The Paikin Podcast - (Best Of) Premier Danielle Smith: Is It Time for Alberta to Leave Canada?

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

In our “Best of The Paikin Podcast,” we go back to our very first episode. Steve flew to Calgary to sit down with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to discuss Alberta’s sovereignty act, if this could be Alberta’s "Brexit moment," Doug Ford and his Ontario brand of conservatism, getting “Jason Kenneyed,” meeting with Trump at Mar–a-Lago, how to play Trump’s ego, the future of conservatism and the rise of the right-wing podcast sphere – and, well, a few more things. Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail]  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, everybody. Steve Paken here. We are going to take advantage of the, what do they call it, the summer doldrums to replay a few interviews that we have done over the past year that got really big audiences and just see how well they hold up all these months later. We're going to start with Danielle Smith. The Premier of Alberta was our first ever interview on the Paken podcast in July 2025. We flew to Calgary, we did a sit-down interview with her, and there was a lot to discuss, particularly on the issue of separation, which of course has not gone away with a referendum coming in October in the province of Alberta. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and yours truly coming up one-on-one on the Paken podcast. Premier Smith, thanks for meeting with us and let's dive in, shall we? Yeah, let's.

Okay, National unity we're going to start with here. Your government's Alberta sovereignty within a United Kingdom, Canada Act. What's the purpose of this? Well, the purpose of it really was watching the federal government behave in a way which I thought violated the Constitution. We have a clear division of powers in our Constitution where the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over several areas and the provincial government has exclusive jurisdiction over several areas. That's a language in the act. And it's been tested the other way. When provinces have tried to pass legislation in areas of federal jurisdiction, they,

use a disallowance provision. They say you can't do that. You may recall going back to the 30s when the Premier at the time William Aberhart wanted to create his own currency. That was one of about 112 times the federal government used the disallowance provision. I was going to say that was ages ago. But the reason I mentioned it is because we've never done the same in reverse. We've never had a province say, you know what? I can't pass laws in your area of jurisdiction. You can't pass laws in my area of jurisdiction. That's what the Alberta Sovereignty Act is, is drawing that line. It's saying that if you want to partner with us on projects or programs, great. But don't come in, override our jurisdiction, and then make us go to court to push you back in your own lane.

So when we see the federal government behaving in a way that violates the Constitution, we're going to invoke the Sovereignty Act and say, follow the law, and we hope that it has some impact. I will not be the first person to tell you that some people wonder whether or not there is a contradiction in having the name of an act that has the words, sovereignty and united in the same act, one relating to a province, one relating to a country. How does that work? Well, the term sovereignty has been used in a number of different situations before. I mean, I think indigenous bands have sovereignty within Canada.

They recognize that they have exclusive jurisdiction over the territory that they manage. Quebec has often talked about its sovereignty, its provincial sovereignty. So I think it may be that it's an unusual phrase to use, but I think it's the way our country is supposed to work. We are one of the most decentralized federations on the planet. And there's a reason why our founders drafted our country to work this way. The federal government often disrespects provincial jurisdiction. Quebec has been one of the consistent voices in pushing back on that.

But Alberta is now at a size with the development of our economy, with the wealth that we have. I think that we've got to push back as well, and that's what we're doing. Since you mentioned Quebec, I do want to get your view on Yves Francois Blanchet's comments, which you no doubt heard, asked if he had any tips for you in Alberta about asserting your sovereignty or separating, he said, the first idea is to define oneself as a nation. Therefore, it requires a culture of their own, and I am not certain that oil and gas qualified to define a culture. Well, what did you think when you heard that?

Well, maybe he should come out here during Stampede. There is no one who has the 10-day celebration that we do. And I mention it because it is so definitive of the Alberta culture. going back to our roots in how we developed. We don't have the same founding story as Quebec does. Our founding story began in 1905 when we were, when early settlers came and fur traded with the First Nations. And then because we needed to populate it, there was a call out to the world to come here and get free land. And it was hard to develop it, whether it was for ranching or for farming. But that culture that we celebrate every single year is important.

because what I would say with the character of the Alberta people is that they don't look to government to solve their problems. They solve them themselves, and they overcome some of the worst conditions, some of the most extreme hardships, and we keep on winning over and over and over again. And so I think that what you see with the celebration of our Western heritage, that's the celebration of our Western values,

and there's so much business that takes place because every single year there's a new frontier. We developed gas, then we developed oil, that we developed oil sense, we're developing hydrogen, we're looking towards nuclear, we're developing carbon capture, we're developing data centers. I think those things are linked. And when people do come here and they see what a merit-based society we have built, a welcoming place where people from around the world can celebrate their own culture and heritage, but they embrace the Alberta heritage and culture, yeah, we already have that.

