Juno News - Trump admin takes notice of Danielle Smith, but feds are missing in action

00:00:00.000 Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was in Washington, D.C. this week for U.S. President Donald Trump's

00:00:06.120 inauguration. And according to one source that we have on the ground, the Trump administration

00:00:11.720 is noticing the Alberta Premier might be being criticized here in Canada for an apparent lack

00:00:17.640 of a Team Canada approach. That is not at all the reception that she is receiving in Washington,

00:00:22.680 where she is being found to be the only person who's taking the Americans' concerns seriously.

00:00:28.040 And that could be a very good thing from Canada. Today, we'll be hearing from one source on the

00:00:34.380 ground, a former special advisor to Jason Kenney, who explains how Alberta Premier Danielle Smith

00:00:40.540 is being received in Washington. And later, we'll be joined by Alberta's Mental Health and

00:00:45.200 Addictions Minister for an update on Alberta's recovery model. I'm Rachel Parker. Welcome

00:00:50.600 back to The Rachel Parker Show.

00:00:58.040 Hey, everyone. I'm Rachel Parker. Welcome back to The Rachel Parker Show. I am joined by David

00:01:14.300 Knightleg, a former principal advisor to the former Alberta Premier, Jason Kenney, as well

00:01:20.120 as a founding CEO and advisor to Invest Alberta. David, thank you so much for being here today.

00:01:26.200 I've been seeing all of your content on X and, of course, your many op-eds in the National Post,

00:01:31.780 and you've really been dominating on this issue of the trade war with Alberta Danielle Smith. And I

00:01:36.820 want to start by asking you, I know that you're in Washington for the inauguration. How is Alberta

00:01:42.660 Premier Danielle Smith perceived in Washington? Look, she's very well-liked here. You know, I'm not part

00:01:49.860 of the Alberta delegation. I have to be clear about that. She's here under, and this should be said,

00:01:55.860 she's here under the jurisdiction that Canada's federalist structure has in place, which is she's

00:02:01.760 responsible for the energy that comes from Alberta, that belongs to Alberta. She's speaking on behalf

00:02:06.600 of Alberta's interests in this issue that's come up, which is that the president, out of frustration

00:02:13.940 with the lack of security and the breakdown in security on the northern border has raised this

00:02:20.540 issue of tariffs. And energy is a third of our export GDP into the United States. So she's here

00:02:26.120 representing that. I've spoken with people in the State Department. I have a couple of friends that

00:02:30.940 are joining the administration in senior roles, and she's well-regarded, you know, and that's why she's

00:02:36.280 getting meetings. You've probably seen her ex. I mean, she's met with Burgum, Wright, Rubio, several

00:02:43.320 other cabinet ministers socially. She's really taking the time, making the effort. And by the way,

00:02:49.160 this is the inauguration weekend. Those are very hard meetings for anyone to get. You've got over

00:02:55.020 a hundred countries here, notably with most of federal Canadian politicians, MIA, but over a hundred

00:03:02.800 countries here hoping to get a chance to talk to just one or two often secondary people in the Trump

00:03:08.540 administration in order to make sure that their voice is heard and that the interest of their

00:03:12.200 country or their jurisdiction is understood early on, and that they're seen to be, you know, celebrating

00:03:17.500 the moment of this administration transition. And somehow in Canada, the narrative has become very

00:03:23.660 unusual, and Canada is sort of acting in a resentful manner towards the idea of these tariffs,

00:03:29.280 whereas the Mexicans, for instance, are very, very focused on making sure that they address

00:03:35.160 the border issues directly and show that they're addressing them. So that contrast to me between what

00:03:41.860 you see in the Canadian press, what you see on CBC with people like Jagmeet Singh talking about

00:03:47.640 everything being on the table or the post that got me posting on X, which was my old friend Andrew

00:03:53.880 Coyne, you know, saying she's on an appeasement crusade. I just feel like I had to speak about that

00:03:59.280 I'm not speaking in a formal capacity from Alberta. Danielle's got a great team and she's doing a

00:04:04.160 terrific job. But I thought as somebody pretty objective, I could say what I thought about it.

00:04:08.720 And I think she's doing a terrific job representing Alberta.

00:04:13.520 So your contacts in Washington DC, including some who are entering the Trump administration,

00:04:19.760 are noticing that dichotomy of Alberta's premier who is wanting to address the Americans concerns

00:04:25.760 and build those relationships versus the response of the rest of the country and certain of the federal

00:04:30.720 government, which, as you said, seems to be one of resentment. Washington is picking up on that.

