Shaun Newman Podcast - #933 - Premier Danielle Smith

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Premier Danielle Smith serves as Alberta's 19th Premier since October 2022, leading the United Conservative Party (UCP). We discuss the Alberta Teacher’s Strike, the Alberta Next Tour, and pipelines. Tickets to Cornerstone Forum 26’: https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone26/Tickets to the Mashspiel:https://www.showpass.com/mashspiel/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] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail] your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

This is Viva Fry. I'm Dr. Peter McCullough. This is Tom Lomago. This is Chuck Pradnik. This is Alex Krenner. Hey, this is Brad Wall. This is J.P. Sears. Hi, this is Frank Paredi.

This is Tammy Peterson. This is Danielle Smith. This is James Lindsay. Hey, this is Brett Kessel and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday. How's everybody doing out there? Okay, big news to start before we get into today's conversation.

The Cornerstone Forum returns March 28th. And tickets are now available. It's down on the show notes. You go to showpass.com backslash cornerstone 26. And we got some different options in there for trying to work around different budgets or maybe just what you need on a Saturday, full-day conference. On any tickets you purchase, if you're flying in the day before, though, make sure while you're buying tickets, you scroll down on the bottom and you get the Friday night social.

It's free to attend for anyone that's got tickets to the actual event. It's just going to be a nice, you know, casual evening event on Friday, though. And it's all held at the Westing Calgary Airport this year. So if you're flying in 24-7 shuttles from the airport to the hotel, it should be a ton of fun. The booking link for the hotel is on there as well. So make sure if you're coming in for that, that you get your hotel room, you know, sooner than later. But regardless, tickets now on sale. I'm excited to announce that.

It has been on my mind. and I've been working feverishly to try and get that out for all of you. And I finally get to say it is here. And we've got some speakers confirmed for it. You know, Tom Luongo, Alex Kraner, Tom Bodrovics, Matt Erritt, all back. Tews is back. Vince Lanchi is making it this year. And we got more coming and we'll be announcing as we go along.

But tickets now back on sale. If you're an exhibitor from last year and you're wanting to get a booth, the information for that is also on the website as well. So there is a ton to get to when it comes to the Cornerstone Forum 2026. Looking forward to that and tickets now on sale for that. I got to give a shout out to Bow Valley Credit Union, Silver Gold Bowl for making it happen. Once again, they are the title sponsors of this event. And wouldn't you know it, we're talking silver and gold right off the hop of this.

When it comes to precious metals, look no further than silver gold bull. and if you haven't been paying attention, I've been paying attention. I've been bringing it up every day this week. The charts on gold is something. As we sit here at the time of recording, it's now up to 5795 an ounce for, that's Canadian, for an ounce of gold a year ago.

Okay, let's fall, 5,700, a year ago, 3,600, okay, over 3,600, but 36 to 5,700. So, yeah, when it comes to, precious metals, look to Silver Gold Bull. Oh, I might as bring up Silver 2. It is sitting at $7.1.30 a year ago, $43. That's all Canadian once again. And so if you've got any questions around buying, selling, storing,

or using your retirement accounts to invest in precious metals, go down on the show notes, find Graham's contact info and give him a call. Find out more there. Anytime you're on silvergoldbull, bull.cair.com. Just make sure to reference to Sean Newman podcast. Bow Valley Credit Union. Buying and selling Bitcoin has never been easier. Bow Valley Credit Union has developed the first and can to Bitcoin Gateway.

With just a few clicks, you can buy Bitcoin directly from your Bow Valley Credit Union account. The Bitcoin you purchase through Bitcoin Gateway is real. Truly yours, securely stored, insured, and never leveraged. Custody is provided for you with no risk of losing seed phrases, complicated technology, or fear of hackers. Just go to Bow ValleyCU.com. Once again, that's all down in the show notes. Diamond 7 meets.