So that's why I think asserting that Alberta is different and special and we do things our own way, and that's why we have to honor the Constitution, because that is exactly what it was for. I think that's a reason why I believe that we're doing exactly as the founders intended. Could Alberta be an independent country? I would, as I say, I support sovereignty within a United Canada. And there's reasons for that, because when you look at all of the things you have to do as a sovereign country, you have to set up your own national defense and you have to have your own court system and you have to develop your own trade agreements and get recognized internationally.

The other thing, too, that I've said to those who feel differently is, okay, well, what do we want to do right now more than anything else? Well, we want to build a pipeline to the BC coast. So we would have to negotiate with BC regardless of what our status is. So wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to do it under the umbrella of what we have right now? I am very strongly making the case for a United Canada. I think that the issue that we have is that we've had a dismal. respectful Ottawa. We've had an Ottawa for 10 years that I think has failed in their number one

constitutional mandate. The reason we all came together as a country was so that the federal government with this trade and commerce power would make it easier for us to get our products to market, not harder. They weren't empowered with that power so that they could keep our resources in the ground as they have tried to do for the last 10 years. And so I'm hoping that with a change in leadership at the federal level, we'll have a reset. You have noticed that things are working more akin to what you would prefer, I presume. I have been arguing for two and a half years for this change of direction, and I must tell you, clearly the recalibration happened with the election in the South in the United States.

I don't know that we'd be having the conversation that we're having today if people didn't really now understand how precarious our relationship with the U.S. is, how precarious it is to rely so much on a single trading partner, to have every single trading partner, to have every single single province in our country have stronger trade ties north and south than we do east and west. I think that that caused us to really look at ourselves as a country and realize we had some work to do. And all of the premiers, I think, have taken that on, signing individual MOUs or passing legislation in their legislatures, working with the federal government to create sort of a one Canada approach. Would any of that have happened if there wasn't a change in government down south?

Maybe not, but it did. And so let's seize the day. Let's actually start working like a real country again. Or not just down south. How about up here? You're giving Mark Carney any credit for changing the way things happen in Ottawa? I guess I'll wait and see if he changes the way anything happens in Ottawa. I have nine pieces of legislation as sort of a starting point to demonstrate that he's going to take a different approach in supporting oil and gas. And he hasn't modified or changed any of them so far.

So I guess that's what I'll be looking to see. I'm in good faith. I'm going to work with him. We've got a table together of his officials and mine where we're working through them one at a time and seeing how we can get to some kind of agreement. Because here's the worry that I think I hear from the energy sector is, yes, we could get another pipeline built,

and I think we can. But pipelines themselves don't produce emissions. It's the oil or gas companies that develop the resource. So if you're going to keep it, all of the punitive regulations on producers, emissions caps, which are really production caps, emissions targets by 2030, having a tanker ban. If you don't give any signal to the companies that actually are going to be the ones producing, you're going to have an empty pipeline. And so that's what I'm looking for is, yes, I want to work with him on a big national project

that would enable that production, but the production's only going to happen if he changes those nine bad laws. You don't think he's given those signals yet? Well, he has had a legislative session. He passed some big things in there. He passed a tax cut. He passed a change to the carbon tax and changes to the capital gains tax.

He came through with a proposal to have a national projects list, but he didn't amend any of the nine laws that he knew were problematic for Alberta. How strongly would you rate the forces for independent in Alberta today?

I mean, I have said that the strongest that I've ever seen them. I am accustomed to seeing them somewhere around 10 or 15%, maybe rising to 25%, I think, was the polling just before Jean-Crettián left office, because there was also some frustration at that time. But some of the polls that I've seen, and it's been a few of them, that has the sentiment as high as 37%, which is pretty high. But they didn't show up during the by-elections recently, right? Well, the message I have is give me a chance.

And so I said, give me a chance to work with this new prime minister. Give you a chance to solve some of these problems. Give him a chance to see if he'll work with us in good faith. And we got 62% of the vote on that message. And so that's where I think most Albertans are right now, is that they really want Canada to work. They really want respect from the federal government. And it's not hard to do those kinds of reversals.

