Juno News - March 26, 2023


Danielle Smith takes aim at Trudeau and Notley


Episode Stats

Length

8 minutes

Words per Minute

208.08195

Word Count

1,828

Sentence Count

106


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, good to sit down with you in Ottawa. Thanks for coming today.
00:00:10.160 Nice to see you, Andrew.
00:00:11.500 It's actually a bit interesting, I must admit, because you really became the leader in large
00:00:15.900 part due to a platform that put you really in an assertive place with Ottawa. So how does it feel
00:00:21.060 to come here now being the Premier of Alberta? Well, I try to take the position with Ottawa,
00:00:27.180 let's work on the things that we can, and let's fight on the things where we really disagree.
00:00:32.140 So it's part of the reason why we were able to come to an agreement on more transfers for healthcare,
00:00:38.000 because it's $519 million more from my province. We can do a lot of good with that. But there are
00:00:42.000 some areas that we have to fight them tooth and nail. And one of them, of course, is on their
00:00:46.760 really aggressive stance that they have taken on environmental regulation. We look at it as
00:00:52.020 essentially imposing economic sanctions on our province. We're not allowed to build anything
00:00:56.340 without federal approval. And they want to bring through increasingly harsh restrictions,
00:01:00.420 which, if they are enacted, would result in us having to shut in our production and reduce our
00:01:05.640 food production. And we're just not going to do that. So those are the things that we have under
00:01:09.660 active discussion now. And I'm hoping that we are able to talk some sense into the federal
00:01:14.100 government so they stay in there late and allow us to manage our own affairs.
00:01:17.980 One of the federal government's pet projects has been this so-called just transition, which is
00:01:21.980 predicated on this idea that oil and gas jobs are the jobs of yesterday and that everyone needs
00:01:26.580 a green energy job. And is this as charitable as they make it sound? Or is this really declaring war
00:01:33.000 on your province's leading industry? I don't know why they didn't think I would notice that they were
00:01:37.880 using the language of the extreme greens in identifying what their policy is. Just transition,
00:01:43.060 go on to any climate change website, and you will see that it's about completely phasing out
00:01:47.600 all use of fossil fuels. That's the agenda. That's the objective. And so I can't believe
00:01:53.320 that that was done accidentally. I think it was done on purpose. They wanted to virtue signal to
00:01:57.440 the extreme left that that was the direction they were going. But here's the problem. The
00:02:00.380 Constitution does not give them the right to shut down a province's resource development.
00:02:04.760 That right is under the Constitution, under provincial jurisdiction. It's part of the reason why
00:02:10.180 I put forward the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, is I felt we need to educate
00:02:15.480 Eastern Canada, Eastern media, and the federal government about how our country is supposed
00:02:19.660 to work. They have areas of jurisdiction that I recognize or their sovereign right to make
00:02:25.840 laws in. And we have areas of jurisdiction that they should recognize our sovereign right as well.
00:02:31.060 They don't. But I think as we start clarifying this with some of these court challenges and some
00:02:35.400 of these diplomatic battles, I hope that we're able to push them back to where they belong.
00:02:39.520 A lot of this is done under the auspices of the government's objective of going to net zero
00:02:43.440 on emissions, they say. And you're an interesting voice on this because you don't actually reject
00:02:48.400 the premise behind net zero, do you?
00:02:50.680 I think carbon neutrality is possible. For a country like Canada, when you look at our
00:02:55.300 emissions in a global context, we're only 1.4% of global emissions. And there are mechanisms in
00:03:01.300 the Paris Accord for us to use our technology to reduce emissions around the world and get credit
00:03:05.340 for it. So why wouldn't we do that? Why wouldn't we export more LNG so we can reduce coal and wood
00:03:10.140 and dung as fuels? Why wouldn't we look at what is happening in Ontario who's a world leader in
00:03:15.600 developing nuclear technology, small modular nuclear? That seems to make sense. We also have
00:03:21.200 already been a world leader on developing carbon capture utilization and storage, on hydrogen,
00:03:26.900 on geothermal. These are the kinds of things that make sense in the Alberta context. And so when I
00:03:32.700 look out 30 years into the future, I have great confidence in our innovators and those who are in
00:03:40.460 the technology sector that they're going to find answers to these problems. They just need a large
00:03:44.920 enough runway because we're already seeing promising technologies develop. The thing that is so important
00:03:50.100 is that I do not see any transition as a transition away from oil and natural gas. It's a transition away
00:03:56.380 from emissions. We're still going to be using oil. We're still going to be using natural gas. We'll just be
00:04:00.780 using them in a different way. And that's the kind of conversation that we need to have as a country.
00:04:04.760 About a block from here, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is meeting with President Joe Biden,
00:04:08.900 both of whom have obviously been in lockstep largely on landlocking Alberta energy with
00:04:14.360 Keystone, one of the first decisions that Joe Biden made as president. You actually tried to put them
00:04:20.000 on notice in a way with a letter you sent to the Prime Minister.
