Front Burner - Alberta’s very interesting year

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

It’s been almost a year since Alberta Premier Danielle Smith met with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. He was on the brink of a trade war. Since then, a lot has happened, from a renewed push for a separatist referendum, to election recall campaigns, to a shift in the relationship between the province and Ottawa.We are joined by two CBC colleagues. Kathleen Petty is the host of the West of Centre podcast and Jason Markusoff is a writer and producer in Calgary.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Hey Canada. It's me, Gavin Crawford, host of Because News. Each week, I put comedians on the spot with a pop quiz about the headlines. This week, we're talking about the monster of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's own making, Wayne Gretzky's incredible pronunciation skills, and the one kind of Christmas toy experts are all calling dangerous. Miguel Revis, Emma Hunter, and Gene Yune are here, so laugh along as we try to make sense of the headlines. Follow Because News on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts for free. This is a CBC podcast. Hey everybody, it's Jamie Poisson. What exactly did he say to you in Mar-a-Lago? Well, I mean, I would say that I'm, what I said, what I asked the president was, do you want to buy more oil and gas from Canada? And he said yes. So that was Danielle Smith, talking about,

about her message for Donald Trump when she met him last January, not once, but twice, at Mara Lago and then at his golf club the following morning. It's been almost a year since the Alberta Premier met with the then-president-elect who was on the brink of a trade war. And a lot has happened since. From a renewed push for a separatist referendum to election recall campaigns, to a big, unexpected shift in the relationship between the province and Ottawa, and of course, that conciliatory tone towards Donald Trump. It's been a very interesting and newsmaking year in Alberta. To talk about all of that and more, two of my CBC colleagues are here.

Kathleen Petty is the host of the West of Center podcast, and Jason Marcosoff is a writer and producer in Calgary. Kathleen, hi, it's great to have you on the show. Great to talk to you, Jamie. And Jason, good to have you here, as always. Hey again. Jason, why don't we start with you? Alberta politics is not exactly.

normally sleepy, but how interesting a year in Alberta politics would you say this year has been? It's been such an interesting year that I don't think I can put meeting Herman Donald Trump like anywhere in the top 20 of things that major things that happened this year. And in some ways, it's kind of shocking to think that that happened in the same year as this. That wasn't like a couple calendar flips ago. It's been that big a year. in Alberta politics. Daniel Smith is really ambitious, ambitious in a way that I'm not sure another.

Alberta leader has been since Ralph Klein, just bold enough to do pretty much everything. Sorry, Ralph Klein back in the 90s and 2000s. Like, she just wants to change and do everything from the education system and the teacher strike to health care, to oil production and pipelines and changing the deal with the Ottawa. and the prospect of breaking up the country, scandals.

There's, like, do you have how many hours you have to get into this, Jamie? I mean, we have 25 minutes. So I'll do my best. It has been so busy. Kathleen, I wonder if I could get you in here. I imagine you agree with Jason's assessment there. But just how would you characterize the last year? Well, it's funny, Jamie, because it's been tumultuous.

and normal, all at the same time, because that's the way we roll in this province. So what looks on the outside to be tumultuous is actually just what we do in this province, at least what we do, you know, when Daniel Smith is premier. I will say that it is kind of exhausting. And I'm sure Jason would agree it is hard to keep up with everything that's going on. And part of the challenge is there are so many stories and so many sort of upsets and things that sort of come out of left and right field that you actually don't see coming. And just as you start grappling with that, then there's something else.

I mean, Jason went through the list, so I won't go through it again. But, you know, all the things he talked about and then throw in new license plates and new insurance plans and dual practice for doctors. And, of course, you know, all the legislation around transgender people and obviously the teachers strike and the invocation of the notwithstanding clause. And, you know, that's 2025. Hold on to your house for 2026. Who knows what's coming? Oh, man. That's how I'm hoping we can end the episode. But I know Jason said that the Mar-a-Lago meeting wasn't even in his top 20. But I think for people outside the province in Canada and also, like, that made international headlines. And just remind us, Kathleen, about her approach to the U.S. president and some of the reaction that that got here. Okay. For all the people who are really, really tired of the elbows up and the elbows down reference, I apologize, but it is, you know, germane to this part of the conversation. I think what strikes me about it when she went to Mara Lago, she was roundly criticized. Are you on Team Canada or not? You look like you're on Team Alberta. She was seen as being there to really try and protect, you know, the main industry in this province, which is oil and gas.