Hey, Lloyd Minster, tired of the big chain stores? Yeah, I think a bunch of us are. Well discovered, Diamond 7 meets a family-run business. You can trust serving our community for the past 26-plus years. And if you want all the great meets, whether you want to, you know, go down and get it out of the freezer, or you can give them a call. 306, 825, 97, 18. You can get it cut fresh.

They're on Highway 17 and 67 Street north, north side of town. Kyle Diamond 7 meets today. Caleb Taves, Renegade Acres, they do the community spotlight. We got some events coming up, okay? October 25th, Profit River has their customer appreciation day. Rod Giltaker, Giltaker, of the CCFR is going to be in attendance. So if you're wanting to run into Rod Giltaka here in Lloyd Minster, stop in Profit River's customer appreciation day.

On October 26th, this should be a fun one. We're going to be shooting some guns with Rodgill Tak, Chuck Proudnick and Jamie Sinclair at the Lloyd Minster and District Fishing Game Association, indoor range, profit river has been kind enough to supply the ammo for that day. You do not need your pal, okay? This is going to be fully, I don't know, licensed everything. We got all the right people there. And it's one of the things that I enjoy about this event is you don't need to have a pal in order to come do it.

You're going to be supervised and all the right things are going to be done. It does cost you $20. If you're interested, text me and we'll put you on the list. You've got to get on the list, folks. If you're interested in that, that's October 26. Quick Dick McDick is live November 22nd in Lashburn. It's a fundraiser for the Lashburn Elementary School. They're building a new playground.

The SMP Christmas Party, December 20th. The dueling pianos back by popular demand. There's one table left. I don't know what you're waiting for, but shoot me a text if you're interested. The Mashbill. The Mashrup has its community event. January 17th at Kalmar, Alberta, just west of Laduke. We got 14 teams left.

So if you're wanting to get a team in that, shoot me a text or search it out on the mashup. I can put it in the show notes as well. That way all the links are there. Go check for it. If you haven't signed up for Substack, it's free to subscribe to. We put the week in review there every week so that, you know, you can catch up on all things podcast-related. You can also become a paid member, support the podcast, get, you know, some in some behind-the-es-es-and-a-home behind-the-es. scenes footage of, I don't know, say the new studio, or some of the conversations I've been having

with different people. We've been talking about that recently. And yeah, Cornerstone Forum, 2026 is now out. Tickets are available. Scroll down on the show notes. Find it. I'm excited for this. I am uber excited for this. And I'm going to remember that as the event gets closer and the stress notches up. It's taken a while to get it. here but we're back and it's coming at the end of March 26 I hope to see you there get your tickets today

make sure to book a hotel room make sure to get the complimentary ticket for the Friday night social and I guess if you're watching or on Spotify you're listening on Apple YouTube Rumble X Facebook make sure to subscribe

make sure to leave a review and make sure to share with a friend the premiere's on today that's pretty exciting and I think Albertans should probably hear it. All right, let's get on to that tale of the tape. Today's guest is the leader of the United Conservative Party and Premier of Alberta.

I'm talking about Premier Daniel Smith. So buckle up. Here we go. Well, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Premier Daniel Smith. Premier, welcome back to the show. Thanks for hopping on. Hi, sorry I'm not in studio. Wouldn't have been nice to see you in person. Yes, it would have been. Yes, it would have been. I tell you what, you come back in a couple months and we'll be in the new studio. How would that be? I'm looking forward to it. Yes.