When you look at that, when I was mentioning one time, there was a separatist who was elected. this was prior to me following politics too closely, but in 1982, Gordon Kessler, but two years later, Mulroney came in and eliminated the source of that grievance, the National Energy Program, and it completely evaporated.

So I think that we have seen that Ottawa's actions can either create that opposition and dissent, or it can also be alleviated by Ottawa's actions. I'm going to have to continue working with the federal government to address some of those policies. I don't think he has a lot of time. I know that he had a short legislative session, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. Some of the bad laws have to undergo a major rewrite, like Bill C-69, the No More Pipelines Bill. Some are a little more simple. He could just do a straight repeal of them. Some might need to be

modified. I understand that takes a bit of time. But I would hope he'd be making some progress on that by the fall. If it doesn't work out, I don't mean this to be a smart ale question, but is there a small part of you that thinks it would be kind of interesting to be the first president of a newly independent country of Alberta? Well, I swore enough to his majesty, so I'm a monarchist. So I guess I would have a different view on that. First Prime Minister of an independent Alberta still loyal to the king? I still don't. I hope it doesn't come to that kind of vote. That's what I have told those who feel strongly about it is, you know, we have a mechanism through citizen-initiated referenda for petition signatures to be gathered a time frame of 120 days, and if they meet the mark, it'll go to the people. But I think

my job is to solve the problem so it doesn't get to that point. That's what I'm focused on doing, and I hope I'm successful. I suspect David Cameron thought he was doing the same thing when he offered the public the opportunity to consider Brexit, and then the thing took on a momentum of its own, and he clearly lost control of it. Is there a part of you that worries that could happen here? Very much. That's why I've been spending a lot of time. I mean, you have to remember when I first got into politics. There were about five separatist parties already. And that was my message to them is let's not split the vote. Give me a chance. Let's try to make the country work. And I did do that under the former prime minister, but there was absolutely no meeting partly. And so I'm making

the same request again is this is a new leader. We've already seen some indication that he's different. I mean, the ending of the carbon tax as one of his first action shows that he is not as tied to all of these terrible policies as his predecessor was. But I think we just need to see a little bit more proof in his actions. So I think that my view is that, yeah, I worry about it. I hope the prime minister worries about it because he should be worried about unity. And he should be worried that it's his actions or his government actions or the prior government's actions that has created this situation. That's in his power to be able to to cause it to be alleviated. So that's what I'm putting on him. And I hope he answers with some

actions that will do that. I want to ask you about a fascinating news conference that I saw you do the other day with Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario, because you got to remember, I came up at a time when Peter Lougheed and Bill Davis were sort of friends, but mostly rivals and disagreed on a lot of stuff. And it made relationships between Alberta and Ontario pretty tense from time to time. and there you two are up there exchanging belt buckles and looking like long-lost friends and signing memorandums of understanding and all this stuff. Is there a different dynamic between those two provinces today in your view? Well, I think so. He just sent me a Muskoka chair, so maybe because he liked his belt buckle so much.

I would say that being a conservative in Alberta is a little bit different than being a conservative in Ontario. And I tend to try to find a way to find the areas where we can agree. When you look at the Alberta conservative movement, it's a marriage of two cultures, the progressive conservative culture and the Wild Rose culture. And so we've had to find a lot of ways to put water in our wine on either side and to come up with a proposal or package of ideas that we can move forward with together. So I take the same approach when I talk to Premier Ford.

He is not going to be 100% aligned with us on everything that we want to do. He sure isn't on EVs. But we are sure aligned on a lot of things. You are, but not on EVs. And when I saw you at that press conference say, you know, we need the feds to back off on these regulations. He wasn't smiling at that point. Do you know, he agrees with me, and you may want to ask him about this, that the timeframe that the federal government is putting for zero emission vehicles. Next year.

Is too rapid. I mean, the point I was making is that we would have to buy every single electric vehicle or hybrid vehicle that Ontario produces to meet the 20% target because we buy a lot of cars here. And what about everybody else? I mean, we're only 12% of the population. We just simply don't produce enough of those vehicles to be able to source them locally. So it's kind of bananas that we would have a policy that would be forcing Alberta if we wanted to meet those targets to buy from China when we have 100% EV tax on China because we want to encourage more Ontario vehicle purchases.

