Danielle Smith takes aim at Trudeau and Notley
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith sits down with Andrew Schecters in Ottawa to discuss the challenges facing her province, including the federal government's aggressive approach to environmental regulation, climate change, and the Keystone XL pipeline project.
Transcript
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, good to sit down with you in Ottawa. Thanks for coming today.
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It's actually a bit interesting, I must admit, because you really became the leader in large
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part due to a platform that put you really in an assertive place with Ottawa. So how does it feel
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to come here now being the Premier of Alberta? Well, I try to take the position with Ottawa,
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let's work on the things that we can, and let's fight on the things where we really disagree.
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So it's part of the reason why we were able to come to an agreement on more transfers for healthcare,
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because it's $519 million more from my province. We can do a lot of good with that. But there are
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some areas that we have to fight them tooth and nail. And one of them, of course, is on their
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really aggressive stance that they have taken on environmental regulation. We look at it as
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essentially imposing economic sanctions on our province. We're not allowed to build anything
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without federal approval. And they want to bring through increasingly harsh restrictions,
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which, if they are enacted, would result in us having to shut in our production and reduce our
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food production. And we're just not going to do that. So those are the things that we have under
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active discussion now. And I'm hoping that we are able to talk some sense into the federal
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government so they stay in there late and allow us to manage our own affairs.
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One of the federal government's pet projects has been this so-called just transition, which is
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predicated on this idea that oil and gas jobs are the jobs of yesterday and that everyone needs
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a green energy job. And is this as charitable as they make it sound? Or is this really declaring war
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on your province's leading industry? I don't know why they didn't think I would notice that they were
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using the language of the extreme greens in identifying what their policy is. Just transition,
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go on to any climate change website, and you will see that it's about completely phasing out
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all use of fossil fuels. That's the agenda. That's the objective. And so I can't believe
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that that was done accidentally. I think it was done on purpose. They wanted to virtue signal to
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the extreme left that that was the direction they were going. But here's the problem. The
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Constitution does not give them the right to shut down a province's resource development.
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That right is under the Constitution, under provincial jurisdiction. It's part of the reason why
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I put forward the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, is I felt we need to educate
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Eastern Canada, Eastern media, and the federal government about how our country is supposed
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to work. They have areas of jurisdiction that I recognize or their sovereign right to make
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laws in. And we have areas of jurisdiction that they should recognize our sovereign right as well.
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They don't. But I think as we start clarifying this with some of these court challenges and some
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of these diplomatic battles, I hope that we're able to push them back to where they belong.
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A lot of this is done under the auspices of the government's objective of going to net zero
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on emissions, they say. And you're an interesting voice on this because you don't actually reject
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I think carbon neutrality is possible. For a country like Canada, when you look at our
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emissions in a global context, we're only 1.4% of global emissions. And there are mechanisms in
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the Paris Accord for us to use our technology to reduce emissions around the world and get credit
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for it. So why wouldn't we do that? Why wouldn't we export more LNG so we can reduce coal and wood
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and dung as fuels? Why wouldn't we look at what is happening in Ontario who's a world leader in
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developing nuclear technology, small modular nuclear? That seems to make sense. We also have
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already been a world leader on developing carbon capture utilization and storage, on hydrogen,
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on geothermal. These are the kinds of things that make sense in the Alberta context. And so when I
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look out 30 years into the future, I have great confidence in our innovators and those who are in
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the technology sector that they're going to find answers to these problems. They just need a large
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enough runway because we're already seeing promising technologies develop. The thing that is so important
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is that I do not see any transition as a transition away from oil and natural gas. It's a transition away
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from emissions. We're still going to be using oil. We're still going to be using natural gas. We'll just be
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using them in a different way. And that's the kind of conversation that we need to have as a country.
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About a block from here, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is meeting with President Joe Biden,
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both of whom have obviously been in lockstep largely on landlocking Alberta energy with
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Keystone, one of the first decisions that Joe Biden made as president. You actually tried to put them
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on notice in a way with a letter you sent to the Prime Minister.