And also, she was very adamant that any sort of reaction to tariffs with Trump should not use oil as leverage, no export tax on it, no withholding supply. She wanted none of that, and she wanted some kind of guarantee from Donald Trump that he still wanted to buy our oil, even though he repeatedly said he doesn't need anything from Canada. And he listed oil on his list of things that he doesn't need. But having said that, you know, in retrospect, even as she was criticized, I think it would be fair to observe that after he was elected, Mark Carney, that is, on a very much elbows up campaign, he's been very much an elbows down prime minister after that campaign. And his approach to Trump has actually been closer to what Daniel Smith was doing in the early going of this than say Doug Ford. Mm-hmm. But, you know, Jason, I too remember the critiques. They were so hot at the time, right? Like one of the unions was literally calling her a traitor. And remember that Breitbart interview that she did where she talked about how Pierre Polyev's perspective was very much in sync with the Trump administration. Let's just put things on pause so we can get through an election. Let's have the best person at the table, make the argument for how they would deal with it.

And I think that's Pierre Pahliav. And I do agree with you that if we do have Pierre as our prime minister, then I think that there's a number of things that we could do together. She talked about telling U.S. officials that they should put tariffs on hold until after the election, which then invited critiques of election interference. And, you know, was she really feeling that pressure at the time, you think? I think part of what you have to do with understanding how an Alberta premiers would approach this is think about how different Alberta's experience in this trade war is from Ontario, Quebec, BC, almost any other region of this country. We're kind of walking on sunshine and we're in this, like, odd oasis of calm here in Alberta. Steel tariffs affect Quebec and Ontario a lot.

Auto tariffs, of course, affect Central Canada. Forestry tariffs affect a bit of everywhere, but especially in BC and parts of Atlantic Canada. Daniel Smith, one of the things she really hoped to get in her diplomacy was for oil and gas not to be touched. And oil and gas and agriculture, which are not only Alberta's big exports, but also Canada's big exporters. big exports, they're exempted. So there's not that edge. There's no reason necessarily as much for a premier to play bad cop like Doug Ford is really, you know, yelling loudly, putting out those ads that rankled Donald Trump and caused the latest cancellation

of our trade talks with him. But Alberta has been fine. Alberta has, you know, we got what we, we got nearly what we wanted on one level very quickly, and there's been no need to rock the boat. One of you mentioned the notwithstanding clause in those very long lists of developments this year. So I want to talk about that because there have been numerous moves to quash or preemptively block legal challenges or active court proceedings. And Jason, we've talked about this with you over the course of the year, but I wonder if you could just put a bunch of them together for me just so that people can get the bigger picture. With a couple of edge exceptions that are kind of like haven't really been in effect, Alberta's not really used an awestanding clause in the last four or the last 40 years of history.

Of course, Quebec has we started to see Doug Ford and in Ontario doing it and Scott Mones, Saskatchewan. And Daniel Smith, who seemed like the big libertarian type and, you know, had expanded Alberta's own bill of rights, didn't seem like she'd want to use the charter override. Then this year happened. Then this fall happened. And there was this blitz of times where she used it to end a teacher strike that out with Santa Claus. And then she used it three more times on three trans bill.

She passed last year to affect trans youth in sport, in health care, and in education. So one, two, three, four, notwithstanding clause applications all at once. And especially coming off the heels of the way that ended the teacher strike, that really touched her with a lot of people here in Alberta. It's kind of surprising. That's not been her only cases of going in and basically squelching court challenges. There was a bill where, you know, there was an active lawsuit on where her own UCP, United Conservative Party was trying to fight for the copyright over the right for a couple of

former caucus members of hers to form the Progressive Conservative Party, the old party that governed Alberta for 40 years up until 2015. Then she went out and legislated that out of existence, basically banned this party from, any party from using the word conservative other than them. So she squashed that report lawsuit. She also quelled this lawsuit or this court challenge, court question into the constitutionality of a citizen's initiative into holding a referendum to separate from Canada. And basically, she used legislation to move to that court hearing. So there's an interesting tension challenging between her and courts.

