Shaun Newman Podcast - #1026 - Cornerstone Forum 26’

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

This is a recording from this past weekend’s Cornerstone Forum 2026 in Calgary. First, Premier Danielle Smith delivers her keynote speech followed by my 1-on-1 conversation with her, where we dive deeper into immigration, Alberta independence, Bill C-9, pipelines and ivermectin. The entire Cornerstone Forum is being released on Substack. Watch the Cornerstone Forum 26’https://shaunnewmanpodcast.substack.com/Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Get your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

This is Brett Weinstein. This is Tom Lomago. This is Bruce Party. This is Alex Krenner. Hey, this is Brad Wall. This is Dr. Pierre-Core. Hi, this is Frank Peretti. This is Daniel Smith.

This is James Lindsay. This is Vance Crow and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday. How's everybody doing today? I feel like maybe I had a good sleep last night. I didn't want to get out of bed this morning, but I did have a good sleep last night. And that might be the first one.

since the forum, trying to recoup. So hopefully you're feeling a little better as well. And you're back at her, I'm sure. And if you didn't make it there, it's all up now on Substack, okay? So if you want to go check it out, the entirety of the Cornerstone Forum, now up on Substack, become a paid member, not only get access to, I hope, a world-class event and see all the things there, but also you can support independent media. That's me on this side, and I appreciate all of your support for what I do on this side,

and hopefully I'm giving you enough value to go over there. But the entire cornerstone form, now up. So shout out to Jericho and Lucas. They were the two boys filming it, and we've learned from year one to year three on how quick to try and get through it, and they even shocked me that I could have it all up yesterday. So pay attention to that. Head over to Substack, and go take it in if you haven't watched it. it yet. Now, it's Wednesday,

which means we got to talk a little precious metals, of course, on stage. Today you're going to get to hear it. I'm airing the Daniel Smith one-on-one and well, silver, right? When it comes to precious metals, you know, I look to Silver Gold Bowl. They were one of the

title sponsors of the Cornerstone Forum. On stage, I got to give Daniel Smith a silver coin, you know, only a few years ago, it was $38 an ounce, and you fast forward, and it's right around $100. I guess, you know, what what am i doing here what am i doing shan i could just look up the uh the price of silver here let's just do this nice and quick 104 i was going to say in the 90s you know what it's a hundred and

484 today there you go the old silver wagon um going and if you are a uh interest in precious metals sorry you can text your email grant for details with any questions you have around an investing in metals or feature silver deals exclusively offered to you the smp listener that's down in the show notes and, you know, I look to silver gold bowl for all your needs there. Bow Valley Credit Union. Yeah, they were another title sponsor of the Cornerstone Forum. Shout out to them. Brett got on stage and was a part of the Economics Roundtable with Martin Armstrong and Vince Lanchie.

So that was cool. And Bow Valley Credit Union, of course, has the Lending and Advice Center in Red Deer as they work toward opening a full service branch there. It's all about lending deposits, real financial advice. You can open accounts, talk through lending options, and get help with banking, all in a space design for conversations and not transactions. If you want smarter banking with gold, silver, Bitcoin, sound money, and personal freedom, think BVCU.

And if you're wanting the best joke of the day, hop on to substack and watch the economics roundtable. And you'll get it. Brett stole the show from Toos, who Tews always wants to have the funny quip. Well, he even gave a tip of the cap to Brett on his thoughts on the economics roundtable. If you're wondering who to trust with your savings, integrated wealth management, hopefully you got to meet them. They were a booth at the Cornerstone Forum. And they're a full-service wealth management firm that actually manages money watching client portfolios daily

and making real-time adjustments when markets change. They see the same thing you and I see. Massive government spending, rising instability, a lot of risk in government debt, and I don't know, an ongoing conflict on the other side there in the Middle East. So they use tools like precious metals and commodities to help protect your purchase. power and most importantly they work with people who share their values family community hard work living within your means and personal

freedom if that sounds like you you can go check them out at i dash wealth.ca that's i dash wealth dot CA and see if integrated wealth management is the right fit for you and your family diamond seven meets here in Lloydminster is a family run business for over 27 years of service offering more than just retail cuts they provide livestock processing for farmers

and ranchers in Saskatchewan and Alberta including custom sauce and making for both domestic and wild game if you don't have your own animal The retail sales can connect you directly with producers offering sides or quarters of beef, pork, and lamb, and you can find them on the north end of town. Highway 17 and 67th Street north, or you can give them a call today

and tell them I sent you 306-825-97-1-8. If you're listening or watching on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Rumble, X, Facebook, and of course, substack. Have you been paying attention there, make sure to subscribe. If you want to leave a review, that'd be awesome and if you're really enjoying the show folks we rely heavily on you find folks to

share it with their friends and finally for any merch podcast merch we've been we've been slowly rolling out there's only three options there right now but getting requests for different things go to the shan newman podcast dot com and you can find everything there all right you just go to shop in the top right corner and it takes you right there okay so that is what i got for you today happy wednesday happy hump day now let's get on to my conversation with premier daniel smith from the cornerstone forum this past weekend you know it's funny i'm probably going to bring this up with her in our one-on-one but you know after uh the lockdowns ended in alberta i have to assume if i wasn't the first event in all of western canada I was the first event in Alberta.