00:04:35.280 Yeah, 100 percent. Look, you can't not pick up on it. Right.

00:04:39.360 The the things that some Canadian politicians think they're doing in private are well known

00:04:45.680 by people and influencers because they're paying attention, especially the people whose job it is

00:04:49.760 to pay attention to these things. But back like people forget, back when we were negotiating the

00:04:55.200 USMCA agreement, Canada was kicked out of the room by Bob Lighthizer because Christian Freeland decided

00:05:01.840 to go on stage in Toronto and also to say out loud that she thought Trump was a dictator. She went on a

00:05:07.920 stage about Putin, Xi and Trump. It was some left wing organization. And following that, she was asked,

00:05:14.000 you know, Lighthizer wouldn't meet with her. That's why she had to do that, you know,

00:05:18.480 sort of meeting at her home with Lighthizer after the deal got done. Mexico and the United States

00:05:23.120 did a bilateral deal, and Canada had only a couple of weeks to join the USMCA after Mexico

00:05:28.800 and the United States had already resolved a massive bilateral trade deal. And that was simply because

00:05:34.960 Freeland at the time was trying to dine out on the fact that within the Liberal Party of Canada,

00:05:38.960 their ideology, Trump was considered a bad guy. And so she was trying to score political points

00:05:44.240 domestically on that fact, rather than doing a principal job, which was securing the best deal.

00:05:49.200 Now, fortunately, we had great people within the Liberal Party, guys like David McNaughton,

00:05:54.960 who was the ambassador to Canada, to the United States from Canada at the time. And, you know,

00:06:01.600 he did a phenomenal job here and is well regarded here. And you hear about that. So, you know, I have

00:06:06.560 friends in the Trump administration that know who David McNaughton is, they know how hard he worked for

00:06:10.480 Canada. So this doesn't have to be a partisan thing. It has to be a tactical thing. And I will

00:06:16.400 say this, Danielle Smith is flying a Canadian flag. The principal argument she's been making,

00:06:21.920 it's very important for people to know this, the principal argument that she's been making

00:06:25.920 is that oil and gas, a third of our export GDP to the United States, is a discounted input into all

00:06:33.440 kinds of products and refined products the United States makes and sells on with profit. And when

00:06:41.280 you take out that discounted input that supports billions of dollars in US industry and hundreds

00:06:46.640 of thousands of jobs along the value chain, actually Canada, the United States have a trade surplus in

00:06:53.280 favor of the United States by over $50 billion. She hasn't been in the United States arguing for an

00:06:59.040 Alberta carve-out. She's been here arguing for a Canada carve-out. So the presumption by people like

00:07:05.520 Andrew and some of the talking heads on the Liberal NDP side in the Canadian press that somehow she's

00:07:11.280 here kissing the ring rather than defending Canada or being Team Canada is insane. She's the only one that

00:07:17.760 I can see here that's actually making the arguments that Canada should be making in a way that makes sense

00:07:23.440 to the Americans and help them understand why they should take a step back and why they should be

00:07:28.880 concerned that if they put these tariffs on, particularly in the case of what would happen

00:07:33.120 if those tariffs at Canadian energy, they might cause red lines in the trading indices, especially on

00:07:39.360 energy. And that's something they don't want week one of the new administration. So I think she's had an

00:07:44.480 enormous effect here positively for Canada. And that needs to be said. And the fact that it's not,

00:07:50.160 I think it speaks more to the partisan dynamics of a liberal leadership race than it does to the

00:07:56.880 reality on the ground and the representation that she's been doing a lot of hard work making

00:08:02.400 with meetings that the feds are completely missing in action on. And I mean, I have to tell you this,

00:08:07.200 Rachel, they are invisible here. Those tariffs, you know, they were expected to come into effect on

00:08:15.440 January 20th. That's now been delayed till February 1st. Why do you think that is?

00:08:21.840 Well, I've got some ideas. I'll tell you what I've been told, because I asked about that very

00:08:26.880 directly. You know, the day that that was the day that we found out that had been decided was early

00:08:32.000 in the morning on the day of the inauguration. And there's a lot of buzz around it within the small

00:08:37.760 community of the new administration and others around it in state and elsewhere that knew that this

00:08:42.960 was pending. And he's kept almost every other thing he said he would do day one, he's done now.

