he Mark Carney said never he said never four times in the
00:15:58.920interview so he is literally the oldest trick in the book speaking one thing in western canada
00:16:03.560in english and saying the exact opposite thing in the same in the course of a week um the exact
00:16:07.800opposite opposite thing to the french uh audience in quebec uh what do you what do you think about
00:16:13.880quebec and the idea that they can veto national projects and that you know a liberal prime minister
00:16:19.720wouldn't you know use use the powers to try to encourage that to happen well i i'm glad he got
00:16:26.040busted on that because you can't do that you can't promise one thing in one part of the country and
00:16:29.800another in another part of the country just to be popular and try to sneak in to uh to getting
00:16:33.880elected so if he keeps doing that i hope that you and the independent media keep calling him out on
00:16:38.920that but i would say that my conversations in quebec and i i i always joke with uh premier
00:16:46.200legault every time i see him i keep telling him every time i see you i'm going to encourage you
00:16:50.200to develop your own vast natural gas resources so that you can not only feed your own uh people with
00:16:55.640a solid supply but you can also export it internationally and i can assure you that i
00:16:59.800raise it with him every time i think that the conversation with quebec has to maybe start
00:17:04.200from a different point what were the reasons why there was such opposition to energy east
00:17:09.960and part of it was that it was going through montreal which may well be aside from vancouver
00:17:15.080the most progressive a green oriented municipality that we have in the entire country so is there
00:17:22.760a path of lesser resistance? Could we look at a different route? Could we go up to Quebec City?
00:17:31.640Is there other places that we can find a route that satisfies Quebecers' concerns about some
00:17:37.880of the environmental issues, but also allows them to meet their energy needs? That's the
00:17:42.360challenge that I'm putting out to the industry is let's find a route, let's find a corridor,
00:17:46.600let's find a way that we can talk about it from an area of mutual interest. Maybe we need to be
00:17:52.120looking at how Indigenous bands are going to able to own a portion of a pipeline like that so that
00:17:57.800they can get a revenue stream. Maybe Quebec needs to build a new refinery so that they can get the
00:18:02.680benefits of those upgrading jobs, which they already have in Montreal. Maybe those are the
00:18:09.180ways that we should start having the conversation this time, is talking about mutual benefit, and
00:18:13.720maybe we might get further next time around. That's what I'm hoping to do, is I don't think
00:18:18.120that there should be a veto. I think that we are well past that. If we're going to be a country,
00:18:24.520we have to start acting like a country. But that also means trying to find a way to identify the
00:18:29.280issues that are causing the conflict and see if we can resolve them. And I'm committed to trying
00:18:34.820to do that. Excellent. Well, just final thing, Premier Smith, I saw a clip of you speaking French
00:18:40.980and it had a lot of people wondering, does Premier Smith have federal aspirations? Is there any chance
00:18:46.980you're going to get into federal politics one day? There isn't, but I'll tell you one of my grave
00:18:51.520concerns. One of my grave concerns is that I see the rise of the Bloc Québécois federally, and I
00:18:56.920see the rise of the Parti Québécois provincially. And I want to be able to monitor what is being
00:19:02.900said in Quebec so that if there are any misconceptions or misapprehensions about how
00:19:07.440Alberta feels about Quebec or the ways in which we want to work with Quebec, that we can correct
00:19:11.980those. So I don't know if I'll ever be fluent enough to be able to speak to francophones in
00:19:17.680their own language. But I think it is important for us, especially now when we're facing a
00:19:23.700potential threat from the United States that is causing disunity. I don't want to see a threat
00:19:30.000from the Bloc and the Parti Québécois causing disunity as well. So that's part of what I'm
00:19:34.540preparing for. There's going to be an election there in 2026. And if I can do my part to help
00:19:40.720communicate Alberta's view and why it is we think we're stronger together and why I think that we
00:19:46.480need to cooperate on some of these big issues. I want to be able to do that.
00:19:50.960Excellent. Well, Premier Smith, thank you so much for joining The Candace Malcolm Show. Thank you for
00:19:54.880your time. We really appreciate it. Thanks, Candace.
00:19:58.880And wow, we were so lucky to have the Premier on. Really enjoyed that interview and I hope
00:20:03.680you did too, folks. Okay, we've got a few more news stories that I would like to get to today.
00:20:08.080it's fake news friday we used to do fake news friday every week on the show but we've been so
00:20:12.320busy last week we had pierre pauliavon on friday and this week we had danielle smith on but i will
00:20:17.120get to some of it a little bit later in the show first i want to talk about the hockey i want to
00:20:22.960talk about the updates with the game last night with canada and the us facing off in the four
00:20:29.360nations final so we talked about it earlier in the week there was a game in montreal the fans
00:20:33.840booed i don't like it i think it's disgraceful when hockey fans boo national anthems because
00:20:39.360you're not just booing the politics you're not just you know saying you are displeased with the
00:20:44.640leadership of the country you're disrespecting everybody in the country including the brave men
00:20:50.000who fought and died for our freedoms for our collective freedoms in canada and the united
00:20:54.960states we need to respect one another and it goes both ways so last night the game was in boston
00:21:02.000at the TD Garden. I do like to note that the arena in Boston is called the TD Garden. I don't
00:21:08.720know if they know that their arena is named after Toronto Dominion Bank, but I had a good
00:21:14.320chuckle at that one. Anyway, the stakes were pretty high and we saw a lot of politicians
00:21:19.520weighing in. A lot of it was in good fun. I like this kind of good faith, good fun,
00:21:23.200back and forth. So you had before the game, Texas Senator Ted Cruz posted this on X.