It was March of 2022, and in the bustling metropolis of Lloydminster, a lady named Danielle Smith came to be a media personality on a panel. And that night, asked by the audience if she'd run for Premier, she kind of laughed and was like, well, what are you talking about? You have a Premier.

And they kept pushing, they kept pushing, and she finally said, I guess if it became available, sure, I'd run. got a standing ovation. So it's a few years later for in fact, please welcome the Premier of Alberta, Daniel Smith. Yeah, that interview got me in a bunch of trouble. The way I answered was, well, the job's not open, but if the job came open, yeah, I'd consider it. So here we are today. So thank you. And look at you. Like your prestige and reach has grown and grown and grown over the

years that I've known you. I was asking Sean about the progress of this conference and it started in Lloyd Minster and they sold out and then went to think Winspeer and sold out and came here and sold out again. So you're going to have to start booking the new event center, I think, in future meetings. So thanks again for being such a great voice of independent media. Independent media, truly. I think Sean was as much of a surprise that became political commentator as anyone because I think when he started off. He was doing mostly sports commentary. I don't even know if you do any sports commentary anymore,

but it's just been a delight to watch the incredible influence that you have had on the public sphere and a very positive one. So thank you for asking me to be here today. I am honored to be one of the speakers in your lineup. I've got a few prepared remarks, and then we're going to get into the Q&A where I know he's going to hit me with some zingers again, so I'm ready for you.

But we're here today with some of the most tuned-in people in Western Canada, folks who valued truth and freedom and independent thought. Truly. And those are Alberta values to the core, and you couldn't have picked a better timing for this forum because this truly is a critical moment for our province. Over the past five years, more than 600,000 people moved to Alberta.

That is more than 10% of our population. That's like adding a city half the size of Calgary in just a few short years. And that kind of growth puts a real strain on everything, from our housing to community infrastructure. And in addition to this rapid growth, we're now going through a whirlwind of uncertainty. There's been volatility in the markets

because of tariffs and trade disruptions, and now there are swings in energy prices because of the conflict in the Middle East. I do want to focus today on what lies ahead for Alberta. We are leading Canada in virtually every economic category. We have the highest labor productivity and GDP per capita in the country. We've got among the highest average weekly earnings and the strongest per capita investment. In the last year, this is important because we have seen declines in recent months,

but in the last year from February to February, Alberta added 85,000 new jobs where the rest of Canada lost over 33,000 jobs. Yeah, no one would be, we wouldn't have any job growth in the country if it wasn't for Alberta. Scotia Bank's latest provincial outlook also projected. Alberta will experience the best economic growth in Canada all the way to 2027. So whether it's GDP growth or job creation or housing starts, Alberta continues to lead the nation. At the same time, global events continue to shape the energy markets that we depend on, such as the current conflict in the Middle East, which has caused the price of oil to skyrocket in recent weeks. For a long time, we operated as if trade would always flow freely and reliably, but recent years have shown us how fragile this system can be. It depends. It depends. on low energy prices, international cooperation, and unrestricted access to world markets, and it's become increasingly clear that energy security cannot be taken for granted. And that brings me back to Alberta and how our province fits into this current moment. In a world reeling from energy security concerns, there's so much we can offer to our trading partners.

For starters, there's the sheer volume of our resources. We have the fourth largest oil reserves in the world, holding more than 177 billion barrels of recovery. oil at today's technology and today's prices. And we've got significant proven reserves from natural gas as well. We've got 144 trillion cubic feet also recoverable at today's technology. And that has moved Canada into the top 10 for natural gas worldwide. Alberta is keen to build new pipelines, west, east, north, and south without delay and without hesitation

to supply Asian markets, European markets, and American markets, with safe, reliable and responsibly produced energy products. let's be clear, no other major project being proposed has more beneficial impact to the Canadian economy than a pipeline. A recent ATB financial analysis found that expanding pipeline capacity by 1.5 million barrels per day would contribute an average of 31 billion to GDP annually between 2027 and 2035. But expanding our export capacity is not just good for Alberta and Canada. It will ensure that the world has a safe, secure, and reliable energy partner for decades to come. We've also recently confirmed that we have huge volumes of lithium, which would rank us as a top-tier

global supplier if we build an industry out like we're planning, about a trillion dollars worth of value in our brine-hosted lithium. Our resource base is only part of what we offer. We also have a mature energy industry with a long history of delivering to manufacturers and markets at scale. In the past year, our producers have closed in on five million barrels per day, and we've set a clear objective to keep on climbing to 8 million barrels per day by 2035. Another thing we have going for us is our geography. We're located just north of the United States, which is currently the world's largest energy producer and our biggest customer by far.