00:08:48.480 But he didn't do that one. And I say, and what I was told was the reason for that privately was these

00:08:54.320 guys said, look, the last thing we wanted to do, understanding just how deep the resource element is,

00:09:02.560 and the fact that oil is a globally traded commodity with massive global trading houses,

00:09:07.920 they didn't want to have a bunch of red lines hit the economy off the back of a massive tariff

00:09:13.760 on Canadian energy. And one of the things that people don't understand, I don't even think most

00:09:17.840 Canadians understand this, but we put four and a half million barrels a day into the into the global

00:09:26.080 supply chain. That's that's a massive amount of energy. It's almost 5% of global global oil.

00:09:32.240 So that that quantum and the fact that it almost all goes into the US and goes from the US out to

00:09:39.360 the rest of the world is a huge sort of contingency in global energy. And that is a massive trading thing.

00:09:46.560 If you put a 25% tariff on that, that is going to royal the markets. And they just didn't want to

00:09:53.040 deal with that kind of disruptive economic wildcard without having a very clear sense of how it plays.

00:10:00.400 So right now, there are a lot of people looking at what effect will these tariffs have,

00:10:04.720 particularly if they tariff energy. If you tariff the rest of the next largest component of Canada's

00:10:10.880 export GDP into the United States is automobiles, car parts and related. And that's probably about 17%.

00:10:18.880 So call it, you know, half a little less than half of energy. And after that, it's just a series of

00:10:25.440 different things. So, you know, they just didn't want to have an unexpected outcome from doing

00:10:31.920 something that would particularly be globally traded. If you look at car parts, that that is not going

00:10:36.080 to be globally traded. You're not going to have the sovereign wealth fund of Kuwait or Qatar or the

00:10:41.200 Saudis trading against that news. Right. But oil, you bet that's going to have have potentially wildly

00:10:48.160 disruptive effects. And I don't think they wanted to deal with that. And I do think that one of the outcomes of

00:10:53.360 Danielle's full court press diplomatically here has been to alert the Americans who aren't always

00:10:59.360 totally aware of the dynamics from Canada, because so much of it is hidden that, you know, there's a

00:11:05.680 significant supply into the United States would have a massive impact on the United States export

00:11:13.040 and and productive capacity in energy and in energy markets. And people like Chris Wright know that Doug

00:11:19.120 Burgum know that Rubio knows that. And she had met with all those guys in the three days preceding

00:11:24.160 the decision to back off the tariffs. So I don't know if you know, you never know how much one

00:11:30.320 particular argument or one particular person or diplomatic push has an impact. That's the nature

00:11:36.320 of the game. But I have to say she's been doing the right thing. And this is just my perspective.

00:11:40.640 And obviously, I wrote it on X. The feds are totally MIA. They're not even on the ice.

00:11:45.360 I have to ask, you know, you mentioned that the premier was able to get all these essentially

00:11:49.920 exclusive meetings in a week where people from all over from countries all over the world are trying

00:11:54.800 to get meetings with the higher ups in the Trump administration. Do you think that representatives of

00:12:00.960 the federal government, whether that be bureaucrats or, you know, Justin Trudeau would have been able to

00:12:07.200 get those meetings with, for example, Marco Rubio this week?

00:12:11.120 Look, I think the prime minister of Canada can get a meeting with anybody that he needs to meet with.

00:12:16.160 We're an important country. We're the closest trading partner. And there's just diplomatic protocol.

00:12:21.600 My frustration, Rachel, has been exactly that fact. You know, this idea of Team Canada that's being

00:12:30.160 played out when you may not have an ideological presumption to agree with the fact that the Americans

00:12:37.040 have chosen to give the Trump administration, the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives,

00:12:45.600 and to have a majority in the Supreme Court. You might not like that, but that is the United States

00:12:49.520 today. And your job, if you're in the federal government of Canada, is to represent the interests

00:12:53.920 of Canada wearing a Canada jersey. And the fact that they are not here doing that in any obvious way that

00:13:01.040 I can see, and I'm pretty close to, and I think have a pretty decent line of sight on this, to me is

00:13:07.840 absolutely extraordinary, right? This is a moment for diplomacy. It's a moment to, especially when it's

00:13:17.600 an event like this, where everybody is actually doing social meetings and taking these meetings,

00:13:23.440 you get 15 minutes with people that are deciding the most important features of this bilateral