She's lately come to said that, you know, there's parliamentary supremacy. see. And we don't want courts or other people being gatekeepers for things. It's going to be interesting to see if she uses the so-called nuclear option or other of these drastic measures again in 2026 because you ask Quebec once you get taste for it, you may want more. Yeah. And just obviously the critique, well, one of the critiques is that this is being used to curb individual liberties and that it's treating the courts like obstacles. But she's clearly done the cost-benefit and analysis here, and she's thinking that there's more upside to this because she keeps using it. And so, Kathleen, like, why? Well, because she knows she can, first of all. I mean, I will point out that the

notwithstanding clause is almost always used preemptively, like almost always. So that is the way provinces have chosen to use it. And, you know, Quebec, as Jason mentioned, led the way. I think people are less focused, actually, on the invocation of the clause, because a lot of people aren't constitutional scholars, you know, they don't really understand what it is. It's part of the charter, which is the argument that she makes. I think they're more focused on the issues that they're being used with. And there was a lot of reaction, for example, to using it to force the teachers back to work because that was such a high profile situation, which most people could understand because, you know, most people have gone to school. Most people have dealt with

teachers or, you know, and so forth. Yeah. No, no, exactly, right? So you can, like, you can relate to it and just the idea of being forced back to work and all of that. People, I think, relate to that more than the invocations of the notwithstanding clause with the transgender legislation. I think people are probably less invested in that kind of legislation. You know, people, obviously, very vocal advocates out there and bring up very good points about why, you know, that this is a road that we have to be very cautious about because this is a very vulnerable group people, but generally populations are relatively self-interested in terms of what they pay attention to, and it's what they can most relate to. And so I think, I suspect that was part of the

calculation that she made in that case. And I think that's true of, you know, all kinds of ways that she sort of has muscled her way through. And, you know, Jason went through a lot of really good other examples that aren't even part of the notwithstanding clause where he just sort set the courts aside, you bring a new legislation so that their role essentially becomes non-existent. And I have to tell you what, it makes me wonder. And Jason and I've chatted about this because I've raised it with them, I do wonder sometimes. And it'd be worth asking her whether she, you know, if she thinks elected representatives should be sort of making all the calls, then maybe she also thinks judges should be elected.

Huh. Yeah, I would love to hear her answer to that question. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the great Canadians. Oh, here you are. You're here and we're here. No matter what race you were, what color you were, what religion you were, what language you spoke, you watched Mr. Dressup. The tickle trunk was this magical like Pandora's box. I'm talking about Captain Dressup. Mr. Dressup, the magic of make-believe. You've made me what I am today.

You know that. Watch free on CBC Gem. Okay, so let's move to the big story of separation, separatist sentiment. This growing separatist sentiment was given a vehicle, essentially, this year in the form of a law pass that would allow for a referendum to be triggered. And, Jason, how would you say the Alberta separatist sentiment story developed? throughout the year. It was interesting. We, you know, there was a sense during the election because we'd seen this before with the Wexit movement in 2019. People were frustrated that the liberals won another term. So this separatism movement rises a bit than kind of wanes a few months

after. There was an expectation that it was going to rise again. We started hearing burblings during the election. Sure enough, the liberals win their fourth term. And then, and then, you know, Daniel spent this full of surprises, she passes legislation or puts forward legislation like that week, the week that Carney wins, to make it much easier for citizens to force a separation referendum or other referendums onto the ballot. And that really made separatists very excited, very happy. And those separatists are people who are largely inhabit her political base, who form a lot of grassroots members of the United Conservative Party, go to the conventions, cheer for separatism. clog the Facebook and telegram and signal message boards. Changing the referendum rules gave them a lot of excitement and a lot of energy. And then she did it again.

She just recently passed more legislation to clear more roadblocks from a referendum. It might have been an impossibility. But now they could be collecting signatures for referendum early in the new year toward a potential October referendum to break apart Canada. Right. I mean, just to be clear, it's very possible that we will be watching Alberta vote on separation sometime in 2026. Well, can I just say it's also very possible we won't because we'll see how many signatures they can collect. They still have to collect 177,000. The Alberta Prosperity Project says they're very confident they can and maybe they Ken. But then there's the Forever Canadian question as well, which is, you know, that's Thomas

Lukasek, who headed that up. He's a former deputy premier in Alberta, Jamie. And his was sort of an affirmation of Alberta's place within Canada. But he would prefer that it would just be something put to the legislature for MLAs to vote on. But a decision hasn't been made on that. So we could have none. We could have one. We could have two in 2026. It's hard to say. Ah, two. Okay. But I mean, just on the idea of like how popular separation is in Alberta, Jason, you very kindly put up with me and our senior producer, Elaine Chow, for a few days in Alberta earlier this year, we went to talk to people in the town of Three Hills, where people were getting ready to vote in a by-election. And there was an avowed separatist on the ballot, and there were questions about,