There are hundreds of thousands of kilometers of pipeline connecting our vast energy reserves of Alberta with the mighty refinery complexes in the U.S. Gulf Coast and throughout the American heartland. That is about as secure and resilient a supply chain as any on Earth. And it's one of our greatest advantages as we work to strengthen North American energy security. So, in addition to exporting more energy to the U.S., we're working now to export energy to trading partners overseas who want stability and certainty in the long term. You may have heard I just got back from Syra Week in Houston, which is probably the most influential energy conference in the world. And I have to tell you, there is huge interest in what Alberta has to offer right now. and as energy security concerns go global,

and nations look to line up reliable suppliers. As part of our spring session, I'm happy to announce that we're introducing legislation that would require a 120-day timeline for approving major projects. This was part of the agreement that we got with the federal government to return this.

Function to Alberta, we're going to make the most of it. And let's be clear, as I said, no other major project is more beneficial to the Canadian economy as a pipeline. But Alberta's story doesn't end there. also managing the challenges that come with rapid population growth. And at the same time, Albertans have legitimate concerns with federal policies, and they want to see our jurisdiction respected. So on October 19th, Albertans will be able to have their say via provincial referendum

on the two biggest issues identified by the Alberta next panel, immigration and constitutional reform. In fact, recent polling indicates that not only do the majority of Albertans believe that provinces should have greater control over immigration, the majority of the majority of Canadians believe that too. I trust the judgment of Albertans and look forward to the debate on these critically important ideas and receiving your vote on what direction our government

should take. So our government can get to work on implementing an immigration policy that puts the needs of Albertans first as well as constitutional reforms needed to make Alberta stronger and more sovereign within a united Canada so that we can give people hope again that Canada does work.

So here's what the next year, what the next year looks like, and beyond for Alberta. We're going to advance the West Coast pipeline in partnership with indigenous communities and we'll build out the market access in other directions to. We will forge partnerships and supply agreements

with trading partners near and far, pitching Alberta as a secure and reliable energy partner with supplies that will last for decades. We'll continue to de-risk investment, streamline regulations, and make sure investors see a clear path to profit in our most important industries. We'll keep on investing at Alberta's post-secondary system

to ensure that we may maintain the highly skilled workforce that's given our energy industry such an edge over the years. We'll keep on meeting the challenges of population growth, and we'll do everything we can to bring Alberta's next great industries to maturity. That includes AI data centers, hydrogen, as well as our nascent lithium sector. We know what we have to do to get there and make no mistake. We are prepared to do it. We are ready to meet the challenges of a world that's grown more complex and far less certain. Alberta is the answer. Our hardwired connection to U.S. energy production, our long border and friendly relations with the world's foremost superpower, and our growing

ability to get our products across oceans, I'd say Alberta's destiny looks pretty bright indeed. Thank you, and I'm looking forward to our discussion today. Thank you, Madam Premier. And now, Sean, who's already way ahead of me, take it away. Well, I got asked yesterday, Daniel, how I was doing, okay? And I said, well, all the speakers are in, now I just need the Premier of Alberta to show up. So now I'm doing pretty darn good. First off, thank you for being here.

My pleasure. I should say, Sean, you probably know some of my colleagues from the legislature here too, Shane Getson, who was on that stage when we first met, as well, I think Jennifer Johnson is here as well, from Lacombauncone Pinoca. There she is. And if Eric Bouchard is not,

not here yet, he's on his way. So you'll be able to see him. He's here. All right. Hey, Eric. Good to see you as well. I hope I haven't missed anyone. And if I may interrupt, Eric Bouchard made last years too. We sat and had a chat, so that's two years in a row. So I appreciate that. Now, I appreciate you being here, and I was trying to find a golden cat. I fell short. I know Nahed then she'd be disappointed, but once upon a time, you're in studio and I gave you a one ounce silver coin. And if you go back to that episode, I actually didn't have it. I was pretty nervous. I was like, I don't think I can give a premiere or anything. So I was sitting there and I was like, I don't think I can give you this. And you were like, well, how much is it? I was like, well, $38 in silver. And she's like, oh, I could take that.

So today I had to go, you know, I made a quick run over to Silver Gold Bull and I got it and I'm sitting there and I'm going, we can still give her this, right? I don't know if anybody's been watching the old wagon that is silver. I think it's $94.00 bucks. So first off, thank you for coming and doing this. Well, thank you for that. I put it in part of my challenge coin collection set. This isn't worth a little more of your challenge coin, but thank you for this. And it was only what, like, started the year, folks.

What was it? February, it was like 150 Canadian? Canadian. Canadian. I'm doing Canadian here. I'm doing Canadian here. I know the old Martin and Tom Bodroviks, they like to flip it back to U.S., but I'm sitting in Alberta.

I'm going to talk in Canadian dollars. So, okay. Let's start with immigration. I don't know if you remember this, but I certainly remember this. I certainly remember it too. Daniel was on the podcast, and she mentioned doubling the population in Alberta, to which I replied, what? And then she went on to explain, you know, over the next course of, it was essentially 25 years. But what the Internet did is they trim that to Daniel Smith wants to double the population of Alberta,

and then immigration became a very hot topic. your thoughts now a few years removed from that as we talk about 600,000 people, you know, over the course coming into Alberta. Well, this is part of the reason why we need to have a referendum on the question is because when I was campaigning back in 2022, I was campaigning on increasing the population. We had a 4.9% unemployment rate. We had come off 13 quarters about migration from the NDP and then stagnant growth through the COVID years. We knew we had some big projects, and so we had an Alberta's calling campaign that had just started talking about the value proposition of Alberta that started just before I got in. We purposed it to focus specifically on skilled workers. We knew we needed to have plumbers and pipe fitters and electricians. Yeah, we love those guys, totally.