00:13:29.280 relationship. You need to be in those meetings. You need to be having a conversation. So I find that

00:13:34.800 extraordinary, number one. The other thing I find extraordinary is the one person that's doing that

00:13:38.800 work, instead of being told, nice work, we're glad you're representing Alberta and Canada, she's being

00:13:44.320 called out as if what she's doing is kissing the ring. So they've taken what should be a diplomatic

00:13:50.320 moment and they've tried to play it in this highly partisan way. And I just think, I think the reason

00:13:56.000 is so pathetic, actually. I think what they're trying to do is set up their own party, the Liberal

00:14:02.960 Party of Canada, to run against Trump because they have this ideological need to motivate their base in

00:14:08.320 the moment of a leadership race. Meanwhile, they've prorogued Parliament. So in a moment where we're

00:14:14.320 actually facing one of the most serious economic and trade conversations with our most important

00:14:20.080 trading partner, they're not even showing our most important trading partner like the Mexicans are

00:14:25.520 in a very systematic way. Our team is missing in action and they're not even meeting in the

00:14:30.720 Parliament in Canada to show that they're putting the funding in place to secure the border. So they've

00:14:35.760 made these promises, but they're not even meeting to fund them. And the Americans can see this. I mean,

00:14:40.080 there are hundreds of people in state whose job it is to understand Canada. And they do. And if you hear

00:14:46.480 what these guys say about our security degradation and deterioration in the last four years, it's

00:14:54.000 savage, right? There's no other word for it. We have allowed a thousand, over a thousand people

00:15:02.400 known on terror watch lists across the border in the last four years. That has never happened in Canadian

00:15:08.800 history. 190,000 people in 2023 tried to enter illegally. They've caught over a thousand that

00:15:16.880 are already known terrorists. That's more than 90% of all terrorist interdictions into the United States

00:15:23.200 from every coastline, Southern border, Northern border, over 90% are coming out of Canada, resident

00:15:28.400 in Canada. What does that tell you? I mean, what they're asking is those are the ones we're catching,

00:15:33.440 trying to enter. How many terrorists do you have resident? How many terrorists are just hanging out in Canada,

00:15:38.160 waiting for their moment, you know? And what does this say about the federal government's commitment

00:15:42.240 to Canadian security, by the way? And why isn't this being covered by the press? Like, I didn't know,

00:15:49.040 a lot of the things that I'm hearing talking to nerds in the, nerds like me in the, in the State

00:15:54.960 Department or related to the security side, a good friend of mine is, is up for one of the deputy secretary

00:16:00.800 defense rules. You know, what, what, why am I only hearing that now from these people? Where is this,

00:16:07.600 how is this not an open debate in the Canadian press? Do we have several hundred members of the

00:16:13.520 Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp floating around Canada that they've lost control of? The Americans

00:16:19.360 know it. And we only designated them a terrorist organization in, in the summer. And, you know, and, and the U.S. is

00:16:27.360 saying, fix this or you will face tariffs. And our federal team as prorogued parliament can't meet to

00:16:33.280 make any of those commitments. They're talking about buying helicopters. Helicopters will help,

00:16:37.680 but that is not the solution. The source code problem that we've got is asylum fraud, immigration

00:16:44.800 fraud, years of underfunding NATO, years of making our military woke, years of making our law enforcement

00:16:51.440 ineffective, and, and constantly concerned about how certain things appear instead of actually doing the

00:16:56.720 job of protecting Canadians, number one, and then also protecting our borders. The Americans don't

00:17:01.840 reach a point where they say, we've had enough. You're going to face tariffs unless you fix it.

00:17:06.080 The fact that that is the reason the Americans have given for the tariff threat and the only response

00:17:11.760 from the feds has been, let's all sign a document saying we'll use Alberta resources as the number one

00:17:16.560 way to fight back without fixing the underlying problem is crazy to me.

00:17:23.600 You know, it's really interesting because over the last number of weeks,

00:17:26.240 I've had a number of discussions with people who are saying, oh, you know,

00:17:29.520 the Americans do want Canada beef up security, but that isn't what this is really about. This is more,

00:17:34.800 you know, the art of the deal, uh, Trump trying to rattle, you know, Canadian leaders and politicians,

00:17:40.800 but it sounds like you're saying truthfully it is security. That's actually what the issues are.

00:17:45.600 It's exactly what, what exactly what Trump said it was.

