Juno News - December 04, 2025Exclusive： Danielle Smith Reveals Her Top Priorities for Alberta’s Future
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the Prime Minister's recently signed energy deal with Ottawa, the West Coast pipeline deal with the province of Alberta, and the ongoing Supreme Court challenge to the carbon tax and clean power plants.
Transcript
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so looking at your recently signed energy deal with ottawa and as you said earlier now claiming
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that seven of the nine bad laws have been addressed i'm wondering how you think this will affect the
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separation sentiment in the province and not only that but the conservative sentiment in the
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province because we've seen mixed reactions from conservative voices i've been something here
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i'd say a couple of things one is that i believe that justin trudeau created the independence
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movement the modern independence movement at albert and i always told prime minister mark carney
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that i think he could take the the wind out of it by just addressing the the bad laws that have
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held our economy back the last 10 years and that was the first the starting point for our mou
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was to address the emissions cap the clean electricity rigs the uh get a carve out on a
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tanker band so that when we build a pipeline to the west coast we're able to load our product onto ships
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get rid of the green washing wall so that our industry could talk about its environmental record
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and a few other things and i and i think that what we saw is that the the prime minister was
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willing to work with us in good faith to acknowledge provincial jurisdiction work with us on things so
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of a shared commitment like the pathways project the 2050 um and those are the things that i i think
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uh is what cooperative federalism is all about there there will always be a certain portion and i've
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watched it ebb and flow over the years of people who are just frustrated with the relationship with
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canada and it's not just about energy there's differences of opinion about firearms laws
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differences of opinion about levels of immigration that we should have difference of opinion on uh hate
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speech and censorship laws and so i think there's still going to be areas of disagreement as i said i'm
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not going to agree with prime minister carney on everything and he's not going to agree with me
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but i think when we put forward a reasonable argument and we win in court we win in public opinion
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that's when we can move the dial and i think it's going to be good for alberta and it's going to be
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good for canada as well um the what i hope that our federal chemistry parts will do is just make sure
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that he lives up to the deal uh that we we've got to make sure that we don't end up with any second
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thoughts or doubts or um a failure to implement or um uh or or lack of progress on either the bitumen
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pipeline to uh getting onto the major projects list or the pathways project so that's what i
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i will see is over the in the coming weeks and months we'll we'll see what kind of uh what kind
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of investment that we have here i think that'll be the proof and speaking of living up to the deal
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if by july july 1 we don't see a west coast pipeline referred to the major projects office but alberta has
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taken its former concessions in terms of the higher industrial carbon tax the methane regulations and so
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forth would that just be a failure altogether or do the other concessions made by ottawa still make
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the deal a win in your eyes we have to remember we had agreed to a higher carbon tax it was going to
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increase to 170 dollars by 2030 and that was a condition for us to be able to keep managing the
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carbon uh industrial price on our own which we have done since 2007 so when we froze that rate at
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95 dollars um we we knew we had to have a a renegotiation of that escalation it was just it
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was too stringent too fast um and and going too high so i'm glad to see that the prime minister agrees
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to that and we'll announce what that what that new agreement will be on on april the first um but i
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would see that when you look at the things that we knew that we needed to fight the hardest on
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uh the emissions cap we did a major national ad campaign talking about the impact that would have
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the chilling effect it would have on investment the uh clean electricity rags uh we also did another
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major national campaign on that talking about the reliability and affordability impacts that it would
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have and i we went so far as to pass a motion under the sovereignty within the united canada act
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saying if we can't get movement on this we're going to have to build our own natural gas power plants
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and defy the law i said i guess i'll go to jail in 2035 when when uh when these things are supposed
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to be shut down and i didn't want to go that route but that was the extent that we had to go to make
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our point heard that that we needed to have a more reasonable approach and so just those two major
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concessions the carve out on the uh clean electricity ranks and the abandonment of the emissions cap
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i think are going to have a remarkable um effect in in attracting private investment back and
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uh i guess the proof will be in the in the uh in seeing how it unfolds over the coming months
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and taking a look more intra-provincially a growing number of ucp mlas are facing recall
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petitions largely organized by operation total recall yeah so of course this is in response to you
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using the notwithstanding glass to to save children's education so i'm just curious how you see that
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unfolding well i would say that i i can defend every single one of my mlas i think they've done
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tremendous work either their ministerial portfolios or tremendous work as local mlas are proud of every
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single one of them and i think they'll be able to make that case as well to their constituents i
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understand that uh the teachers were not happy with uh being ordered back to work at all or being
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ordered back to work the way that they were but i i must say that um the job of elected officials is
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to balance rights and kids have a right to an education as well and that was being interfered with
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we know that if kids are out of school for longer than two weeks it can affect their momentum in that
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grade and that's just not fair so we we uh had a unique situation where ordering them back meant
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that they could still strike at the local level we knew that wouldn't provide the stability that we