whether he would get elected and whether Alberta would have a separatist in the legislature. And it turns out he just didn't get a ton of the vote. And how are you thinking about what went down in Three Hills today? Well, yeah, that candidate leader of a non-UZP separatist party, the Republican Party, finished third. But the separatist movement has remained strong and very vocal within Daniel Smith's own conservative base. The fact that this other petition that Kathleen mentioned, this let's stay in Canada petition, one in seven eligible voters in Alberta signed this kind of benign petition saying, yes, we should stay in Canada, is a really big affirmation that a large number of people would be vocally ready to fight for Canada

should we have a separation movement that actually gets a referendum onto the ballot? Kathleen, this grand bargain that Daniel Smith has recently made with Ottawa this big energy deal or memorandum of understanding that would see a bunch of things happen, including the paving of the way for a potential pipeline. Do you think separatist sentiment played a role in influencing these negotiations at all? And do you think that the deal has done anything to affect separatist sentiment now that it's been announced? Well, there's the hardcore separatist, Jamie, and then there's, you know, those around the periphery of it who maybe, maybe not, right? So not as committed. What I would say is the hardcore separatists, they don't want the MOU,

And it's important to note that they just don't want a federal government. So when people say, well, if only Pierre Paulyev had won, these people wouldn't be pushing for separation. They would be the first ones to tell you, bull. We don't want a prime minister of Canada telling us what to do. We don't care what party they're from because at the end of the day, their argument is that you cater to the provinces with the most votes. with the most MPs, and that is always going to be Ontario and Quebec, and it's never going to be Alberta. So that's the hardcore. So I think Daniel Smith, you know, she's pretty realistic. She's a pretty savvy political operator. I don't think she imagined she was going to change

their minds. But, you know, they're pretty, they're intent and intense, but they're still a pretty, they're not 30 percent, right? They're much smaller than that. So, so let's get them 50. The other 15 are sort of willing to flirt with separatism if they feel that Alberta is, you know, getting a raw deal. We'll continue to get a raw deal and we'll never get a good deal. And I think she was hoping to persuade that group with the MOU. And, you know, we certainly saw Mark Carney at the Chamber of Commerce. I mean, his first standing ovation he got before he even opened his mouth. Great.

Thank you very much. Wow. Right. was another subsequent standing ovation. Thanks, Larry. Merci very, thank you. And he looked somewhat surprised,

actually, by, I mean, I think he was hoping for a good reception, but I'm not sure if he was expecting a standing ovation. So, you know, for the broad swath of all burdens, you know, I think they see this as an accomplishment that, you know, that is of note, for sure.

and perhaps, you know, a new relationship with Ottawa, and there will still be issues where it will be combative. But I think they see that. But having said that, as difficult as this MOU was to negotiate, I think everyone clearly understands even more now after learning more about the MOU. The MOU is actually the easy part, right? The hard part is actually pursuing what the MOU lays out.

Yes. You know, one thing I didn't want to ask you about is I was watching conservative leader Pierre Polly of be interviewed by our colleague, Rosie Barton, over the weekend. Now, let's talk about the amazing and brilliant Premier of Alberta, who said just the other... And he essentially said at one point that he thinks Daniel Smith is a brilliant politician, but then he also said pretty much that he thinks this deal, this MOU, she's been championing is not a great one. I don't believe that Mark Carney has changed from the things that he wrote for 10 years and that his party did for 10 years, which is to block pipelines and try to keep oil and gas in the ground. Then why does Daniel Smith believe him? Daniel Smith was very clever because she forced Carney to flip-flop and break his word to his,

leave it in the ground caucus by withdrawing his threatened emissions cap and clean electricity regulations. Kathleen, if you could just parse that out for me, has Alberta's closer relationship with the liberal government in Ottawa? I mean, talk about those standing ovations for Kearney. Like, just imagine at this time last year the idea that a liberal prime minister would get a standing ovation in Alberta. Has it undermined the conservative leader in some ways, the federal conservative leader? Well, actually, I think it's, I think that the bigger impact is the other way around, honestly. I think Pierre Pollyev, to some degree, has undermined Daniel Smith by basically saying that the MOU isn't worth the paper it's written on.

I mean, I'm, you know, broadly paraphrasing, but that certainly has been the message. I'm not sure she was, even though she tried to paper over it, all that thrilled about that motion being introduced, because, you know, he's essentially saying it's not a good deal. And she was essentially saying that this is a deal I worked really hard on and I'm very proud of. And her smile was a mile wide when she sat down beside Carney and was signing it. So she clearly thinks, you know, that she did a good thing here, that, you know, it was hard bargaining and they came to a good deal. So let's face it, that the motion came after the fact. The reaction to the MOU came after the fact. She'd been working in that MOU for a while.