00:17:48.640 Look, you know, there's, I think, you know, you know, when you see Rachel, you know, when you see

00:17:55.120 a single talking point repeat itself 20 times with different people and different media heads and

00:18:00.080 different, you know, the single talking point I keep seeing whenever I look at Canadian media,

00:18:04.560 and I've been overseas for most of the last month, month and a bit, but is everything is on the table,

00:18:10.560 right? Everything's on the table. And I don't know how this vapid, ridiculous truism has suddenly

00:18:16.800 become like some serious talking point. There's nothing serious about it. The table got set November

00:18:21.760 25th when the president, the incoming president of the United States said, we have a fundamental

00:18:26.560 problem with the lack of security on the Northern border. It's identical in the kind of problems that

00:18:31.760 we see in the Southern border. We won't allow it to persist. If you don't shift it, change it and show

00:18:36.640 how you're changing it. And by the way, you've been terrible at it for years, then we will have

00:18:40.800 these tariffs, right? It's we've got put on notice, right? And what did we do about it for two months?

00:18:48.880 I'd love to know, you know, and instead of having a coherent response and that saying, this is what

00:18:54.160 we're going to do about NATO. And the fact that we've been a deadbeat freeloader on NATO, and we know

00:18:59.760 we have Russian subs floating off our Arctic, and you've been furious about that. And we just haven't

00:19:03.920 done anything about it. This is what we're going to do on our on our problem of our underfunded

00:19:08.160 military and every capability of delivering on core commitments we have in NORAD and NATO,

00:19:12.800 haven't even been invited to AUKUS. This is what we're going to do about our asylum, our open asylum

00:19:17.360 fraud. This is what we're going to do about the fact that we have Iranian, this top sponsor of global

00:19:22.080 terror, the IRGC, we have several hundred of those guys, seeing people floating around our country that

00:19:27.600 we haven't been able to track. And we know that, right? This is what we're going to do about our

00:19:31.680 immigration fraud and the fact that a ton of our student visas, tens of thousands, don't even have

00:19:36.160 people showing up at the schools they ostensibly came in here for, right? This is what we're going

00:19:40.160 to do about the fentanyl super labs. This is what we're going to do about the thousand terrorists,

00:19:44.240 the over 90% of the terrorists have been interdicting. Where are the federal responses to these issues?

00:19:49.520 You say everything's on the table. Well, number one, the table was set November 25th. You haven't

00:19:54.160 responded to anything on that table, right? The Americans put it on the table. Number two,

00:19:58.960 the table is in DC right now. And no one that's got a mandate to respond to those issues is showing

00:20:06.400 up. They're all invisible, right? So what are we doing? So the idea that this is sort of, and then

00:20:12.880 third, the person that is showing up, doing her job, representing the thing that's within her

00:20:17.600 jurisdiction, which is energy, which belongs to Alberta, is being catcalled by everybody else

00:20:23.280 for actually being on the ice, doing the work and grinding in the corners and getting the meetings

00:20:27.200 and trying to represent this case. And she's making a team Canada case saying you discount energy

00:20:32.400 and you actually have a trade surplus, right? So you watch that when you're sort of,

00:20:37.360 you know, I'm not actively involved again, but I care a lot about these issues. I have clients

00:20:42.800 that care a lot about these issues and I'm here and I've got good friends on, on, you know, on,

00:20:48.080 act frankly, on both sides of the aisle, but good friends that are coming to this administration.

00:20:51.680 And you see that and you just think, look, we, we have become a deeply unserious country. If you

00:20:57.200 think everything's on the table, if you're saying that in CTV or CBC, right? Then I think it's the

00:21:03.040 responsibility of CTV and CBC to say, okay, everything's on the table. Let's look at what

00:21:06.640 the Americans put on the table. Here's the 10 things that they say we've been failing at.

00:21:11.040 What do you say about those? What's your plan, right? Now, tell me what your response is,

00:21:16.160 because unless you can respond to those things coherently, you're not even at the table or near the

00:21:20.560 the table. So don't pretend that you've got some negotiating insight.

