‘I’m encouraged’: Alberta premier to deliver Monday status update about provincial relationship with Ottawa

Following her first meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney last Friday, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she wants to give Ottawa the benefit of the doubt.

Smith is giving a speech Monday afternoon at 3 p.m., when she says she will speak to Albertans on the province’s path forward with the federal government following a meeting with the Alberta government caucus.

On her Saturday morning radio show “Your Province, Your Premier,” Smith said she’s willing to give Ottawa a chance.

“People want me to give this relationship with the prime minister a chance to correct some of the issues that have festered for the last 10 years,” she said, “and I will go into those discussions in good faith.

“I had my first conversation with him yesterday,” she said. “I raised all of my nine points. He listened attentively. He did not dismiss out of hand or reject anything I said and for me, that’s a very positive first step.”

She added that while Carney said all the right things, words spoken by federal politicians to Albertans have historically come cheap.

“It’s more than words – we have to see action,“ she said. ”That is what I will be pressing for but what I was encouraged by is he is very clear about wanting to establish economic corridors, about moving very quickly on big, nation-building projects, and he wanted my feedback on what would be the most important ones for Alberta.

“I did give him that.”

She also expressed enthusiasm about a First Minister’s meeting expected to take place in a month or so, “and he is clearly reaching out to every premier to have the same one-on-one conversations.

“That is a sea change from the previous prime minister,” she said.

“I’m encouraged but I know again Albertans will not be satisfied unless we know that we can continue to develop our resources, that we can get our product to market and that we’re not going to face punishing taxes that make our energy unaffordable.

“So those (concerns) are still an open question,” she added, “but there was some common ground found.”

That 70s Show?

Mount Royal University political scientist Keith Brownsey expressed skepticism about the prospects for Smith finding common ground between Ottawa and the Alberta provincial government.

“Oh, she’s trying to mollify a situation,” he said. “She’s trying to calm down some of the rhetoric here that Mr. Carney may not be a Mr. Trudeau, and he certainly isn’t.

“Mr. Carney is a very capable, agile political leader with incredibly good economic and technical skills now, and he’s very popular right at the moment.

“And Ms. Smith understands that news may be trying to back off a little bit, although it’s Danielle Smith, and you can’t expect that to last.”

He said the Alberta premier’s vision for the future is actually nostalgia for an era that no longer exists.

“Ms. Smith is living in 1970,” he said. “She wants Alberta to remain the oil and gas producer, which is (basically the motto that) oil and gas isn’t going anywhere. It’s going to be a mainstay here, but it’s used as a tool in which to beat, if you will, the federal government.

“And she’s using every tool in that box to bash at the federal government,” he said. “She’s now gone after energy regulations, (and) the clean electricity goals of the federal government.

“She’s taking them to court on this,” he added. “It’s very unlikely that will succeed -- and what does it do? It just plays to her (political) base in the province, and it’s not going to do the country any good. It’s not going to do Alberta any good.”

He said the province’s decision to halt renewable energy investment in the province cost Alberta thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment, according to the Pembina Institute.

“She could have done something for the province, and she didn’t, all because of a very narrow 1970s view of what Alberta is and what it could be,” he said.

The premier’s speech will be livestreamed on Facebook, X and YouTube.

With files from CTV’s Tyler Barrow