And we'll find you one of those silver ounce coins. They're worth quite a bit right now. Sadly, because of inflation. Exactly. Yes. Okay. Before we get too into everything that's been going on, I had a question for you from a month ago that I've been waiting to ask

because when Charlie Kirk got killed, people were texting me like, nobody's business wondering how I was doing. And I was like, well, that's kind of odd. I'm like, I'm doing not fine, but you know like but I assume it was because of the people I interview and some of the conversation them had and and so forth and my mind went to you and you know in the course of um you know basically a year you had Trump shot you had Charlie Kirk assassinated and I've been watching media and

just different people and how they characterize you and I think it's safe to say in politics for sure politics you've got to be one of the most demonized politicians in Canada right now um how are you doing after that and have you had to change any of your not talking points but just you know like it kind of went up a notch there when when he was assassinated you know it was like if you disagree with somebody uh violence uh was you know on the screen well i think you and i take a similar approach to issues that you you've got to keep talking this is why i always loved being in the mainstream media is i always felt that mainstream media should be the public square they should be talking to people from both sides so that you can see where you agree and where you disagree

so that it doesn't get to a point where people are so polarized and angry that anyone would think that that was an answer. So I've always been the same way. I mean, I was going through the Alberta next panel process all the way through. I do my radio show every second Saturday. I make myself available at town halls. Lots of people come up to me. And I feel like that kind of approach is really the one that is going to win out in the end. You just got to keep talking to people. It doesn't matter if you disagree. My approach is always try to find the place of common ground, try to find the place where we can agree.

And I think maybe that'll help us to try to find some of those points of consensus. I sometimes joke with my staff, is that I look at every person as either a current UCP voter or a future UCP voter. And so when you do that, I don't get fuss too much about what the Eastern media thinks about me. I'm not trying to win their vote. Well, let's focus then on something happening today. You know, I was doing my list here of like, okay, we better ask about this. And I'm like, I don't know if there's a bigger story right now.

I don't know how many times I'm getting text about it in a day, but you got more than 50,000 teachers on strike. For the first time in 23 years, and you got 700,000 kids out of the classroom. You know, there was an offer of 12% wage increase over four years with funding for 3,000 new teachers, 1500 education assistance and it was rejected by a aTA members almost 90% of them you had jason schilling the aTA president come out and he was quoted teachers have rejected that because we know that 3,000 teachers is just a drop in the bucket of what is needed across the province i'm curious what you can say to alberta parents because they're sitting there going what is going on and how do we get our kids back in the classroom well i'm disappointed too i mean

I believe in the collective bargaining process. And so when the AT leadership came to us and said, these are the things it would take to get to a deal, we said yes, yes, yes, we got to a deal and the teachers rejected it. So we came back again and they said, okay, well, here are three new things. We think they need to get to a deal. We said no to one, said yes to another and compromised in the third. They took it back to the teachers and the teachers rejected it by an even larger margin.

So I think there's a bit of a disconnect between the union leadership and their membership. if they don't quite know what it is it would take to get to a to a deal i think we're getting a pretty good idea we launched a review to find out how teachers were feeling about how to address the issue of complexity in the classroom and aggression in the classroom and so that's why we know hiring more teachers hiring more education assistance that that is going to be the pathway for us to address the concerns that we're hearing from teachers on the ground the wage offer is very fair If you look at what we're offering at the gross level by the time we get to 2027, it will be just slightly behind the top level in Manitoba. But after our taxes, they will be ahead of every other teacher in similar categories by thousands of dollars.

So I really don't think it's about more dollars for each individual teacher. There's a lot of parents who don't make 100,000 a year. And a 10-year teacher with five years of training will make $115,000. So I think that I don't think it's really the salary issue, but it is those complexity issues. And so that's why we've been encouraging the teachers' union to really find out from their teachers what it is that they think they need to get to a settlement. Come back to us with a reasonable proposal that we can afford. We are, of course, facing a $6.5 billion deficit this year after a few years of surplus.

So there are some limits on what taxpayers are able to afford. And we'll see if they're able to come up with a package that will get us to a negotiated settlement. We're back at the table and I hope we're successful. Nahed Nenshi says you provoked this. That's, and I shouldn't just point him out, although he is the official opposition. So I looked at, you know, I was scrolling through things, trying to figure out, you know, what's going on, what's the other side saying, going back and forth. And one of the things that I kept stumbling into is that the UCPs provoked us. And I'm like, provoked it.