00:21:26.080 David. Wow. Thank you so much for your insight. We have to leave it there for today,

00:21:28.960 but I really appreciate that. Thanks for letting me go off on this. It's,

00:21:31.840 it's incredible to have these meetings and I think Danielle's doing a good job. Thanks for putting,

00:21:35.600 putting some true north information out there. Hey everyone. And now I am joined by Alberta's

00:21:42.160 mental health and addictions minister, Dan Williams. As you guys know, I've covered Alberta's,

00:21:47.520 what's called Alberta's recovery oriented system of care. They've really been prioritizing treatment

00:21:52.960 over safe supply. Like we're seeing in other provinces, like our neighbor to the west of us

00:21:57.440 over in BC. And they've been pretty roundly criticized for this approach, but it looks like

00:22:04.560 it is finally paying off with some of the numbers that are coming out of the province. Minister Williams,

00:22:09.200 thank you so much for being us with us here today. I'm just going to let you really dive into it.

00:22:14.480 What are the latest that we're seeing in numbers on the ground, resulting from Alberta's approach?

00:22:21.440 Yeah. Thanks, Rachel. The numbers are becoming more and more clear. We've seen a year over year

00:22:26.560 drop from 2023 to 2024 of 38% decrease in opioid fatalities. Now this is huge news, not least of

00:22:34.480 which because these are lives saved Albertans, family members, community members of ours that we know now

00:22:40.320 are being helped. Many of them getting access to recovery in Alberta, which wasn't possible before

00:22:46.400 the United Conservatives came in because no one was building addiction treatment spaces. It's still not

00:22:52.000 possible in jurisdictions next door, like you mentioned in British Columbia, which is focused

00:22:56.640 on what's known as a harm reduction model and makes itself manifest in unsafe supply, in drug consumption

00:23:04.960 sites on every street corner and public and safety. And all of that compiles into seeing the same kind

00:23:11.600 of numbers you see across the rest of Canada and the United States. It's approximately an 8% decrease

00:23:18.000 in British Columbia when it comes to opioid fatality reduction, which is what everywhere is seen because

00:23:24.080 post-COVID we're seeing that drop. We're four times higher drop in Alberta. I'm very, very optimistic,

00:23:30.960 cautiously so that we're going to continue to see this system prove itself in the evidence and the

00:23:36.800 data. It's becoming abundantly clear that harm reduction has become harm production under programs

00:23:42.960 like unsafe supply. And then it's their Alberta recovery model that is about dignity and hope and

00:23:49.200 healthcare for those suffering from addiction that is actually leading the way and getting real results.

00:23:54.160 And you see it, you see it in your communities, you see it when you look for people who are trying to get

00:23:58.480 access to treatment and increasingly we're seeing it in the data. Now, I know that the United

00:24:03.680 Conservative Party government has made pretty significant investments in this model. I think

00:24:09.440 when I last covered this, it was a while ago, there was something like 11 centers being built in total.

00:24:14.960 Could you give us an update on how many centers your government has actually built?

00:24:18.960 So, we have a center built in Red Deer, in Lethbridge and in Gunn, Alberta, which is on

00:24:24.960 Lack St. Anne, just outside of Edmonton. We have more facilities opening up this year. Another three

00:24:31.520 more opening up, four more opening up this year. And we're partnering with Indigenous community. We're

00:24:36.640 going to have a total of 11 recovery communities. And on top of that, I also know that we need to care for

00:24:43.040 those suffering from addiction. And there are a number of people who suffer in the worst throes

00:24:48.720 of addiction, trapped, imprisoned by the addiction. They're the individuals that you see on the street

00:24:54.720 in Jasper Avenue, on Steven Avenue, or in towns like I'm from Peace River, increasingly in our rural

00:25:00.720 communities that are intermittently homeless, that have lost personal agency, that some of them,

00:25:07.600 because they're speedballing, methamphetamine, along with fentanyl, are fencing with the wind,

00:25:12.400 with a used syringe, out front of the rec center, as mom and kids are trying to get in. There's nothing

00:25:17.360 compassionate about leaving those individuals to stay intimately homeless, to risk overdose.

00:25:23.840 We had one individual that overdosed 186 times, that we know of, with our provincial health care

00:25:30.000 records. 186 time overdose. Each one of those overdoses is one breath away from death. There's nothing

00:25:35.920 compassionate about leaving our family members and friends in that state. So, we're going to be

00:25:40.800 introducing the compassionate intervention legislation, where if you're a danger to yourself

00:25:45.200 or others, like that 186 time overdoser, we don't want that 187th time to end up in death. And so,

00:25:53.040 what we're going to do is intervene, and potentially, if we meet the very high standard, then there will be

00:25:58.240 a mandatory treatment order that could come out of that, to help that individual suffering from addiction,

00:26:03.680 where everything has been offered, to get that person help in health care, but then also, to restore

00:26:09.200 safety to the community, so that the people fencing with the wind, with the use syringe, risking

00:26:13.760 public insecurity, to family members, to school groups, to those that we love and care for, that

00:26:20.240 ride public transit, to return that back to the city, back to Albertans.

