David Staples: Did Trudeau, Trump and chemtrails derail Danielle Smith’s good work?
The year 2024 saw Danielle Smith do many things that delighted Canadian conservatives.
Alberta’s premier moved hard on sovereignty issues around oil and gas, on dismantling street encampments and enabling treatment for drug addicts, on axing photo radar fishing holes, while also banning the medical gender transitioning of children. Such moves were heavily criticized by the NDP, but the most recent Angus Reid poll shows her popularity has held steady. Her 91 per cent approval at the United Conservative annual general meeting speaks to happy party campers.
But has Smith’s success this year been derailed by the trio of Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau and Smith’s own habit of speculating on conspiracy theories, as seen in the chemtrails controversy?
On Trump’s threat of a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian exports to the U.S., Smith told me in a year-end interview she hadn’t been expecting any tariff at all on Alberta oil and gas.
“I was thinking that we would be able to argue that we have pretty balanced trade. We buy almost as much stuff from them as they buy from us.”
What is Alberta’s strongest argument against tariffs?
It’s all about how hard an oil and gas tariff will hit American consumers, business and national security, Smith said.
“The Americans benefit equally from being able to get our energy. We have 4.3 million barrels a day that we export to the United States. They have a strategic petroleum reserve that needs to be filled. We can fill it. They have refineries that need heavy oil. There’s not very many places to get them from.”
A 25 per cent tariff on Alberta oil would push U.S. gas prices up from US$3 a gallon to US$4 a gallon, Smith said.
But it appears Trudeau is serious about meeting Trump’s concerns on illegal immigration and the deadly fentanyl trade, Smith said. “It seems like the message has gone through (to Trudeau).”
Trump talks of bringing back the Keystone XL pipeline (which would have pumped 830,000 barrels per day from Alberta to the U.S.). But is there any air of reality around this?
“It would have to be de-risked in a pretty significant way, I think, to have some confidence that it was going to go forward.”
For one thing, Smith said, permitting and licensing would have to be sped up so the pipeline could be built before Trump is out of office and a new president decides to kill it, as Joe Biden did to Keystone XL.
One idea is for the Alberta government to not take dollar royalties from oil producers, but to take oil and bitumen instead. Alberta could then backstop a new pipeline project by giving the private builder a contract for a secure source of oil to move.
“The market’s got nervousness right now, and if we’re able to say, ‘Yeah, we take 50 per cent of the space,’ we think that’s a way of de-risking the line to be able to get it built without having to put the dollars on the table.”
As for Trudeau’s proposed emissions cap, Smith continues to lash out at Liberal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. “Guilbeault has some kind of deranged vendetta against our oil and gas industry.”
Is Guilbeault’s adamant stance on oil indicative of all Quebec? Is Canada big enough for both Alberta and Quebec?
Smith replied that every time she meets Quebec Premier Francois Legault, she tells him Quebec should develop its own natural gas resources. “They don’t have enough power to be able to continue fuelling their industrial development.”
But Smith noted, at the last world climate conference, Quebec wanted Canada to vote to phase out oil and gas. Quebec also just passed a law stopping natural gas hook-ups by 2040. “I would say that there’s a pretty sharp divide between Alberta and Quebec.”
As noted, Smith’s year has been marked by pushback in numerous areas of trans, drug, and law-and-order policies. On such matters, the political left has over-reached, she said. “The left went too far when they started interfering in the relationship between parents and their kids. The left went too far when they started trying to cancel everybody. The left went too far when they had this mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training that actually alienates people and divides people. That’s when people said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’”
Smith said there’s a desire to focus on good-paying jobs, strong families, and good schools, health care and infrastructure. “People want to get back to the common sense, things that everybody agrees on. There’s just a recognition that things have gone too far. ”
Of course, Smith herself has been accused of going too far on numerous issues, most recently engaging in speculation over chemtrails harming humans.
The chemtrails fiasco, where Smith earnestly discussed the issue with an attendee of a UCP town hall meeting, confirmed to some that Smith too easily strays into lunacy.
What does Smith now say about it all?
“I did 28 town halls and that question came up in every single one of them. So when I’m asked a question, I go look into it. I looked into it, there was nothing there. And so I let them know there was nothing there.”
Why did not just respond with, “Hey, that’s a hoax?”
“You have to remember how influenced Canadians are by what they see in American politics. This was an issue that was coming up in the American presidential debate. T here are legislatures ( Tennessee , Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Kentucky, Minnesota, and New Hampshire) that are passing policies. Mexico is passing policies. People are looking at what’s happening down there. They’re saying, ‘What? Do we need to be worried about here?’ I looked into it. There was nothing to see.”
Perhaps there’s a method in Smith’s madness. There’s no denying her Klein-like common touch, nor her popularity. I can see that popularity enduring, though if the Trump tariffs do come, all bets are off. They are an existential threat to Alberta’s economy, not to mention almost all Canadian politicians and parties, most notably a free-trader like Smith.
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