Okay. Well, then I lean on the numbers because, you know, you got to, okay, well, let's look at the numbers and tell, see what the story tells. So when I'm looking for the numbers, I go to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, got a ton of time for them. And they projected, or sorry,

Alberta taxpayers are projected to spend 10.4 billion this year on K to 12. The year before that was 9.2, the year before that 8.8th, the year before that 8.3. As Chris Sims would say, increasing spending on education is an odd way to provoke a fight with teachers.

But maybe I'm missing something, Premier. Maybe you could address that. Are you provoking this? I don't see it, but I don't have maybe everything in front of me. Well, there's been a few things. I mean, we, we, there are some decisions that we had to make from a policy point of view that we heard from parents that they wanted to see. One was cell phone bans in the classroom. We were seeing that school boards weren't proactively able to address that across their boards, but we were hearing over and over again, even from teachers that it was creating distractions in the classroom. So we passed policy there. We heard from teachers or from parents as well. Grave concern about stories that their kids might be transitioning gender. in schools and not the parents weren't told about it so we had to address that and we heard that there were

some pretty racy graphic images of photographic images of in in school books and libraries for that were available to elementary kids so we had to address that too so we don't we don't try to micromanage what is happening in the schools but when we identify issues that parents are concerned about we address them and if that's provocative it should I hope not it shouldn't be I mean what I had hope would happen in each of those is that teachers would say, thank you. We don't want schools to self-phones in the classroom either. And we don't think that young children should see pornographic images. And we agree that parents should be involved in really important decisions around the identity of their children.

That's kind of what we would hope. And we've had many teachers who have said that too. So if that's what he's getting at, then I would say that it kind of misses the mark. I think what we need to do is make sure we're running a public education system that is aligned with what parents are asking us and aligned with parents' values. And so I hope that that's not what they're referring to. One thing that is no doubt a problem is that we have not been able to keep up with the dramatic number of newcomers coming to the province. When we had our Alberta's calling campaign, I think we went in thinking that we were having a normal amount of

immigration in the country, which was about 0.6 to 1% of the population. If you look at the number of newcomers who came to the country between 2009 and 2019, it was less than 300,000 a year. I don't think anyone knew that post-COVID, we would see one and a half to two million people a year coming into the country. And so what was happening is Alberta was getting a larger percentage of people moving here than our population was able to support. We're seeing it in the classrooms.

They had 80,000 more students come into the schools in three years. You just can't build schools fast enough. Many of those kids come from war-term places. So there's trauma. There's different levels of education because of disruption. There's English language learning issues. So all of those things have put additional pressure on teachers. We've done what we can to keep up.

We've announced the school construction program. We announced complexity funding. We're prepared to give $2.6 billion more to address them. So I do know that there has been a lot of pressure. But part of that is the federal government. having really taken all of the reins off any of the restrictions that they had on the various programs. And it's put a huge, huge pressure on all of our social programs, including and maybe especially education. And that's what we're trying to respond to.

You know, when you bring up the pornographic novels, I think when we were discussing it on our show, you know, we watched the Amminton Public School Board with the banning of books and their school libraries like Atlas shrugged. And they tried making it out to be something it wasn't. And that was a very odd thing to see in real time, knowing the books that you were actually talking about. And if you just took 10 seconds to go look it up, you're like, no, don't even need to flip through some of that stuff. Like, it's just pretty black and white.

When you see, you know, like, I don't know, I guess I just look at this strike. And I go, like, is it politically motivated? Like, do you give any credence to that? Like, you've, you've, you've had your dealings with different parts of this, uh, with the pornographic novels.

Now you get a strike where it seems like all, you're saying yes to pretty much every demand. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Yeah, that sounds okay. We're going to increase funding.

We're going to do all these things. We're going to build you a whole bunch of new schools because we got lots of kids. And it's just like, no, that's not enough. Like does it get to politically motivated? Well, you know, it's hard for me to, to know. I do sometimes ask the question of when the NDP were in power. and they offered zero and zero and zero and zero for zeros. They didn't face labor action.

