Danielle Smith threatens a national unity crisis if Canadians re-elect Mark Carney’s Liberals
UCP MLA writes that Canada is broken and Team Canada is a “fake team”
A quick note before today’s column: Daveberta now has more than 6,500 subscribers! A big thank you to everyone who has signed up to read my Alberta politics columns. It continues to be a great pleasure to be able to share my thoughts and analysis of Alberta politics on this platform.
Danielle Smith threatens a national unity crisis if Canadians re-elect Mark Carney’s Liberals
Mark Carney has only been Prime Minister of Canada for 17 days but last week he may have made one of the most consequential statements by a Canadian political leader in recent memory.
"The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over," Carney said in response to American President Donald Trump’s almost daily threats against Canada.
Trump backed down on his threats last week to level 25 percent tariffs against the Canadian automobile manufacturing industry, probably temporarily, after Carney announced retaliatory tariffs, but this week could feature Trump’s next big intervention in a federal election campaign where he has become the biggest villain. April 2 is what the Trump is calling “Liberation Day.” It’s the day he says he plans to level more huge tariffs on products being imported into the US.
The outcome of Canada’s election is still up in the air but there is no doubt that Trump’s threats to destroy Canada’s economy and annex Canada have drastically changed how many Canadians view our southern neighbours - and that has had a huge impact the federal election campaign.
This rapid changes to this longstanding relationship has huge implications for oil and gas companies in Alberta that export oil and gas United States and the provincial government that heavily relies on royalty revenues from those sales to fund the daily operations of public services.
That’s where Alberta Premier Danielle Smith comes in. Smith has embarked on her own charm offensive of Trump’s America, which included a trip to Florida last week to share a stage with pro-Trump podcaster Ben Shapiro at a $1,500 a plate fundraiser for the right-wing PragerU media company.
Smith’s reach into the MAGA world is deeper than any other Canadian politician. But her foray into the media environment that fuels Trump’s political agenda was tainted after she admitted asking American officials to pause their economic attacks on Canada until after the federal election because they might hurt Pierre Poilievre’s chances of defeating the Liberals.
While Canadians, and Albertans, have an increasingly low opinion of the current US President (disapproval of Trump is now at 78 per cent among Canadians), how to elect “solid allies” of the Trump administration was a big topic of the on-stage conversation Smith had with Shapiro, according to a recording of the event obtained by the National Observer.
Smith’s staff were quick to share a screenshot of Shapiro’s post on social media where he said that tariffs are bad. But a quick glance of Shapiro’s social media feed shows that comment was quickly buried by his other posts that include “Satanist Arrested After Punching Protester At Black Mass In Kansas Statehouse” and “Trump Schools The Left, Answers ‘What Is A Woman?’”
On his podcast in December, Shapiro described Canada as “a silly country that makes maple syrup, hockey and annoying prime ministers.” He then told his millions of listeners that the United States could “annex it and then just call it an outlying territory or something like Puerto Rico, but of the North.”
While Smith’s visit with Shapiro garnered a lot of media attention in Canada, no reports have mentioned his most recent ghoulish crusade to convince Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for nine minutes.
Smith not standing up for Canada, says Nenshi
Back in Edmonton, the NDP Opposition responded to Smith’s hobnobbing with Trump supporters by unravelling a big Canadian flag out of one of their Caucus office windows in the Queen Elizabeth II Building (the NDP have previously hung a huge Pride Flag out the window to celebrate Pride Month and protest United Conservative Party government laws limiting health care for transgendered people).
“The stakes are high for all Canadians. We thought it was important here in the heart of Alberta’s democracy for us to put out a symbol saying we are standing up for Canada because, I’m sorry to say, there is one person who is not standing up for Canada, and that is the Premier of Alberta,” said Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi.
“We cannot be careless with this nation that so many have worked so hard to build for so very long. And our Premier wants to gamble that away. And at times like this where our very sovereignty is under threat, the notion of Canada is not something you put on and take off like a team jersey,” Nenshi said.
The NDP have struggled to get traction from the growing series of scandals that have dogged the governing UCP as Smith’s approval ratings remain steady. Wrapping themselves in the Canadian flag could be an effective contrast to appeal to Albertans uncomfortable with Smith’s forays into Trump’s America.
UCP MLA says “Canada is broken” and Team Canada is a “fake team”
Smith is promising a national unity crisis if Poilievre’s Conservatives don’t win the election. She warned of an “unprecedented national unity crisis” if her demands for the federal government to repeal a list of climate change and environmental laws aren’t met within six months after the election. Poilievre said in a press conference last week that he would meet Smith’s demands, though her actions suggest she is already writing off the chances of a Conservative victory.