But what we didn't know was happening at the time was that post-COVID, Justin Trudeau, had taken all the restrictions off all of the programs. I've never seen anything like it. We'd had a consensus for about 40 years that we would have an immigration system based on points, your proficiency in the language, your ability to adjust to the economy, there'd be a pathway to permanent residency and then ultimately to citizenship.

And the federal government took all restrictions off asylum seekers, international students, temporary foreign workers, and as a result, we went from having about four to 500,000 people a year come into our country to about 2 million people a year come into the country. And I don't think any of us in the provincial level really understood what was going on, because no one asked us about these change in policies.

They just expected at the federal level that we would absorb the population. And it would be fine if the number of people coming were bringing more tax dollars than they were bringing burden on our social programs. And I just want to tell you what is different about this wave of population growth that we didn't understand until we're now looking at

in the rearview mirror. When Ed Stelmac had population growth in his era, that was the last time we saw this kind of surge, we had an 11% increase in population and a 24% increase in GDP. So if your GDP is going twice, your population, you're doing pretty well. You're able to generate the revenues to keep up with it.

This surge has seen us see an increase in population of 13% and GDP growth of 8%. So as you can see, the impact on our health care system our education system, our income supports, is going up faster than our ability to support it with revenues. At the same time, we went from having an average price of oil, someone sitting between $70 to $80, down to $60.

And so our revenue base got blown out by about $11 billion. So something has to give. And so since I campaigned on saying, let's increase our population, I think what I heard through the Alberta next process is people saying, whoa, let's slow this down, Let's focus back again on economic migrants. Let's have those who are temporary guest workers pay their own way

when it comes to health care, education, and other social services. And because that's a reversal, I feel we have to go back to the people to get a mandate for that. So that's why we're putting it forward in a referendum. But I think you saw that maybe a little bit sooner than I did, but we certainly have seen the impact of it over the last couple of years. Why put it on a referendum? The reason I ask is we already know, we can already see the harm that's coming in from, as you pointed out, the health care, the education. You just talk to Albertans and they're all like, we got it.

What is going on? Why push it out to the end of the year to have, I'm going to argue, the same answer come back to reaffirm what you already know? Well, you are a group that is very highly engaged and informed and engaged in this debate, following this debate, and you know the, the status. I probably didn't even need to tell you that. The Alberta next process introduced that debate to a much larger number of people and it was very interesting to see what happened is that the beginning of the meeting, someone would come up to the mic and say, why are you talking about immigration? It's racist to do so. We have always been an accepting province. We have to keep on doing what we've always

done because it served us so well. Like the lack of information about how different the immigration policy was pre-2020 and post-22 was very stark. But what was really interesting in Alberta next is as people got up and shared their experiences about their young son or grandson not being able to get a job, putting out hundreds of resumes, getting no callbacks, and the impact that we were seeing in our schools, the diversity that has caused some classes to have more kids who don't speak English than do. The impact as well on our health care system. I think at the end of the evening, some of those rooms went to almost unanimity of saying, yeah, we need Alberta to take control over that. So that's, when people are not paying attention to an issue, I think they have preconceptions about why you're doing what you're doing. So we wanted to be very clear that what we're talking about is not citizens or permanent immigrants.

Permanent immigrants have made a commitment to be long-term taxpayers here, so they should be treated as citizens. But anyone who's coming in on a temporary basis, why would we have different policy than they do in Australia or the UK? You have to have your own health insurance when you come in through those programs. The federal government has affirmed. If you're coming in through those programs, you have to have your own health insurance.

Why are people who are coming here in a temporary way? Why are they bringing children who then cost our system $13,000 each? Why is that something that has become standardized and normalized? And so we want people to understand that we are wanting to continue to welcome newcomers here, but at a pace that we can absorb in our economy, in the type of jobs that we know our economy needs to fill. And then only when somebody's made a permanent case, commitment to be here as a permanent resident on pathway to citizenship, do they get the entitlements

of citizenship, which include those programs? And I believe that we need to have people buy into that through a vote. You mentioned Alberta next panel. And I think you said the two things were constitutional changes and immigration, correct? Would a third one not be independence? And I know that puts you in a tough spot since the UCP isn't a separatist party or an independence party. but I would think going around the province, seeing the petition and the hold it has on Alberta and the political conversation right now would be another thing you would have picked up. Well, what I have said is that if any citizen initiatives get the requisite number of signatures, they will be on the ballot for October the 19th.