We're offering not only 12%, which makes them the highest paid in Western Canada, but also adjusting the grid so that at each level of the pay scale, we have a common amount, so it's not variable across all of the province, and 3,000 teachers and 1,500 education assistance. You have to wonder if the NDP were putting this on the table, would the answer still be no? And I hope it's not partisan, but that's what we've been trying to do. Separate, this wasn't a vote on how you would vote in the next election.

It was a vote on the pay package. It was a vote on, do you accept the levels that we're prepared to pay from a salary point of view? Do you accept that we need to hire 3,000 more teachers and 1,500 more education assistance? And I would have thought that the answer would be yes. And if those aren't the issues, then it's up to the teachers. You need to tell us what they are. One final one then on the teacher strike. And I don't know if you can comment on this, but I'll fire anyways.

We've been watching the Canada Post strike, right? Like this has been ongoing. And one of the things as it's dragged on is their signing bonus, their pay, getting back pay signing bonus. They just took it off the table. No, not getting that. And now you've seen that. When it comes to the Alberta teachers, they're not getting paid right now. Which if I was a teacher, I'd be going, where did that money go?

Because, I mean, 23 years of no strikes, that's a lot of money. You could look at where's the money going? Will there be like in, will you take a similar tactic? I don't know if it's tactics, the right word, but, you know, we're seeing it with the liberals and the, the Canada Post, no sounding bonus. Done. Get it, move on with the teachers. I assume they're going to look for back pay. I assume that's what the union's going to try and do.

Maybe I'm assuming too much. Is that something you can comment on? Well, the money won't be there. We're giving that money to parents. Parents are as taxpayers, pay money for their kids to be educated. And the fact that their kids have been out of school for a week and now we're into our second week, we're giving those dollars to parents so that they can help defray the cost of child care and maybe hire a tutor to be able to assist their kids in keeping up with the lessons plans.

So that money is coming out of the money that we're saving by not having to pay teacher salaries. So there isn't a pot of money growing to be able to pay assignment. bonus and that's why we hope the teachers get back to the I hope that they come back to the classroom quickly I don't want them to be heard either it's it's going to be maybe you have Jason Schilling on to see why it is the a TAA didn't have a policy of putting money aside to pay for strike pay but but I think you're asking a question that I'm hearing many teachers ask as well just so we're clear I did send a message out to Jason Schilling because I thought it'd be very interesting to have that voice talk about what they're looking for and it's been

crickets. So maybe I'll hear this and maybe they'll shoot me a text and would love to have them on because I think it'd be interesting to have that chat because once again, parents are going, what is going on? So I guess a note to a signing bonus because the money, as you pointed out, is coming to families of kids 12 and under if I remember the details correct. Yep, that's correct. Okay. You did the Alberta next tour. You traveled across Alberta, 10 stops. I think you had one phone in for the 11th, if that, if memory is I it's not so much I'm what you learned I'm actually more curious what surprised you because when I look at the topics you were you were you know the proposals or or the subject matter you're

going to talk about you're talking about you know the Alberta pension plan police force enhancing tax collection autonomy lots of things that I I feel are maybe a no brainer but maybe not I feel like those conversations even go back to Jason Kenny and the fair deal panel you're in all these town halls, what was the biggest surprise from the audience members that you thought was, oh, I, hmm, I've been sitting here running as hard as you've been going as Premier of Alberta. What was maybe something that caught your attention? I think that there's a consensus on immigration and the need to get those numbers under control. But it doesn't matter whether you're looking at it from taxpayer point of view or whether

you're looking at it from a stress on public services point of view or my kid kid can't get their first job point of view or I can't find a proper rental accommodation point of view. Like everyone has a reason why they're asking the question of are we out of balance? And you know, I think it was very constructive the conversation too. It was why can't we just go back to the way we used to do it? Where we prioritized those economic migrants who came with a job because as soon as you come with a job, you're an immediate taxpayer as opposed to having the imbalance that we have right now. And so that surprised me because we always take a straw poll at the end. There was some

