Western Standard - CORY MORGAN： Premier Smith is flirting with political suicide

In this week's show, we discuss Alberta's Prime Minister Daniel Smith's comments on becoming independent from Canada, and the implications for the rest of the country. We also hear from the Prime Minister's office on a variety of other topics, including the Alberta government's response to a question put to them by independent supporters of Alberta's separation from Canada.

00:00:00.000 be sure to hit those like buttons and subscribe and all of that it really helps the algorithms

00:00:12.320 and keep these productions going and spreading out to other people so we can bypass that nasty

00:00:17.400 old legacy media and get straight to you lots going on as always this week uh hard to tell

00:00:25.300 where to begin well of course i know where to begin i've got a ranting monologue i'm going to

00:00:28.840 start into momentarily. So let's see. Oh, well, there's CB fixes all says I ran the 400 billion

00:00:37.260 through AI and everything I can think of and what AI suggested came out 10 billion max. Okay,

00:00:41.220 that's a good discussion is about what I'm gonna start talking about in just a moment. And yes,

00:00:46.940 it is related to Premier Daniel Smith getting up and saying that becoming independent would cost

00:00:51.460 $400 billion. So I mean, Premier Daniel Smith, she's been maintaining something of a delicate

00:00:57.320 balancing act between satisfying the provincial sovereignist element within her party base and

00:01:02.760 most albertans at large who lean towards the federalist side of late though the premier's

00:01:07.240 decided to fall solidly onto one side of the debate and it may lead to some pretty dire

00:01:11.320 consequences for the ucp in the future and it can be understand understood why the premier is

00:01:16.280 maintaining a stance on the federalist side of the debate she never claimed to be a supporter of

00:01:20.200 albert independence and she didn't campaign on a platform supporting it she certainly has the right

00:01:24.760 to express where she stands on the issue too but when she went into a tirade with hyperbolic

00:01:30.520 economic assumptions claiming that the transitional cost of independence would be over 400 billion

00:01:35.480 she sounded much like former premier jason kenny has lately since he donned the cloak of being

00:01:40.440 kept in canada now premier smith would be well served to remember why the word former is used

00:01:45.000 when speaking of jason kenny's premiership well some of the leading figures in the independence

00:01:49.880 movement have always had that chip on their shoulders with the premier they were tempered

00:01:53.480 by the majority of independent supporters who accepted her federalism as long as they could

00:01:57.340 get a referendum out of the deal. With the courts blocking the ability for citizens to initiate a

00:02:02.080 referendum on sovereignty, independent supporters became a little more upset with the status quo,

00:02:06.300 but many still grudgingly accepted the watered-down word salad of a referendum question

00:02:10.880 the Premier added to the ballot for this fall. They took the Premier at her word that this was

00:02:15.620 the only option available for people to express themselves on a referendum right now. With the

00:02:20.060 premier now in an open campaign, though, against the option number two in the question,

00:02:24.740 independent supporters are going to be sorely tempted to give up on the referendum and direct

00:02:28.440 their resources and energy into unseeing the premier. And this is not a threat to be dismissed.

00:02:34.040 No conservative premier has managed to remain in power beyond a single term since Ralph Klein,

00:02:38.460 and it's tended to be party members who take them down, not the electorate.

00:02:42.340 In needlessly provoking a segment to the UCP member base who number in the thousands,

00:02:46.680 Smith could start a chain of events leading to her political career, 0.88

00:02:50.240 meaning the same nasty ending her predecessors enjoyed.

00:02:54.000 Rather than going to war against the independent supporters,

00:02:56.220 the Premier should be focusing on accomplishments

00:02:57.820 that may undercut the strength of the independence campaign.

00:03:01.100 Where did that plan for a provincial pension plan go?

00:03:03.560 When are we going to formally announce an end to the RCMP contract plan

00:03:07.220 with a full provincial police force?

00:03:09.820 How about bringing home the collection of provincial taxes

00:03:11.880 and keeping energy royalties within provincial institutions

00:03:14.720 rather than using eastern-based banks.

00:03:17.320 With three years in office, Premier Smith has talked a really good game

00:03:20.160 when it comes to provincial sovereignty initiatives,

00:03:22.200 but her delivery has been terrible.

00:03:24.020 If the intention is to make Alberta more sovereign within Canada,

00:03:26.740 it would be refreshing to see a tangible indication of it.

00:03:29.660 Smith's ongoing negotiations with Mark Carney

00:03:31.700 appear to have involved a lot of capitulations from Alberta on carbon taxes

00:03:34.760 and questionable carbon tax initiatives

00:03:37.540 with no concrete commitments from the government to approve projects.

00:03:41.400 She's set multiple deadlines with the Prime Minister

00:03:43.580 since he was elected, only to do nothing when the deadlines were ignored. Remember that Grey Cup

00:03:47.580 deadline? Yeah, that was a long time ago since the Grey Cup. The Premier is appearing weak on Ottawa

00:03:52.120 and harsh against Alberta regionalists. This is creating an ugly formula which will lead to a

00:03:57.780 populist uprising against her, and no amount of threats that it's going to lead to another term 1.00

00:04:01.480 of the NDP might cool that. A referendum is on the horizon that presents independent supporters

00:04:06.140 with half a loaf to be satisfied with. Premier Smith should stay clear of the campaign and let

00:04:10.980 citizens deal with it from here on in. She made her federalist inclination clear and doesn't need 1.00

00:04:15.540 to keep pressing it. It's changing the sentiment among independent supporters from frustration

00:04:19.800 with the premier to rage. The 7,000 people who sat through blizzards and endured abuse from

00:04:25.240 federalists last winter to get the referendum signatures are dedicated, hardworking Albertans.

00:04:30.140 The premier really doesn't want to have them dedicate their hard work towards removing her

00:04:34.100 from power. Nobody expects the premier to adopt a pro-independence stance. She doesn't need to go

00:04:39.100 want to campaign against independent supporters either. Like you see, media and Eastern elites 1.00

00:04:44.160 are going to label her as separatist anyways. We've been seeing that. It doesn't matter what 0.95

00:04:47.080 she does. What Smith must do is show some victories for Alberta within the Federation,

00:04:51.720 and she's running out of time to do that.

Western Standard - June 08, 2026

CORY MORGAN： Premier Smith is flirting with political suicide

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