00:26:25.280 Obviously, we're just coming off the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, and I know that a number of

00:26:30.000 Albertans still have concerns about the vaccine coercion that we saw during that era. What would your

00:26:35.760 response be to those Albertans who are unsettled by the sort of mandatory treatment that your

00:26:42.640 government is looking to pass through legislation? I'd say it's a legitimate concern to be thoughtful

00:26:51.040 and to react if there is an overreach of government. I was very concerned about overreach of government

00:26:56.560 in the past, and I think that's legitimate. But I'll say, we're putting our money where our mouth is.

00:27:02.640 We passed the Alberta Bill of Human Rights Amendment to make sure that it's protected in

00:27:10.560 Alberta law when it comes to civil liberties and personal liberties. This is not about overreach.

00:27:17.120 This is about returning your communities to Albertans. This is about helping those for an

00:27:22.640 addiction. I can tell you now, Rachel, if it was your daughter or my son that was suffering from

00:27:28.000 addiction and everything had been tried and your daughter or my son was overdosing 186 times,

00:27:35.920 we would want society to be able to intervene compassionately, to intervene with a response

00:27:42.240 that brings someone into healing again, bring them into an opportunity of recovery. Every Albertan

00:27:46.960 deserves an opportunity of recovery if they're in addiction. And if it's your daughter or my son,

00:27:51.520 we know that addiction, run its course, given enough time, tragically, it ends in only one of two ways.

00:27:57.680 It ends in pain, misery, and with enough of a runway, it ends in death. Or the alternative is it ends in

00:28:05.120 some sort of intervention, treatment, recovery, and a second lease on life. That's what I want to see for

00:28:11.840 my family members and friends and loved ones and every Alberta citizen that is struggling if every other

00:28:17.600 opportunity has been extended to them and their danger in some way to cause harm to themselves or

00:28:22.480 others. And yes, yes, that's the conservative, thoughtful, compassionate Canadian and Albertan

00:28:27.360 approach is to care for them. You were in Washington in September to talk about the Alberta model. I'm

00:28:35.520 wondering if there are states that are looking at Alberta and hoping to mimic the recovery oriented

00:28:42.000 system of care that we have here. It's pretty interesting. We're seeing a lot of interest

00:28:47.360 across the United States. I myself am going to Washington in about two weeks for the national

00:28:54.400 prayer breakfast. And we're having meetings as well with officials to talk about the Alberta model

00:28:59.440 with this incoming Republican administration about how we can share our best practices in Alberta with

00:29:06.480 a recovery oriented system of care with that Alberta recovery model with them. And also we've had

00:29:11.760 Massachusetts and Connecticut very interested. We've had other states and state legislators in the Midwest

00:29:18.480 and the Southwest interested in what Alberta is doing. The pandemic of addiction, opioid overdose that we see

00:29:26.880 across Canada and inner cities, it's happening in the United States as well. Now we had a federal government

00:29:33.520 that poured jet fuel to create a dumpster fire when they put unsafe supply on the streets, dumping 100

00:29:40.560 million pills of hydromorphone, five times more powerful than heroin, unwitnessed into the supply of opioids.

00:29:48.160 And we've had horrible policy where they think drug consumption sites on every street corner is going to

00:29:53.120 solve an addiction crisis without any prevention, early intervention and no attempt at recovery. Of course,

00:29:59.280 that's going to make it worse in Canada. The United States also faces the fundamentally the same problem

00:30:04.720 around lots, lots of supply of high powered opioids like fentanyl and lots and lots of demand created

00:30:11.760 by a reckless pharmaceutical industry that pushed on unsuspecting Canadians and Americans a pernicious and

00:30:20.000 incredibly cynical plot for profit to have millions upon millions of our citizens addicted to the deadliest

00:30:27.760 drugs on the planet. And so they have that same fundamental setting that drove us to this crisis

00:30:35.360 in the United States as Canada. Thankfully, their governments have not had the same kind of response

00:30:40.880 the Trudeau Liberals have had, where they've made it even worse, but the problem is still there. So they're

00:30:45.680 very interested in what Alberta is doing, because in some ways, we're further down the line than they are in

00:30:50.240 terms of having to come up with a response, because our crisis is more mature than theirs is.