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needed so i i remember reading uh about peter lougheed saying that if uh right to strike was ever written
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in by the court that would be a circumstance where he would uh he would be in favor of using the
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notwithstanding clause because you have to be able to preserve the right to order people back to work
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if others are getting are getting hurt and the right to strike was written in by the courts in 2015
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so this was the the circumstance where we felt it needed to be used in order to to create some
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stability for kids and moving over to health care what do you see as the most important factors that
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alberta need to focus on to attract the number of physicians acquired for the for the dual health care
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reforms to work as intended well there's there's two things that i i think we we really need to see
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maybe three three things i'll be really pressing my ministers on one is we wanted to make sure that
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everybody is attached to a family practitioner whether that's a doctor or nurse practitioners why
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we created a new physician funding model and why we allow nurse practitioners to set up their own
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shops as well and we now have 30 or sorry 90 nurse practitioners who've taken on patients which is
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fantastic and more coming um so that's one measure i'm looking at the other measure is we want to make
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sure that there's no one on a surgical waiting list waiting longer than medically recommended
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um we continue to have increased uh pressure on the system there's 33 000 people who are on that list
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right now um who have been waiting longer than medically recommended 80 000 in total and so with the
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dual practice we want to see those numbers go down we want to see people get the care they need
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where they need it so that nobody is waiting longer than medically recommended and then the the third
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aspect i'm calling it the the patient experience when somebody walks into an emergency room they want
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to have very quick check-in they want to be able to see a triage nurse um very quickly to know what
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their pathway would be they want to be able to get in to get tests and then be treated and released or
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treated and admitted and they want each one of those steps to be treated with respect to understand
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what is going on to get good communication um and to feel cared well cared for and that's that's uh
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something that i've been doing a lot of rating on there's some uh hospitals around the world that
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really excel in that patient experience and that's what that's what we're going to be working on over
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the the the coming uh coming couple of years we what we had to do is get a better handle on what was
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happening in the hospitals get a better handle on where the problem areas were and one of the problems
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in in being able to fix that patient flow that i was just talking about is that we had too many
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alternative level of care patients in acute care beds so whether they were homeless or had mental
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health or addiction needs or were just waiting for a long-term care facility or just that there was
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no urgency to discharge if you don't have a bed available it's going to block everything up all the way
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back to the emergency room so we've made some great progress on addressing that issue working with
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our continuing care community we'll have more to say on that because we have a big build that we need
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to do to make sure that we've got enough ends for people we've also got to build a few more acute care
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beds with gray nuns misericordia and itself campus you know it's the stuttering that's going to add
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additional children's beds which will free up some adult beds in the existing facility at u of a hospital
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so uh those are the kinds of things that i think people are going to see some uh some remedy to the
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pressure that we're seeing in the system that's what we're going to be focusing on and have you
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explained your health care reforms to albertans who may have heard the alberta ndp describe your plan
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as u.s style health care and what do you think is most important for them to understand about what
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your model actually includes and intends to accomplish it's european style health care um you know what
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even the americans don't want american style health care so why wouldn't we go uh in that direction
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one of the things that we want to preserve is the public health guarantee that that no one will ever
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have to pay out of pocket to see a doctor or have medically uh necessary treatment but there are some
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who want to uh to do that they want to pay for preventative tests there are those who want to uh be
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able to remove themselves from the queue and in doing so that allows for somebody to to be treated faster
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we we we have to acknowledge that right now in our system we have this strange situation where
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patients are flying in from other provinces to get treatment here and then albertans are flying
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somewhere else to get treatment somewhere else just because of some dumb rules and and so let's clear
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those rules out of the way and let's make sure that we're building the capacity we're allowing for
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surgeons to have more operating room days we're allowing for nurses to also have uh have have more
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shifts working with a surgical team and let's try something new it it's something that has been tried
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in uh multiple universal health care systems that work much much better than ours i think that our
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approach that we want to take where we ensure that we don't see any diminishment in the number of
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patients or procedures that they perform for the public system i think that will provide the guarantee
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that we're looking for um but i i hope that attracts more doctors and surgeons to decide to come to
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alberta and when albertans asked to explain your government's policies on parental consent gender
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ideology in schools and youth medical interventions what do you see as the clearest way to outline what
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these policies actually do and how they are meant to function well my starting point was that we have a lot
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of decisions that we don't allow children to make when they're 15 years of age and younger uh we don't let them
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well if we don't let them drink don't let them drive a car or sign a contract they can't even get a
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tattoo without parental consent they can't even go to i don't want a field trip frankly without