Why don't we just cut through all of that and sign an MOU like Doug and I did where our fleet vehicles were going to prioritize buying Ontario. vehicles, some of which are hybrid, but some of which are not. I mean, I'm very much of the view that aspirationally, you can achieve a lot if you're looking at a 2050 time frame, which is what we signed on to with the Paris Accord, but you can achieve very little if you're going to try to arbitrarily use government policy to push that time frame back to 2030. You've got to give time for technology to develop, for capital costs to be recovered, for best available technology to be dispersed.

And that's what I told Prime Minister Trudeau is what I've told Prime Minister Carney, align with us over a longer target for meeting some of the emissions reduction targets, and I think we'll be able to get somewhere. And that's, I think, one of the problems I have with the EB mandate. I think it's not only going to be impossible

for us to achieve, I think it's going to hurt Ontario. And we should be doing everything we can to be supporting Ontario's auto industry, especially since it's under such grave attack by the United States. And we'll be back right after this. You mentioned there's a difference between Ontario Conservatives and Alberta Conservatives. Do you think Doug Ford is a conservative? Yes, I do. There are a lot of conservatives in Ontario who no

longer do. Huh. He spends a lot. Well, when you're a provincial level of government, constitutionally, you're mandated to provide health care and education and social services and infrastructure. And that is probably 80% of any provincial government. budget. So I think that that's, obviously we are very keen on getting into balance budget and staying into balance budget, reducing the amount of debt, putting money into savings. So we take a bit of a different approach there. But spending on its own, if you look at it on a per capita basis, Ontario has some great economies of scale. They spend less per capita than any other province. I kind of aspire to have the same lower level of per capita spending that Ontario does.

we have we've got a lot more people who are coming. And we do have vast, vast distances between our major centers. And when you have that happen, you have to build out schools, hospitals, and roads to support all of those communities. It does cost money. So remember, you know, Premier Ford got himself into a lot of trouble with some factions of more conservative-thinking people in his own coalition. During COVID, for example, when he mandated, you know, people, let's go. You want to go to a restaurant? You got to get a shot.

You want to go to a hockey game? You got to get a shot. and you took a very different approach. You're a more libertarian conservative, which makes me wonder whether you two are... I mean, is the conservative tent that big that it can have two such vastly different conservatives in it and they consider themselves friends?

I think it is that big. Because you don't agree on that, that's for sure. I agree on choice. I always have agreed on choice. And I feel like if you do try to force people to do something against their will, that's when you end up getting into a bit of trouble. things, we had a public debate about that in our province, and we've chosen to go in a little bit of a different direction.

But I would say that the foundationally, I would say conservatives always lead with the economy. And the reason we do that is because whatever your social spending aspirations are, if you don't have the money, then you can't spend it. Or if you do try to spend it, you end up running into debt. And this has been, I think, the big cleavage point that we've had with the federal liberals. They believe that you just spend money, and then they've been choking off all of the sources of revenue. I far prefer doing whatever we can to have low tax rates for business, low regulatory costs for business, having our job creators and wealth creators have as much latitude to be able to develop

those jobs so that we generate the revenue so that we can pay for the services that matter. So it's just the foot that you lead with. And I would say that Doug very strongly leads with the same foot. He leads with the economy as well. Their economy is a bit different than ours. But I think that that is probably one of the foundational reasons why we found so much agreement. Let me do one more Ontario-Albuda comparison, and that is, you know, when some of the more conservative elements of his coalition rose up and said, Doug, we don't like what you're doing,

he basically stared them down and essentially, you know, in some ways, kicked them out of the party. And I don't know that you can do that here because those elements are very powerful in this province, and we saw what they did to your predecessor, Jason Kenney. I wonder whether you need to, and you'll forgive this word, indulge the kind of more right-wing base of your party in a way that other premiers in this country don't have to, lest you end up getting Jason Kenneyed. I would see that at the federal level and in most other provinces, they have more than one, left-wing party that splits the vote. So you can become a government in other provinces with 40% of the vote. You can't do that in Alberta because it's become a two-party jurisdiction. And so

by definition, you've got to get 50% of the vote if you're going to win or pretty darn close to it. And so you really do have to govern for the majority. Now, there's a always on any issue I've discovered this. There's a third of the people who love what you're doing, a third of the people who hate what you're doing, and a third of the people in the middle who are open to being convinced on a reasonable argument. And that's always what you're trying to do, is that you have to listen to what your members say,

listen to what the people who voted for you say. But if you're going to get a broad enough coalition to govern, you do have to persuade those who are not ideological one way or the other, who are moderate and reasonable, you've got to convince them of your arguments. But what about the, can I call them this? The far right of your party, Do you indulge in them too much?