very passionate conversations and very passionate interjections at the mic. But in the end, once people understood that immigration hasn't operated the same way the last few years as it did before. Some of those rooms were unanimous saying we got to do something about that. The other thing I would say is I've been following, as it sounds like you have too, the discussion around all those firewall letter concepts all the way back to when Stephen Harper and Andy Perks and Ken Bosun-Kool and Tom Flanagan Rainer-Noff and I think Ted Morton were all the signatories to it and so I've been following that for 25 years but what I found interesting is that's a conversation that a lot of political people have but the general

public have never even given a thought most people are too busy working taking care of their families and that was part of the processes these are the things we've been talking about for a lot of years is now the time for us to move on them. And so some of them, I think, will need to be put to a vote. Some of them we might be able to move on right away. But we're still doing the deliberations with the panel. But I think that that was the other part is that I thought that there was maybe a lot more awareness that those had been long time issues being discussed than perhaps there was. But that's okay. We have now a nearly a million people who participated in the process. So people now know that that has been an active political conversation. And it would

make us a little bit more like Quebec if we had our own tax collection, our own pension plan, our own immigration system, and our own police force. So I think people now understand why it is that those issues keep coming up over and over again. But I guess the other part too is we've been very focused on trying to get a new economic deal. I'm calling it a grand bargain with Mark Carney and that talked about repealing the nine terrible laws that have suppressed our economy for the past 10 years, but building a new bitumen pipeline to the BC coast, as well as having an emissions reduction plan supported with the Pathways project. And that's not the only thing people are upset about.

They're very upset about that, but they're also upset about the way in which the federal government takes too much money from us and spends it badly or in the rest of Canada. They are upset about the ways in which they're interfering in our jurisdiction, whether it's taking away the rights of law-abiding gun owners, whether it's taking away the rights of podcasters to be able to have free speech. So it's not just a single thing that is going to remedy the relationship with Canada. They have made a lot of decisions that people are feeling very frustrated by. I think we managed to get most of them on the table through the discussion,

and that we'll have to deliberate what we do about each of them. But especially when the open mic session happened, you got to hear a lot of very passionate Albertans talk about what their grievances were. you mentioned is now the time for a lot of albertans now is the time what in your conversations is going to be like it is time or what are the things that can be done now without having to jump through 50 legal hurdles i'll have a better idea we've only had one session where we've been deliberating with the panel and so we're closing in on that i imagine that will probably be finished that work before the end of the year because i'm the issues that i want to take to referendum i want to do

that in the spring so that we can have a standalone issues referendum and not have it in conjunction with a municipal election which would have been too fast or a provincial election which is too far away. So that's why I think we need to finish our work as a panel before the end of the year. And then we'll have several questions that will either go forward to referendum or we'll be able to act on right away or we're able to say, you know what, we heard enough that we're not going to do this at all. So that's still a bit of a process that we're going through. but you will know before the end of the year. When you say a standalone referendum, I'm curious.

I've learned a bunch of about this. And once again, you know my background. This was not something that I started out in life to become an expert in. And I'm by no means, folks, an expert on this. When you have a referendum in 2026, a standalone referendum on a bunch of these issues, will it be binding or is it just a straw poll of the public to see where everybody's at? Well, I tend to want to ask Al Burton's questions on things I'm prepared to act on because that's the whole purpose of having citizen-initiated referenda and also going to the people with Reverenda. The question would be, I suppose, do you need to have a clear enough majority from a large enough people participating?

That's always been the question. If people aren't interested and only 10% of people vote turn out, that would probably tell me something. I don't think that will have. But I do hope that people do participate because it matters. It matters for us to be able to hear directly from people. And it matters to the process. I mean, I do believe in representative democracy. Otherwise, I wouldn't be an elected official.