There was one that was defeated, which was the left trying to take away funding for independent schools. Got 120,000 signatures, but it did not get enough to pass. I think Corbund is trying to pass a policy so that we don't do any cool development, so I'll watch and see if that one comes up. Thomas Locasik's Forever Canada petition could have gone on the ballot, but then he immediately after he submitted it, he said he didn't want it to go on the ballot, so that's gone to a committee to figure out what to do with that. Well, isn't it funny if everybody voted no?

It would kind of be like, wait a second. What does no mean? Do you want to remain in Canada? Yes, no, if the answer is no. Exactly. So he didn't want to put it to a petition. So that's gone to a committee. And we're waiting to see what the signature collection looks like.

I gather that the Alberta Prosperity Project has until May the 6th to get their signatures. And so we'll see. And if they get the requisite number of signatures and they're validated, there's enough time to do that. It will also be on the ballot. So what we have said is that any citizen's initiative questions will be counted first.

So that will be, for those of you who only want to vote on that, then you can just take that one ballot and you don't need to vote on the rest, so you can do that. But if it is defeated, then I also need to get a mandate on what do we do next to preserve increasing Alberta autonomy within Canada.

So that's the reason why we're approaching it that way. So the way it will work is because we no longer have tabulator ballots, that was one of the things that we heard from Melbourne's, that they didn't trust that. So it's not going to be a single ballot with nine or ten or eleven questions, each of the questions is going to have their own individual ballot that will make it easier to count,

and it will also be easier to verify, easier to scrutinier and easier to verify if there's a need for a recount. So we're trying to put as many things as possible in place so that people know that they have a fair chance. If we're going to do direct democracy, let's do it right. And so that's the approach that we're taken on it. Well, let me give you two hypotheticals then.

one is you get to the referendum later this year and it's a clear majority saying that albertans won out as premier what does that mean to you and how will you protect the people that want to leave well i think you'll have to ask me october 20th to see what the result is because what my role has been is trying to give people confidence in canada again i i know that there is a after the liberals got elected again, the support for independence surged to 42%. That's remarkable that almost one and two, every voting age, Albertan, had lost hope in Canada.

We've done a few things, I think, to demonstrate that we're... When I say sovereign Alberta within a United Canada, I mean, we're a province in Canada, and we take back all the rights that we have under the Constitution. That's why we've said that we are not going to police or prosecute on the gun buyback, the gun confiscation program. Where it's why we also have got work to get the, with the MOU, to repatriate the powers that we always had,

get the federal government out of emissions caps, out of our clean electricity rigs so we can build out that industry. It's why if we need to, we are prepared to do the same thing on saying we won't police or prosecute, if they start cracking down on pastors quoting the Bible in church is one of the new laws that can do with C-9. You bring up Bill C-9. I know. And it's why we're taking back control over immigration.

Section 95 says that immigration should principally be led by the province. Agriculture, too, incidentally, which is why we've asked for them to allow our farmers to be able to use strychnine again so that we don't have all of our fields being eaten up by gopher. So those are the ways in which I am demonstrating that there's another pathway. Then if we can take these powers back, I'm hoping it will give more confidence to people that Canada can work. I know the jury's still out. I can hear from some of you in the room that you are not persuaded yet. But there's another side that will try to persuade you one way.

I'm going to try to persuade you that Canada can work. Well, the only thing I would say to the audience is one of the things I started out with at the start of the day is the ability to listen to difficult discussions, right? You may not like what Daniel's saying on independence. I don't have to like what Daniel's saying on independence. That's okay. But we as an audience, we as a community, we don't do that to any other speaker that's ever stepped on this stage. So I'd ask you, don't do it now.

I mean, you can hate me for saying that. But the truth of the matter is I've put on 15 events. I've never had anyone booed. And I would hope we wouldn't do that now because Danielle has come and been a part of making year three what it is. And now I believe if we're going to have a brighter day in Alberta, it's how we treat one another. And it doesn't mean you roll over on issues.

It certainly does not. But there is a way to treat one another. That's what the last roundtable with Neil and Chad and Karen was all about. You want to talk about C9? Well, because you got this background in media, right? So you know how many texts I get right now going, you're going to get a black bag over your head, you're going to disappear from the face of the map,

And, you know, don't get me wrong, I live through COVID, so I got my every once in a while, my tail feathers rise a little bit. But I also go, you know, when the entire country was trying to paint Albertans as traders for collecting signatures, it was Daniel Smith who said, I will not do that. And that is a change from any leader I've had before, especially in COVID, where they all decided to call us a certain something and call it a pandemic of that certain something. And so I guess with Bill C9, you were in media for a long time. When you see that rule coming down, where do you go and how can Alberta protect, not only myself, but you know, you mentioned the pastors and everybody else. Well, I think there's reason to be very concerned with the intention of this government because they actually did freeze bank accounts because of people who donated to the trucker convoy. They actually did go in and arrest pastors and hold them in solitary confinement. for an extended period of time.