00:04:23.180 Well, the Prime Minister, quite frankly, blew it when the German delegation came. And when he was asked
00:04:29.520 about LNG, he said there's no business case for it. So when the Japanese Prime Minister came, I wanted to
00:04:34.840 make sure that he didn't blow it then. And we actually have started a very constructive conversation
00:04:38.400 with Japan about how we might be able to have more trade and how we might be able to meet their
00:04:44.500 future energy concerns. That's what we're going to have to do. We're going to have to be more proactive
00:04:48.100 as a province in educating the rest of the world about who they need to be coming to talk to when these
00:04:53.580 decisions are being made. I wanted to make sure that Justin Trudeau knew that we should be a partner
00:04:59.920 with the U.S. If the U.S. is massively building out their LNG export infrastructure, that should send
00:05:04.580 a signal that we should be in step with them. That was always the Stephen Harper approach, was that,
00:05:09.440 yes, we will move on these issues, but we will move in sync with our largest trading partner.
00:05:14.660 And in the U.S., they have a more carrot approach to reducing emissions. Ours is more stick.
00:05:21.280 We're losing investment dollars because we're not creating the same kind of competitive investment
00:05:27.620 environment. And they're clearly on a pathway where they're going to continue developing their
00:05:31.700 resources. So if Joe Biden has managed to figure out a way to reconcile those two things, Canada can
00:05:37.040 figure out a way to reconcile that as well. Turning away from energy for a moment, Calgary just last
00:05:41.540 week passed a bylaw restricting certain forms of protest. And they did this in ways that have been
00:05:47.520 largely derided as unconstitutional by some groups. And as premier, obviously, I know you want
00:05:52.260 municipalities to have their own runway for their own policy, but I know you've always been an advocate
00:05:56.320 for free speech. What do you make of this decision?
00:05:58.200 I don't like anyone disrupting an event. I mean, we feel very strongly about that in religious
00:06:04.800 ceremonies, that a pastor cannot be interrupted during a religious ceremony. It's a criminal code
00:06:09.540 of defense to do that. So I think that we should allow for that same kind of approach, that if an event
00:06:14.500 is taking place, let's find a way to protest peacefully, non-disruptively, and in a way that's
00:06:19.500 within the bounds of the law. When it comes to the event in particular that you're referring to,
00:06:25.680 it's an opt-in event on behalf of parents making the choice of what's age-appropriate for their
00:06:30.240 children. And I believe also in parental choice. We've got to balance these things, that making sure
00:06:35.440 that we have age-appropriate content for kids, making sure that there's parental choice and opt-in,
00:06:39.880 as well as preserving the right of peaceful protest. And I'm watching with interest to see
00:06:44.400 if they get the right balance in Calgary, because I think it's been a bit of a fractious debate.
00:06:50.020 And so I don't know if they've come to a resolution on that yet, but I think all three of those things
00:06:53.740 are very important.
00:06:54.720 But the bylaw is not focused just on disruption. It also targets protests outside. So do you think
00:06:58.760 it actually strikes that balance?
00:07:00.320 I have to wait and see what they come up with and how it's going to be litigated. I already understand
00:07:05.480 that the Canadian Constitution Foundation is already challenging that legislation. So we'll see how
00:07:10.980 that ends up going. We do try to take a hands-off approach with our municipalities to allow them
00:07:15.900 to have the latitude to do what they think makes sense for their residents. And if they get it wrong,
00:07:22.020 the courts are going to decide that.
00:07:23.360 Just lastly, Premier, I know you have an election coming up in Alberta, so this may be the last time
00:07:26.980 for a little while you're in Ontario, which is probably good for your mental health. But
00:07:30.320 let me just ask you about your opponent. Is it Rachel Notley or is it Justin Trudeau?
00:07:35.480 It's both. I mean, the way the NDP party is set up is when you buy a membership in the
00:07:41.600 provincial party, it becomes that provincial wing of the federal party. So they're vertically
00:07:45.880 integrated. Rachel Notley and Justin and Jagmeet Singh are the same person. And this doesn't
00:07:51.460 escape my attention that the NDP has been propping up the Liberals. They could have made
00:07:55.440 it a condition of their continued partnership to work with Alberta to reduce emissions in a
00:08:00.780 way that made sense for Alberta. Instead, they made just transition a condition of the continued
00:08:06.900 coalition. And that tells me a lot about what the true nature of the NDP is. So I think it's
00:08:12.200 a combination of both that I've still not seen Rachel Notley stand out and call out her federal
00:08:18.220 leader on this. I've not seen her stand out and call out the federal coalition on the increase
00:08:23.680 in carbon taxes, which is going to increase the cost of everything. You simply cannot say that
00:08:28.000 you're for affordability and then vote to increase the base cost of energy, which is going to
00:08:32.800 increase the cost of everything we purchase. So we'll be calling them out on that because
00:08:36.820 I think there's a lot of hypocrisy. And I think it's the coalition in Ottawa that really is
00:08:41.320 running the show. And I think that she's going to own that. She's going to have to own that
00:08:44.980 record.
00:08:45.300 Premier, thank you.
00:08:46.580 My pleasure.