Everyone knew that she was working on it. Finally got it done. And then he says it's worthless. And, you know, so I actually think it's the other way around, Jamie. I don't think it's her undermining him politically. I think it would be more clearly most observers would look at it as the other way around. That's interesting. I guess I was kind of thinking about it from the perspective of him being in a bit of a weekend position right now.

But that's a really interesting answer. Jason, you want to add anything here? I take Kathleen's point. But Daniel Smith, you know, this actually showed some sincerity in Daniel Smith saying that she wants to see if Canada can work and wants to be, have a strong Alberta within the United Canada because this, you know, would seem to strengthen Alberta's hand a lot. You know, Alberta had certainly Daniel Smith had been asking for a lot of these climate regulations that put Nander Trudeau to be removed. And she got almost all the ones she wanted removed or suspended or otherwise overlooked for the. the sake of Alberta's support and Alberta's positivity. Alberta accepting the industrial carbon tax, accepting this big multi-billion dollar carbon capture

project to reduce emissions in the oil sand. Alberta gave some, but also Carney gave up a lot, certainly lost a former environment Mr. Stephen Gilbeau over in the process, which would have made Alberta and a lot of the energy executives quite, quite happy as well. And I've just lost train of my thought. You're trying to decide whether you agreed with me or not. Yeah. But ultimately, Canada is, you know, when a conservative premier is happy and sees that Carney is working with those conservative premiers, like in Ontario, where Doug Ford has a very good relationship, that does hurt Pierre Pauliev's position.

ability to relentlessly criticize Mark Carney as having broken everything. So, you know, I don't think that she's certainly doing out to get Pierre Polyev, but she's not going to resist praising and being complimentary and being collaborative with Carney if it's going to be in the province's best interest, even though it doesn't necessarily serve Polyev's best interest. Yeah, but I would add that I think that Polyev isn't even remotely aligned with Doug Ford. and I think he is seen as sort of more ideologically aligned with Daniel Smith, which is what makes this even more complicated. Yeah, absolutely.

Awkward. Very quick, before we wrap here, I want to ask you both about this recall story, just on. the theme of very eventful things happening in Alberta, just because from the outside, looking at this from Toronto, it seems pretty wild and unusual, the premier and nearly half of her United Conservative Party caucus are currently facing these recall petitions to remove them from office. And Kathleen, is this a big deal? Like, what's going on here? Well, first of all, it seems pretty wild here, too. Just so you know, Jamie, it's not just you that thinks this is wild. We do, too. I mean, you know, you sort of knew when this recall legislation came in. It came in under Jason Kenney.

But, again, it has been amended to make it easier to do it. But having said that, it's still not easy, right? So there are a lot of petitions. It doesn't mean they're going to be successful. And we will see. I'm not, you know, you can never predict. If I was ever tempted to predict anything in politics, I've learned my lesson. Well, actually, I've learned it many times, but I've really learned it.

now. I'm not doing it anymore. But I will at least observe that it's still a very high bar, right, to get the number of signatures required to trigger a recall vote. There were closer ridings in Calvary, quite a few close roddings. And so those would be the ones that you would probably keep an eye on where it might happen. So, but for the most part, you know, I think we expected that with all the different ways that Daniel Smith has intervened on troublesome issues with new legislation to either, you know, overhaul it or just amend existing legislation. She resisted doing it with the recall legislation yet again when it was seen to be problematic. And I think the expectation was that she would intervene and do something

and she chose not to, which is kind of interesting to sort of understand how she expects that this is going to play out. I will tell you, and again, I'm not predicting it. I'm just saying I'm hearing more and more people think she'll get ahead of it, potentially, by going to the polls early, right? And just making the whole thing moot. So essentially, what you're telling me is that in 2026, we could see an election up to two referendums. and then maybe movement on this pipeline, the hard part of the MLU. And a pipeline and a pear tree. That feels like.

Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying I'm hearing more, look, I don't know if they're going to go early. She insists they're not. But, you know, the fact that she hasn't touched the recall legislation any further to kind of put a cork in this, it's hard to know. Or maybe she just might do that in the New Year's. Maybe she's got that in her back pocket and it's still coming. But I think what I'm saying is predict nothing for 2026 and expect everything. Okay. Well, that seems like a good mantra to just live by, basically.

Not just for Alberta, but just for everything. Guys, this was a real pleasure. Thank you very much. Oh, thank you. Thanks, Jamie. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thank you so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.