So everyone has very good reason to be distrustful of this bill. There are reasons why you want to have some limitation on speech in public. I think that we've seen our Jewish community feel very intimidated when people are waving Hamas flags and shooting up synagogues and schools. So there are reasons why you might want to have

some limitation on certain types of speech when it causes a danger to another identifiable group. But this clause that they put in saying that quoting from scripture would no longer be a protected area, I have to wonder how will that be abused and misused by potential policing agencies or crown prosecutors based on what we've seen in the past. That's why I'm watching it and thinking,

that's a step too far. And if we have to step in and say to our police, this is not our priority to go monitoring what people are saying, saying in church on Sunday. It is not our priority to prosecute on that. That's what I've asked Mickey to look into. We can't do those things until something becomes formal law. That's why we haven't proactively done it. We have to wait until it becomes law. But that's the active conversation we're having now. And I just rely on all of you to let us know if anything like that is occurring. I rely on you. Don't get taken away with a black hat over your head. But I do,

I do need to know from our podcasters, because you'll be the ones who hear if people, the laws being abused in any way. And then we'll have to figure out how to deal with it at that time. But I understand the skepticism and the concern. The federal government earns it. By the way, they've treated people in the past. But we think we have some tools

when it comes to policing and administration of justice to protect people here. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I guess that's what we're doing here. You bring up the Jewish community, which is interesting to me, because I don't know about anybody else in this audience, but over the last five years since I've started paying attention,

have there been incidents? I'm sure there has. But the Christian community has been absolutely under attack across the board. And I find it interesting why our politicians continually talk one way, but don't bring up the full range of things. Violence on any is not good. And the Christian community here in Canada has been getting pumped over and over again. And I think we have to draw a line and we have to point a light to that. Well, you can see what we've done as a caucus.

We're trying to find, there's so many ways in which the left have just gone so far that our positions are actually moderate positions, and we're maybe the first to say, hey, this doesn't make any sense. And so part of that is I think we've got a lot of Christians in our caucus. We're very concerned about the direction of the country that it's gone in. So one of the things that we're prepared to do is address issues where they've gone too far and pulled them back. like the issue of men participating in women and girls' sport, like the issue of kids being transitioned without their parents' knowledge, like the issue of kids being transitioned

before they're even old enough to understand what it means to have sex. And so we put those policies forward, I think motivated by just the belief that every person should be able to grow to an adult and make their own decisions as an adult, and we shouldn't be interfering in the relationship between a parent and the child. It's the reason why we've changed,

why we're putting limits on the maid law to ensure that we're not encouraging people to ask for assisted dying because they have PTSD or because they have mental health issues in depression. That's another line that we're drawing. It's why we support independent schools because we believe that parents have a right

to choose the kind of education they want for their kids and many of those schools are Christian-based schools so that the values taught at home are also mirrored and the values taught in school. And so we try to find all of these issues that I think that Christians and other religious faith groups have been under attack over the last 10 years or more. And we're trying to bring things back to the center to provide that kind of support. There's maybe some things that we're missing, but I know Jen and Eric and Shane will be listening with interest to the conversation. If there's more things that you want to raise, let them know.

when it comes to religious faith organizations, churches and others being targeted, we created a program to allow for security cameras to be there. So if anyone feels that your place of worship is under attack, you can go through the public safety and emergency services to be able to get that kind of monitoring. And so it has been temples and mosques and synagogues that I think for the most part have taken us up on that, but Christian churches are able to do that too. It's taken me over 20 minutes to ask you about Donald Trump. I mean, once upon a time you were sitting in my chair talking to, at that time it would have been Kenny, and I'm sure other delegates, leaders, etc.

In the just this year, right? What are we, March 28th today? You have Maduro. You have the talk on Greenland. You have the talk on Cuba. And I know one of your big things you're talking about, right, the MOU, and we're going to work with the liberal government and we're going to get our stuff out to the to the west coast but then you watch our friend to the south go in and take out anyone that that goes you know against you know there's probably more to it than just energy but certainly Venezuela Iran there is a lot to do there with global supply of a lot of different things and Canadians and Albertans in particular have that and I wonder your thoughts on just the ever-changing world of geopolitics and how that impacts Alberta.

Well, I think you've seen that our approach to the U.S. has been different than, say, Doug Ford or some of the other premiers. I agree with Doug Ford on many, many things, but picking a fight with our largest trading partner, especially over issues of energy is an area where I have disagreed with him. But our approach has been, and to put it into context, We have $188 billion worth of cross-border trade, just Alberta and the United States, and most of that is energy. Our next closest is trading partner is China, and most of that is agriculture products. Next closest to that is sort of a combination of Japan, Korea, and Mexico, which is somewhere in the $2 billion range.