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parental consent and yet we were hearing stories that the kids were being transitioned behind parents
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backs and not just with pronouns at schools actually going to gender clinics and getting on cross-sex
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hormones or puberty blockers without parents even knowing and uh that's just not right we we just
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simply don't think that uh a young child should be making a decision that will affect their long-term
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ability to have kids until they're old enough to understand what that means and that's we think
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that's about 16 years of age which is why we've said no puberty blockers below at 15 years of age or
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lower so certainly no surgery until a person is of age age 18 or older and related to that that
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type children do want to change their identity their pronouns at school uh if you're 15 and younger
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parents need to know and consent 16 and older parents at least need to be informed as well
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and i think you're seeing that the world is having a really important conversation now about protecting
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sport for women and girls that there is a recognition that born male athletes have advantages
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when it comes to competing in sport and if we want to preserve female and women's categories
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we have to ask why did we have them in the first place it's because we recognize that there's
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differences in biological um capability based on gender and we've got to preserve that we want to
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make sure that there's lots of opportunities for everyone to participate in sport co-ed teams and uh
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you know men women teams and uh and intramurals and that's great but when it comes to competitive
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sports we want to make sure that women and girls are not disadvantaged
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so you've been premier for over three years now in light of your many tough decisions i'm curious is
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there anything that you do differently in hindsight and maybe what your biggest regret is
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you know i think what happens in this job is that you you have to make a lot of decisions
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you have to make dozens of decisions every day and there's no perfect decision the only uh bad decision
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is when you don't make one if you don't make a decision you do end up finding that it ends up uh
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causing others not to be able to act and so you if you make a decision it doesn't turn out the best
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you just find a way to do it better and differently next time that's some of the things that we've learned
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around procurement at alberta health services that um by leaving things in the hands solely of an agency
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that had no oversight uh there's some things that went wrong and um it's we have an obligation
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to make sure that we've got good processes in place so what you'll find in the uh next year
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is that we're going to have a far more robust procurement process to make sure that when we sign contracts
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that the uh the complex of interests have been looked at that uh value for money has been looked at
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and that there is a sort of a lens of what future costs might be i think that's what we've learned
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in the last year is that there there does need to be a second set of eyes on on procurement it
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shouldn't be politicians politicians shouldn't be involved in procurement but you need to build that
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redundancy into your civil service to make sure that uh that taxpayers are getting the best deal
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and then one last quick question just how long you plan on being premier for and if there's any uh
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key goals you you hope to accomplish in that time frame you know i'm not going to answer you that
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question forever as long as albertans want me there because ultimately albertans are the boss
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and if uh albertans are happy with the work that i'm doing we'll uh we'll get reelected and if they're
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not happy with the the work that i'm doing then i'll certainly know about it and so that's why i do a
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lot of work with um uh always doing town halls making sure that i'm accessible making sure that
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that people have a chance to talk to me on my radio show because then i can identify the things
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that are that they're happy about and the things that they want me to do to do more work on is there
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any specific thing though that remains heavy on your heart that you really want to get done uh when i
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came in i there there are a few things that i wanted to do i was um i started out as a property rights
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advocate so i wanted to make sure that we had a bill of rights that would attempt a person's right to
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own and use their property and have just compensation if the government ever took it
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from them so i was pleased to see that happen but related to that is that there's a the when i was
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doing property rights advocacy i discovered this problem of a lot of well sites that had not been
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cleaned up it's been on my mind for 30 years and we want to get a robust process in place to make sure
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that those well sites are cleaned up and that in future there is never a well site transfer that
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doesn't have a closure fund associated with it so that's a big piece of work that we're working on
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right now with our mature asset strategy goes back something i've been wanting to do for 30 years
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another big area was the heritage savings trust fund is i just felt like if we had just saved the
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investment income in that fund it would be probably 150 or 200 billion dollars right now it'd be generating
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enough investment income that it would have stabilized our budget so that we weren't running deficits
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and we should have done that when it was first started uh would have been great if they'd done
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it uh back in the 2000s that was when i wrote my first column on it but we started that now and it's
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already uh grown from 16 billion when the ucp came in to over 30 billion now so that process we just have
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to stick with it because i think if we could do that it's going to set us up for the future and the
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final one is fixing health care is that health care is the biggest budget item is the area of
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government that touches every person's life in some way either directly or because of a family
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member we're all going to need it and it has to be there for us when we need it and it has been
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functioning properly it takes more and more money each year preventing us from spending on other
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priorities and it's delivering worse and worse performance and so we're turning the corner on that
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that's a another big check mark i want to have by the time i'm done