00:30:55.040 When you talk about this trip to Washington, it will come obviously in the midst of a looming trade war

00:31:01.280 at the time you'll be in Washington. It's likely that we'll see those 25% tariffs that are currently

00:31:06.800 set to take effect on February 1st. Obviously, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has really been

00:31:12.400 leveraging herself and trying to build relationships with her American counterparts in hopes of securing a

00:31:18.080 deal for, you know, all of Canada, if not at least Alberta. Do you think that, you know, your endeavor

00:31:23.920 down to Washington, and you're, you know, speaking with counterparts there, are you hoping to leverage

00:31:29.840 that at all to build those relationships and potentially solidify an exemption for, you know,

00:31:35.360 Alberta as these tariffs come into place? Or are you not focused on that at this time?

00:31:38.880 Absolutely, I want to build relationships. And I'm incredibly proud of the work Premier Smith has done

00:31:44.240 in trying to find a de-escalation and a common solution to our largest trading partner to the

00:31:49.040 south. I'm an incredibly proud Canadian. I'd like to see this, this solved without any kind of tariffs

00:31:55.440 put on either side. I think that's the net benefit to all of us, to show a stronger in North America

00:32:00.400 with two independent countries side by side. But I'd also like to see a federal government that doesn't,

00:32:07.200 doesn't make this unity crisis worse. They have no legitimacy. And they're telling us in Alberta,

00:32:12.480 what we need to do with our resources. I think that the hypocrisy and the condescension coming

00:32:18.320 from the Trudeau Liberals is outrageous, accusing us of being un-Canadian, effectively saying that

00:32:23.360 we're unpatriotic because we want to see a de-escalation of a potential trade war with the

00:32:28.480 world's largest economic superpower and our largest trading partner. Where have they been for the last

00:32:34.000 decade calling us un-Canadian, not on Team Canada? They've been destroying Canada in every

00:32:39.120 opportunity they could, leaving our flags at half-mass for a year, attacking Johnny McDonald

00:32:46.000 and his legacy who founded this country, tearing down his statues, putting them under boxes for

00:32:51.600 five years on end. They've done everything they can, including Trudeau saying we're a post-national

00:32:56.000 state. Well, the culture they set in Ottawa has consequences. Unfortunately, they can't turn on a

00:33:01.280 dime and say that we've been un-Canadian when they're the ones that seem to hate the very country

00:33:05.520 that has given them all the benefits and prosperity that we inherit today. So no, I'm a proud Canadian.

00:33:11.440 I don't think the problem is with Alberta here. I think we're doing the right job trying to build

00:33:16.240 relationships in Washington. I'll continue to do so. I'm incredibly ashamed of a federal government

00:33:21.760 that tries to pit Alberta and province against province, that tries to condescend and take advantage

00:33:27.600 of the very resources that they're trying to shut down when it's convenient for them to do so. All of a

00:33:32.240 sudden it's Canadian oil or Canadian energy rather than Alberta oil. It's no longer dirty but an

00:33:37.360 important part of our trade negotiations. I can tell you just as my position as an Albertan,

00:33:42.320 nothing else. I'm a proud Canadian, but incredibly disappointed at the cynical approach of the

00:33:47.120 Trudeau Liberal cabinet. I've had enough Eastern politicians dictating to us what we need to do with

00:33:51.920 our oil, whether it's keep it in the ground or use it to cause trade wars that make all of us poorer.

00:33:57.680 Minister, thank you so much.

00:33:58.800 Thank you, Rachel.

00:34:00.160 All right, everyone. That is all we have time for today. I hope that you enjoyed those interviews.

00:34:06.640 I thought it was worthwhile to do an update on the Alberta recovery model because I've covered that

00:34:11.200 story a lot over my career. And you guys know that I'm really fascinated by the trade war with the

00:34:16.400 United States. It was so great to have a perspective from someone who has those contacts in Washington

00:34:21.360 and who was on the ground for the inauguration. Hope that you guys have a great rest of your week. God bless.

00:34:26.720 God bless.

00:34:33.980 We'll be right back.

00:34:35.040 We'll be right back.

00:34:36.960 I'll be right back.

Juno News - January 22, 2025

Trump admin takes notice of Danielle Smith, but feds are missing in action

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