We only have $600 million with a trade with India. So when we say, yes, let's double our exports to other nations, I think we can go from $600 billion to $1.2 billion with India. it very, very easily. So don't look at that aspiration as somehow being unachievable, but we still have to put it in the context of our strongest trade relationship is always going to be with the United States. And that's why when I go down there and meet with officials, I tell them, yeah, we do want to diversify our markets, but we also want to build more to the United States. So when I was just down at Sierra Week, I let them know that Enbridge has 400,000 barrels per day on their main line they want to expand. All it needs is permits and approvals from them. The South Bo Bridger project is another

450 to 750,000 barrels using the old keystone assets. All it needs is approvals from them. The Trans Mountain pipeline is already well on its way for another 320,000 barrel expansion. That weirdly helps America, too, because the oil goes to South Korea, gets refined, and then comes back to California. So California politicians can pretend that they don't use, that they don't produce oil and gas, even though they use it. And then we'll also have the other West Coast pipeline, a million barrels per day, that will also help us with our partners in Asia. So that's how we fit into the American energy dominance picture. And it's why I think... Maybe you can square something away from me, because you probably know this as good as anyone. When you're expanding pipelines, you know,

I assume you've been watching what's been going on with Fee Simple Title, Cowich and Tribe, you know, undermining property rights, trying to get a pipeline across. there as more and more claims are being made. Don't you look at that as landmines of like, holy man, how are we going to get through this? Or is there already a process in place? You know, Shane Getson, who was once on stage, talked about economic corridors. Is there something already built that I don't know about that you can just push through one? Or is this way more complicated and is getting more complicated by the day because of what's happening with fee simple title? Well, I hope that it is, I hope that it is, I hope that it is, I hope that it

is going to be smooth negotiations because what we've seen is that the LNG expansion that has happened in British Columbia didn't happen because the NDP government was championing it. I remember I went to an LNG conference three years ago and I've met with a group of chief saying can you do something to get our provincial government on side and championing these projects because we really want to go with them. And so there has been a bit of a change in attitude among especially those who are benefiting on the coastal nations. They see the benefit. of the LNG export. They see the benefit to their own communities.

They're able to get their own source revenue to meet those concerns. And so that, I think, in some ways, if you can lead with, here's how we can partner in this project. And we already have the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation to do that, where we can help underwrite a stake in the pipeline

so that those long-term toll revenues go to the nations. And when we start talking about, like look at Trans Mountain, it is already generating $1.2 billion, year for the federal government in tolls. So if this is a bigger pipeline, maybe it generates two billion a year in tolls. And if the indigenous stake is 20%, now you're talking about significant long-term revenues, and that's a different conversation to have. So that's why I'm feeling

like Rajansani, our indigenous relations minister, she's begun the process of meeting with every nation along the route, the ones who are most impacted, the ones closer to it, and they've been very constructive conversations. So our strongest relationship right now is on the ground with the indigenous communities. Trying to bring David Eby on board. It's going to be increasingly difficult now that Avey Lewis looks like he's poised to become the new leader of the NDP and he wants all oil and gas kept in the ground. So I'm not sure how that's going to work out for either for Premier Eby.

But the federal government is also talking very along those same lines. When I was in Sierra Week, the energy minister federally was there as well, talking about exactly the same things that we're talking about. So I feel like because it's federal jurisdiction to advance it, because we're doing the work with Indigenous, the opposition of the BC Premier is, you know, it's important to hear the concerns, but he's not the decision maker on it.

With a few minutes left, I want to go back to a very early conversation me and you had, once again, probably around the time of immigration. I saw the recent budget. And one of the things I'd asked you back then was about Doge, because Elon Musk had been. hired to walk in and get rid of a whole bunch of government workers, essentially, to find efficiencies, I should say. Got to be careful with my words with the Premier. Over your course now of

being the Premier, are you finding efficiencies? Why is the budget going up and up and up? Why is the size of government going up and up and up? Why aren't we starting to find efficiencies after years of being in? Yeah. So let me frame it from a temporary foreign worker standpoint just for a minute. We have 282,000 guest workers in our province. And if they're consuming the average amount of health care, as everyone else, that's $6,800 per person. So that's $1.9 billion. And that's money that should be covered by private premiums. It shouldn't be coming out of taxpayer dollars.

If they're bringing children with them, then each child enrolled in our public system is 13,284. and we have found 45,000 children of temporary foreign workers in our system. That's another $675,000. And those are only two of our biggest programs. So as you can see, it goes back to, as long as the newcomers are bringing more tax revenue than they're bringing expense, then our system works. If they're bringing more expense than they are tax revenue, then our system's broken. So that's part of the reason why we're having difficulty bridging that divide

and why we're trying to get the mandate from people with the referendum in the fall. The other part of the issue is we do keep on reducing our long-term revenue streams. We got rid of health care premiums, we reduced personal income tax, corporate income tax. We also brought in a new tax rate. And so whenever you become more and more reliant on oil and gas revenues, when they go from 74 to 60, there's nothing you can do other than try to maintain your programs until prices recover. So $700 million for every dollar that we lose on WTI. Now you can see why we're in the position that we're in. So it's those two factors.

And we've got to try to find a way to bridge them. So make our programs less expensive and targeted and then also try to make sure that our revenues are keeping up. We are, and you probably heard about it from the teachers, we do have the lowest per capita spending on education. but we're not short-changing our teachers. Our teachers are paying the same as the Ontario West average. Part of the reason I think we have the lowest cost education system

is because we have a large number of parents willing to pay a portion of the cost for their kids' education. So every child who's enrolled in private school saves us $6,000. Every child who's enrolled in homeschooling saves us $13,000. And so that's part of the reason why we're encouraging those options. We're grateful to parents who are doing that, And that saves us some money. So that's one thing I'd put into context for you.