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Well, the Prime Minister, quite frankly, blew it when the German delegation came. And when he was asked
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about LNG, he said there's no business case for it. So when the Japanese Prime Minister came, I wanted to
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make sure that he didn't blow it then. And we actually have started a very constructive conversation
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with Japan about how we might be able to have more trade and how we might be able to meet their
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future energy concerns. That's what we're going to have to do. We're going to have to be more proactive
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as a province in educating the rest of the world about who they need to be coming to talk to when these
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decisions are being made. I wanted to make sure that Justin Trudeau knew that we should be a partner
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with the U.S. If the U.S. is massively building out their LNG export infrastructure, that should send
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a signal that we should be in step with them. That was always the Stephen Harper approach, was that,
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yes, we will move on these issues, but we will move in sync with our largest trading partner.
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And in the U.S., they have a more carrot approach to reducing emissions. Ours is more stick.
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We're losing investment dollars because we're not creating the same kind of competitive investment
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environment. And they're clearly on a pathway where they're going to continue developing their
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resources. So if Joe Biden has managed to figure out a way to reconcile those two things, Canada can
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figure out a way to reconcile that as well. Turning away from energy for a moment, Calgary just last
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week passed a bylaw restricting certain forms of protest. And they did this in ways that have been
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largely derided as unconstitutional by some groups. And as premier, obviously, I know you want
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municipalities to have their own runway for their own policy, but I know you've always been an advocate
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for free speech. What do you make of this decision?
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I don't like anyone disrupting an event. I mean, we feel very strongly about that in religious
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ceremonies, that a pastor cannot be interrupted during a religious ceremony. It's a criminal code
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of defense to do that. So I think that we should allow for that same kind of approach, that if an event
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is taking place, let's find a way to protest peacefully, non-disruptively, and in a way that's
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within the bounds of the law. When it comes to the event in particular that you're referring to,
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it's an opt-in event on behalf of parents making the choice of what's age-appropriate for their
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children. And I believe also in parental choice. We've got to balance these things, that making sure
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that we have age-appropriate content for kids, making sure that there's parental choice and opt-in,
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as well as preserving the right of peaceful protest. And I'm watching with interest to see
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if they get the right balance in Calgary, because I think it's been a bit of a fractious debate.
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And so I don't know if they've come to a resolution on that yet, but I think all three of those things
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But the bylaw is not focused just on disruption. It also targets protests outside. So do you think
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I have to wait and see what they come up with and how it's going to be litigated. I already understand
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that the Canadian Constitution Foundation is already challenging that legislation. So we'll see how
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that ends up going. We do try to take a hands-off approach with our municipalities to allow them
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to have the latitude to do what they think makes sense for their residents. And if they get it wrong,
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Just lastly, Premier, I know you have an election coming up in Alberta, so this may be the last time
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for a little while you're in Ontario, which is probably good for your mental health. But
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let me just ask you about your opponent. Is it Rachel Notley or is it Justin Trudeau?
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It's both. I mean, the way the NDP party is set up is when you buy a membership in the
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provincial party, it becomes that provincial wing of the federal party. So they're vertically
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integrated. Rachel Notley and Justin and Jagmeet Singh are the same person. And this doesn't
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escape my attention that the NDP has been propping up the Liberals. They could have made
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it a condition of their continued partnership to work with Alberta to reduce emissions in a
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way that made sense for Alberta. Instead, they made just transition a condition of the continued
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coalition. And that tells me a lot about what the true nature of the NDP is. So I think it's
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a combination of both that I've still not seen Rachel Notley stand out and call out her federal
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leader on this. I've not seen her stand out and call out the federal coalition on the increase
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in carbon taxes, which is going to increase the cost of everything. You simply cannot say that
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you're for affordability and then vote to increase the base cost of energy, which is going to
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increase the cost of everything we purchase. So we'll be calling them out on that because
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I think there's a lot of hypocrisy. And I think it's the coalition in Ottawa that really is
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running the show. And I think that she's going to own that. She's going to have to own that