00:21:30.480Winner gets to keep Canada. Deal. Deal, Senator Cruz. We should have taken the deal because,
00:21:37.380well, you probably know who won the game. Dead Cruz, by the way, born in Calgary. So
00:21:41.900I think he's cheering for the wrong team there, Senator Cruz. But anyways, he says winner keeps
00:21:46.980Canada. I had a pregame interview with YouTuber and commentator Benny Johnson. Vice President
00:21:53.520J.D. Vance responded and here is what he had to say. Canada made the mistake of booing Team USA
00:22:02.260and then they got their asses kicked. Team USA. Fantastic. Canada again today rematch. A message
00:22:08.980of encouragement for Team USA versus Canada. Absolutely. Well, you know, we'd like you to
00:22:11.840kick their asses again because you don't boo the United States of America. And to Canada,
00:22:15.820if you guys don't win, the tariffs are even higher. No, I'm kidding.
00:22:18.620good good fun good fun there and you know i i i like i like the the back and forth barbs i think
00:22:27.140it's fun it's part of the game and don't don't don't boo the national anthem folks they we booed
00:22:32.440their anthem so i think we kind of had it coming uh at a press conference in toronto yesterday
00:22:37.320conservative leader pierre polyev was asked by true north's own noah jarvis what uh we should
00:22:44.140be focusing on and whether or not he liked the fact that the canadians were booing the national
00:22:47.640lap and here's what that looked like at the next four nations face-off match and at future
00:22:52.460sporting events should Canadians boo the American anthem or refrain from doing so I would focus on
00:22:58.540cheering on Canadians I want Canadians to win I enjoyed the game unfortunately did not enjoy
00:23:03.900the outcome when I sat down with my little boy Cruz it was the first in-person hockey game and
00:23:09.880my wife Anna was there my retirement plan is for a little Cruz to become an NHL hockey player
00:23:16.580So we wanted to get him started early on that.
00:23:19.220I would just encourage everyone to remember that our disagreement is not with the American people.
00:23:23.840It's with the American president's unjustified threats of tariffs.
00:23:28.360And let's focus on building our own country up.
00:23:31.540So we should all be friends, guys. Let's just all be friends.
00:23:35.120And of course, the Americans gave it right back.
00:32:05.260Of course, of course you would want to take it away from the political agenda because your party is about to lose. Your ideology has failed us. We don't want to fund the CBC anymore. So on the very last week of your government, you're going to try to hide budget funding and ensure that it's not a political realm. No, no, you cannot do that.
00:32:23.640the same press conference, by the way, Pascal Saint-Ange announced that she wasn't seeking
00:32:27.840re-election. So she's a lame duck politician on her way out. You don't get to make huge billion
00:32:33.200dollar announcements when you've already said you were going to resign, when you're not involved in
00:32:37.000the political discussion, when your government is heading into an election. Wait until after the
00:32:41.600election. Make these pledges during the election. If you win, you'll have a mandate. You shouldn't
00:32:45.280get to do this at the very, very end of your mandate. And I want to throw in the fake news
00:32:51.260Friday bit here, because this is just so typical. Pierre Polyev was also giving a press conference
00:32:56.260almost at the exact same time as this, when he was speaking in a grocery store. It was pretty
00:33:00.620amusing because he picked five journalists that would get to ask questions or his team did. And
00:33:05.800they all happened to be from the independent press. So it's a little bit of taste of their
00:33:09.260own medicine, right? When it's the Trudeau government and the liberals, they will absolutely
00:33:12.840refuse to speak to independent journalists. They'll go so far as to have our journalists
00:33:16.980arrested and, you know, charged with trespassing if they can for the crime of trying to ask questions
00:33:23.080of their government and of their prime minister. Pierre Polyev flips the script a little bit and
00:33:27.620says to the legacy media, no, you don't get to ask me questions. And they all like light their
00:33:31.440hair on fire. You can see all the consternation and tears on X complaining about this. Well,
00:33:37.100hello, we've been going through this for the last decade, so spare me a little bit. But anyways,
00:33:41.920The CBC is playing this press conference of Pierre Polyev, and Pierre Polyev is on fire at this press conference.
00:33:49.420He's talking about, among many things, about how he's going to defund the CBC.
00:33:53.540So he's literally talking about how he's going to defund the CBC in this press conference.
00:33:59.700They cut off Polyev's press conference mid-speech.
00:34:04.800You know, he's doing Q&A with the reporters and they cut him off to go to the Canadian Heritage Minister, Pascal Saint-Ange, so that she could deliver her like nonsense, nothing announcement that hopefully won't even go through.
00:34:18.960I want to play this to you. This is just so typical of the CBC.
00:34:22.720Artificially lower the deficits that people see reported.
00:34:26.660But that doesn't mean that Canadians won't have to pay the price.