It's also the reason why we're promoting dual practice, because we've heard these crazy, crazy stories of people who need a knee or hip replacement, and they go to a doctor here who flies them to Toronto to get their knee or hip replacement and flies them back because we've got these rules where the doctor is allowed to do private surgeries there but not here. So that's another way that we're going to be trying to create a different aviourable. for doctors to be here without billing everything to the public health care system. But the fact of the matter is provincial programs are expensive.

Anytime somebody signs up on Aish, that's a million-dollar decision on government, because that's how much that person's going to cost them for the lifetime that they're on it. One thing I would just put to you, because I know conservatives are thinking, well, why don't you just cut programs? What we have to do is that you have to find out what's driving the cost in program. So I would just leave you with this. This is one of the things we found with our data analysis. There's about 250,000 Albertans that are driving about $15,000 to $18 billion worth of cost in our system.

So what is that? Well, it's the person who's seeing their family doctor 262 times last year. Is the person who's showing up at the emergency room with an overdose 186 times. Is the person who's cycling through a homeless shelter, the emergency room, back out of an average. ambulance, jail, on the streets, and then back again. Those are the very difficult issues that we've got to be working on. How do we find a way to get that person to become, first of all, healthy from a recovery point of view, and then connected to a job so that they aren't going to be reliant on our system? So that's what we've discovered. That is not easy work, I can assure you,

but it's going to be very rewarding work once we figure out that journey so that we can have a caseworker who can manage that person to bring some of those costs down. That's one thing I'd say, but one more, I know we're out of time. The other one I'd say is... We're not out of time. I'm not shutting this down. Watch. I know there's also some skepticism about AI,

and so this is why I just want you to see how we're looking at AI. Nate Globush is leading our digital strategy, and he's just started a substack to talk about some of the success stories that we have. So he created an AI university so that we're training all of our public servants and how to use AI to do their job better. We have, I think, 1700, who have all. already gone through the program and we've got 7,000 that we're hoping as a target for this year. So one of these young guys, he, I shouldn't say young guy, he's been in the department for a few

decades. And so his job was we have this centralized system so we can analyze our contracts. We want to know, how much are we paying for schools, how much are we paying for hospitals, do we have anything in our contract that's irregular, those kinds of things. Only 10% of our contracts were into our program. So he had 1,500 contracts. had to migrate over. He had to look at it, match the fields, do the manual entry. It would have taken 15 months to do it. He went through the AI program, and he figured out how to do it with an AI protocol, and he was able to upload all of that work in two minutes. So that, to me, yeah, and so this is, so these are the kind of things that we're doing. That is just one story of one civil

servant who found a way to now take the data. So rather than waste 15 months and $90,000 in time doing it. He's done it immediately. Now we can get to work on analyzing the contracts to see if there's anything that we can do that will save money into the future. So that's just one story. I'm glad. I asked about government efficiencies and Daniel Smith brought up AI in fact in two minutes it did a whole bunch of work. So I see where you're leaving this. One final question for you because I've been text about this. I cannot tell you how many times. Have you made Ivermectin illegal in Alberta? It was never, well I've been told that it was it is not illegal right now.

So if anyone's having trouble accessing it, let me know. I think the leader of the official opposition is using it for an off-label use. Right? Correct. So that's an indication to me that it is up to the discretion of a doctor to prescribe it. So if anyone is wanting to get one of those prescriptions,

I would encourage you to do so. What I'm working on with Dr. Gary Davidson is an ability for doctors to be able to prescribe off-label drugs to their customers and then have their clients, their patients, and then be able to have patients participate and enroll in a clinical study. That's what I think was missing when we went through the COVID era. There was about 20 different drugs that doctors said could have had some impact on reducing symptoms and getting people on the road to recovery faster. And no one was allowed to use them. You had to go to secret websites and have doctors,

you know. The horse to warmer. Well, you had, all. All of the things people had to do to try to avoid the college getting in their way. And the fact of the matter is brand name pharmaceutical companies have no interest in figuring out additional uses for generic drugs. They just don't. Brand name pharmaceutical companies will invest in clinical trials so they can get the 20-year monopoly so they can get their money paid back. So we have to figure out a different avenue so that doctors are able to find generic drugs, use them for different uses, and then have that validated with science. So Dr. Gary Davidson, some of you may know, he was a very prominent doctor, an outspoken during the COVID era. He's been advising me on this, and he's developed an app that would allow for us to create these kind of clinical trials.

So whether it's for OZempic, OZempic is another example of an off-label use of drugs. It's not supposed to be used for weight loss, but I don't know that there's anyone who's using it for anything else other than weight loss. So we shouldn't have this kind of, well, let's turn a blind eye over on this thing because it's popular, and then let's crack down on doctors over here because it doesn't fit a narrative. We need science to be science. And so we need to have an approach that allows our doctors to get back to doing their work. The Premier of Alberta, folks, Daniel Smith, thank you once again for being here.