Smith says she could create a new version of the “Fair Deal Panel” to fuel Albertan grievances with Ottawa if her demands aren’t met and one group of UCP supporters is calling on the Premier to go even further by holding a referendum on Alberta’s separation from Canada.
Her promise to create a national unity crisis if the Liberals are re-elected is something the “Commonwealth of Alberta Delegation to Washington” (the group includes two former Conservative MPs and an influential UCP constituency president) and at least one UCP MLA appear eager to embrace.
Red Deer-South MLA Jason Stephan recently sent a letter to his constituents claiming Canada is broken and Team Canada is a “fake team.”
Wouldn't it be wonderful for Albertans to stop being exploited, transferring hundreds of billions to Quebec and other hypocrites who attack and hold Alberta back?
And wouldn't it be wonderful to stop having to fund an entrenched SWAMP in Ottawa who glut themselves on our labors and are often jealous and hostile to Alberta's freedom and prosperity?
Concluding his letter to residents of Red Deer-South, Stephan asked:
Other than taking many billions from us every year, attacking, and holding us back, what does Canada offer Alberta?
Albertans share a desire for freedom and prosperity for themselves and their children. That is good.
The status quo is unacceptable and that is the truth.
Stephan’s letter is troubling and will certainly be unwelcome by most Albertans at a time when Canada is facing an economic attack by its southern neighbour, but it isn’t out of character.
In 2020, Stephan was forced to apologize for referring to Ottawa and Quebec as “hostile, parasitic partners,” and, in 2021, he and three other MLAs spoke at the launch of the Free Alberta Strategy, a manifesto penned in-part by former MLA Rob Anderson, who now works as Smith’s Chief of Staff.
The Free Alberta Strategy was the genesis of the UCP’s Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, better known as the Sovereignty Act. I wrote in my very first column published on Substack that the Sovereignty Act was designed to create a political crisis, something that now feels is clearly the case.
Stephan’s complaints reveal an ugly side of Western Alienation that ignores the fact that tens of thousands of Canadians from other provinces come to work in Alberta and then return to their home provinces when the work in the oil and gas industry slows down.
There are plenty of legitimate grievances with how Western Canadian provinces have sometimes been treated by the federal government, including the current Liberal government, but Alberta doesn’t prosper without the labour and hard work of Canadians from other provinces.
Past conservative premiers in Alberta might have asked Stephan to apologize and maybe even would have removed him from the government caucus. It feels unlikely that in 2025 there will be any consequences for an MLA fanning the flames of a national unity crisis at the same time Canada faces an unprecedented threat to our sovereignty from Trump’s America.
Recommended reading:
University of Alberta political science professor Jared Wesley’s recent essay “Western Alienation 2.0.”
Alberta Prosperity Project event draws crowd of critics and supporters (Sherwood Park News)
‘A female Donald Trump’: how Gina Rinehart is pushing the Maga message in Australia (The Guardian). Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd owns Northback Holdings Corporation, the corporation trying to open the Grassy Mountain coal mine in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
Daveberta in the media
🇨🇦🎙️ I joined Chris Brown on his excellent Cross Borders Network podcast to talk about the federal election in Alberta, Premier Smith’s role in the race, and which ridings I’m watching in Alberta as the campaign rolls on.
Jagmeet Singh comes to Edmonton
Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is in Edmonton today for a media event and a stop at the campaign office of Edmonton Centre candidate Trisha Estabrooks. Singh is the first candidate to visit Alberta during the election campaign.
After a close three-way race saw their candidate finish within 2 percent of winning in 2021, the federal NDP see Edmonton Centre as a possible third seat to win in Alberta. Estabrooks is a former CBC reporter and public school board trustee. She picked up an endorsement from former NDP premier Rachel Notley last week.
The last minute departure of Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault from the race only days before the election was called created even more uncertainty in this seat that the Liberals held since 2021 and from 2015 to 2019 before that.
Previously nominated Edmonton Strathcona Liberal candidate Eleanor Olszewski switched ridings in hopes of holding Edmonton Centre for her party, but pamphlets mailed by the Liberal campaign asking voters to re-elect Boissonnault arrived in voters mailboxes late last week, creating confusion for voters wondering who their Liberal candidate is.
Estabrooks and Olszewski are facing Conservative Party candidate Sayid Ahmed in this hotly contested campaign.
Former NDP MLA endorses Liberal in Lethbridge
Former NDP MLA Shannon Phillips endorsed federal Liberal candidate Chris Spearman in Lethbridge. Phillips, who represented Lethbridge-West from 2015 until 2024 and was a senior cabinet minister Notley’s government, posted an endorsement on social media:
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