But there are some things that are so important that you need to be able to hear directly from people on. And so that's why I think it's important to put them to a referendum. them. Any idea when the referendum would be? I know you say 2026. That's 365. Is there a narrowing in? Mayor June. Yeah, I'd probably want to do it after legislative session, but before we get into the summer. Pipelines. You bring that up. This has been interesting to watch on my end. And I think for a lot of people in Alberta, right, you're talking about, okay, well, you know what? We're going to build these Canadian projects. I think that's wonderful. All these provinces got projects, the federal governments got projects. We want to get a new pipeline out to the west, right? Through BC, all these things, Ebby comes out, craps on the idea. First Nations

come out, parts of First Nations, not all, come out crap on the idea. I'm like, is there any possibility of getting a pipeline to the West? Because I've read and listened to way too much talk on this. And I think for a lot of people here in Alberta, they go, that'll never happen, Premier. It's not a chance. And the only way is to the south with maybe the Keystone XL being talked about again or something along that lines. Your thoughts? Well, I certainly do think that there's an opportunity south. The president has said that he wanted to restart the Keystone 2.0 discussion, the prime minister, he raised it with him in their last meeting. So there's no question that there are several projects that would allow us to take the largest supply of heavy oil and

connect it with the largest refining capacity of heavy oil in the Gulf Coast. And that may well-being, the path of least resistance. But that would be a failure of the exercise. The exercise that we went through as a province and as a country over the last eight months is, are we too reliant on a single customer? And what can we do to tear down trade barriers and trade more with each other and find new markets? And you don't find new markets by continuing to increase your reliance on the same market that you have. If the purpose of the exercise is to open new markets, then the only

obvious solution is to get a new pipeline going to the BC coast, probably Northern Gateway 2.0, similar route that would get us a straight run to Asia, give us the advantage because it's only 8 to 10 days, and open up a brand new market to the largest market in the world in Asia. So are we serious about this or not? It has everybody, lots of people have wrapped themselves in the Canada flag, talking about how important it is that we support each other and work together. And now we're going to see if it's true or if it was just a lot of posturing. I took everybody at their work when they said they wanted to restart these conversations. We're prepared to restart them.

We're prepared to do the work. We're prepared to work with indigenous groups to get First Nations ownership. We're prepared to do the consultation. We're prepared to work with a team of people to get the technical review done to determine what the new pipeline route would be and what the cost would be. We're prepared to do all of that, but do we have partners to work with? Is Canada going to operate like a country? Yes or no?

And I hope the answer is yes. And it's going to be up to Mark Carney to make that decision. The reason why we gave the trade and commerce power to the federal government is so that a single province couldn't landlock another from being able to get the resources to market. So, you know, I understand that there's some issues that the BC Premier is concerned about, but it's not his decision. It's Mark Carney's decision. And I understand there's some work that we need to do with indigenous bands. But as you pointed out, we've got some that are in favor and some that are opposed. The same is true on every single issue that you can put forward.

So our great task ahead of us is to build more and more consensus so that we can build a pipeline that benefits everyone. First Nations, British Columbians, Alberts and the rest of Canada as well. You know, new markets means working together. It actually means coming together because you're fighting amongst yourselves. and I don't mean you. I just mean like in general, the provinces. I'm curious because you got to sit in under Justin Trudeau and now Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Did Ebby call and say, I'm just upset with this? I don't want anything to do with this and then go to social media? Or is he just blast it on social media? This is a terrible idea. And the reason I ask it that way, and I don't know if you can, I don't mean to share too many details. I'm just wondering if it's a leadership quality at the top

where it looked to me under Prime Minister Trudeau. when he was in, everybody went off and yelled at everybody, and there was no unification. There was zero. There was beyond zero. And that led from the top down. And I have my thoughts on Carney, but I don't get to be in the room with them.

I don't get to be in these conversations. You talk about, I'm taking everybody at their word. I thought we were working together. We're not working. And I'm wondering if there's any phone call first of Danielle, we can't do this, or if this is, you know, we're going to go and try and win a media war on a pipeline. Well, I think I admit to being a bit surprised by the Premier's reaction because I did give him a heads up.

