Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she wants to see a unified approach to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s economic threats toward Canada, but that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “hasn’t made it easy” — and that Alberta is prepared to secure its own interests in Washington.
Speaking to Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block, Smith said she wants to ensure that oil and gas from Alberta is exempted from the 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports that Trump has threatened, but that Trudeau’s policies — including carbon pricing and a proposed cap on oil pollution that Alberta says amounts to a production cap — stand in the way.
“We’re saying to the Americans, we are your solution to energy security. We are your solution to energy affordability. You can’t take that message to the table when you’ve got these additional taxes and production caps layered on top,” she said.
“We have to have a cohesive message, and part of this is going to be a bit of a climbdown for Justin Trudeau and some of the bad policies that he’s enacted over the last number of years.”
Trump has promised to impose the punishing tariffs on his first day in office in January unless Canada addresses concerns regarding immigration and cross-border drug trafficking, particularly fentanyl.
Smith has called those issues legitimate, and told Stephenson the threat reflects concerns over Trudeau’s immigration and public safety policies that have not been aligned with more hardline approaches favoured by Trump and Republicans, as well as conservatives like herself.
She said Alberta, like other provinces, has also been hit hard by the opioid crisis and new immigration that has strained social services and resources.
“(Trudeau) has to recognize some of the things that he that he has done has not worked, and now it’s interfering with our trade relationship with the United States. And that should be everybody’s concern,” she said.
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Ottawa is still consulting on draft regulations that would see pollution from oil and gas producers reduced by 35 per cent below 2019 levels.
The Alberta government has claimed the cap would risk energy supply and billions of dollars in lost revenue, as well as job reduction in the province. Canada is the top foreign energy supplier to U.S. reserves and the fourth largest oil producer globally, and a majority of that products comes from Alberta.
In Fort MacMurray, Alta., home to many of the workers in the province’s northern oilsands, the potential for U.S. tariffs on oil and gas has sparked worries.
“I think it will put prices through the roof,” Todd Clarke told Stephenson. “We’d probably see job cuts here.”
Brian White, who worked for Suncor Energy for decades after moving to the area in 1997, said he’s seen the industry slow down in recent years amid environmental regulations, and that U.S. tariffs would pose another challenge.
While he feels the provincial government takes the oil industry and its economic importance seriously, “they seem to be fighting an uphill battle with Ottawa,” where there is less support, he said.
“We need to look at this as, what’s good for both countries, not just the U.S. or Canada,” he said. “My worry… is I don’t know where Trudeau sits in that conversation. I don’t think Trump has a lot of respect for him.
“We need some strong leadership, and I’m just not sure that we have that kind of leadership right now in Ottawa.”
Smith said Alberta has had representation in Washington, D.C. since 2005 to lobby its interests to the U.S. government and key states, and will continue to advance those issues directly. She said she plans to attend Trump’s inauguration and is in regular contact with state governors.
“Increasingly, we’ve seen that we are the best proponents of our own interests, and we will continue to establish those relationships,” she said.
The premier pushed back on suggestions that direct communication could undermine the unified approach that was championed after last week’s meeting between the premiers and the federal government.
“I think it’s got to be an all-hands-on deck-approach,” she said.
“I’m going to to talk to my counterparts across the country. But we are also going to make the case with our American counterparts that Canada should get a carve-out for a lot of reasons.”
She reiterated that Alberta energy needs to be part of the conversation between the U.S. and Ottawa as well, and not just as leverage to get Trump to drop his threat.
“I don’t think we can go to the table with a ‘yeah, but’: ‘Yeah, but you need our oil so we don’t have to take care of these other things that you’re concerned about,” she said.
“I think it’s a ‘yes and’: ‘Yes, we can take care of these things and we can continue to have a great trade relationship.’ We have to take seriously the issues that the administration is saying.”
Smith has called on Ottawa to take measures to further secure its borders and crack down on the illegal drug trade and fentanyl products coming into Canada from China, as well as to scrap “anti-energy” policies like carbon pricing and pollution caps.
She said there’s still time to address those issues in a way that convinces Trump to back down from his tariff threat, but “the clock is ticking.”
“I think it’s encouraging that he’s given us two months notice,” she said. “I think that’s an indication that … he wants us to solve these problems, because he could have not telegraphed that at all and then we would have been hit with it on Jan. 20.
“Now we’ve got two months to be able to come together as provinces and with the federal government to address these concerns in a meaningful way.”
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