I called him a couple days early. As did my ministers, my ministers called the indigenous leaders, both my indigenous affairs minister and my energy minister, began their calls to First Nations leadership two days before as well. And I know that there's lots of things that be seen and we can work on together. We've been seeing if we can work together on getting ammonia shipments to Japan and to South Korea. We have been working on the potential for an intertie so that our wind and solar and maybe even nuclear would be a backup to the hydro resources in British Columbia. We have biodiesel that is made from a new plant that Imperial's put together, almost all of it, based on a canola-based product, is destined for the BC market. We can do more of that.

And also I've supported the and the Premier's been vocal in saying let's optimize the trans mountain pipeline, which I think, can with dredging and with some additional compression and and lubricants can probably get another 300,000 barrels per day and that's all great. So we have found ways to find common ground. I've supported every single LNG project that has been announced and you know, fingers up, you know, thumbs up. Hopefully there's going to eat more. I know that there's a no, thumbs up. I know that there's a there's going to be a they call it the golden triangle I believe where there's six different minds that the Premier wants to be able to develop. They have the ability to develop germanium, which is one of the critical minerals.

I have spoken a lot about the things that BC is doing, the way we can work together and support. So I admit to being a bit surprised that there was such a negative reaction. Because I think the spirit of the times right now is people want to see us working together. And I have gone forward with that spirit. And I hope others get with the spirit too. One final question before I let you out of here. You brought it up, and I just want to follow back up on it. Bill C8, Bill C9, like, you know, in a previous lifetime, one of the things people enjoyed about your radio show was you had conversations. And those conversations went the full gambit of where the topics were going. When I look at these bills, I'm like, I see they're going to silence discussion. Can Alberta do anything if those things come through to no different than gun owners to help protect and make sure.

sure that nothing happens to the voices that are trying to open up discussion and not get silenced by, for lack of a better word, because I can't think of it, tyrannical government. Well, I'll rely on you in this, in the idea space, to tell me if you're, if you're hearing any enforcement action, because I think we're all watching what's happening in the United Kingdom and just shaking our heads that people are getting arrested. 12,000, 12,000 were arrested for posting online. Because they're making someone uncomfortable with the things that they post. Well, you know, being uncomfortable and having anxiety is not a criminal offense.

There was a very clear line about what constitutes criminal hate speech. And, you know, I accept that there are some things that would put a group at real and grave danger of being harmed. And that should be a very high bar. But you don't lower the bar and then end up essentially creating a hurt feelings clause on criminal, that has criminal code sanctions against it. So what I have determined is that we are responsible for administration of justice and policing at the provincial level. And we have said that we are not going to be prioritizing the gun grab, either from a policing point of view or a crown prosecution point of view. And it may well be we have to do the same thing when it comes to free speech.

There are so many other problems. We have got fentanyl dealers, we've got gangs, we have got cross-border trafficking. We have got people who are being targeted for extortion in our major cities. These are the things that require a law enforcement attention. We have got a catch and release program of bad dudes continuing to go into jail and out again and become repeat criminals. This is the priority of our crown prosecution. Going after law-abiding citizens and podcasters, I'm telling you, that is not our priority at all. So we will use non-enforcement to the full extent possible, but we want, I'll be able.

to continue to be a zone where law-abiding gun owners are able to peacefully enjoy their property and law-abiding podcasters are able to continue being provocative. I think that that is a real promise of what Alberta has to offer and what people do look at us as a bit of a bastion of freedom. We want to maintain that. Premier, thanks for hopping on and doing this. Let's not make it a full year before you come back on. It's always a pleasure to have you on the show and talk right to the audience that I'll vote you in.

They're really happy you're back on. I'm happy you're back on. Appreciate you giving me some time today. You bet. We'll see again. Thanks, Sean.