Because your self-preservation depends on it. I don't know. I don't feel like there's anything that we've done that I don't personally support. Support vaccine choice, and so we've made that. I support governments being in charge when they make decisions, not unelected health officials. So we've made that change.

I support restructuring an unaccountable out-of-control bureaucratic health care system, which we've done. I support going back to the traditional way of counting paper bills. like they do at the federal level, as opposed to tabulators. There's, I support property rights. I always have.

I've been a property rights advocate going back to 1997, and so we made a lot of changes to support property rights. So I feel like I'm, the issues that come up, either through my town halls or through our membership process, I feel like we, I've looked at what our members propose, engage it by what I think is possible to get majority support for, and we move forward on it. Do you believe the institutions of this country, the courts, the media, the public service,

do they lean liberal and against conservatives, generally speaking? Well, I think CBC just demonstrated that in space. They just had a major broadcaster quit with exactly that same Travis Danraj, I think. Yeah, that's the allegation. And he argued that he wasn't allowed to have the full range of perspective being represented. We just had that happen recently with CBC. In fact, I talked to my housing minister about it. One of the reporters was asking him about some of our stats,

and we know that she contacted 12 people about our change in policy, didn't quote any of them, because they agreed with us, and she went out of province to quote somebody who would criticize us. So I see that over and over and over again. So I think part of the reason why the decline in the mainstream media and the rise of alternative media is because for some reason they decided they didn't want conservative voices

and didn't want conservative viewers. And so conservative viewers have complied and they've gone elsewhere. That's one part of it. But then you also, I think the issue federally is that we do have a mandate where you have to have a certain percentage of your public servants who be bilingual.

It's a lot easier to be bilingual. If you come from Quebec and are learning English, than if you live in an English-speaking place and are trying to learn French. And so I think a lot of the values of Quebec, which I would not call a conservative province, I think that that really does define what you see in how Ottawa governs and within the bureaucracies. And then, of course, we've seen it in the institutions, in universities.

Absolutely, there's a bias. And I noticed that when I was at the Fraser Institute, one of the scholars there, Lydia Milgen, did a review on media bias and on bias within academia. and you'll regularly see surveys of people self-identifying as left-wing, who are university professors, who are shaping the minds of the next generation. So is it harder to be a conservative politician in this country than a liberal politician? Small C, small L. Well, I guess I believe in the people. I know that those who lead the institutions think that they're very influential.

But what I have seen is that most people can see through the bias. And if you make a reasonable argument, don't give you the benefit of the doubt. That's why so many conservatives are, doing direct broadcasting now. I mean, I will obviously do media interviews, alternative media interviews, mainstream media interviews, but that's not the only way I get my voice out on important issues. I tend to do my own videos. I tend to do my own broadcasts whenever we do our announcements, we do a live stream because I just feel like I would rather people see what I say directly rather than going through a filter. You've noticed as well that a lot of the sort of hot podcasters

these days tend to be on the more conservative side of things. And they have a lot of younger people, particularly young men, who are big fans of theirs. I mean, when I was younger, you know, being cool was being a socialist. Are we at a point where being cool today tends to lean conservative? Well, look at the state that we're in, these poor kids who are coming out of school in grade 12, probably not being connected to a profession right away, wondering what they do. So they go, okay, well, I guess I'll go to university. So then they go and get a BA or an MA or PhD or all of them. Now they're over $100,000 in debt and they still can't get a job.

And now they want to get married and have kids. But how do you buy a house? Because houses are well beyond what they can now make. And how do you even afford to have kids if you're talking about a mortgage stacked on top of student loan debt? So I feel like young people have a really tough time right now. And they're asking questions. Why is it so expensive? Why don't I have a job?

Why can't I buy a house? Why is so much of my paycheck going to pay for taxes for programs that I don't even use? And so that, I think, has a way of changing a person's perspective. I think that we've got to restore hope and opportunity to kids. One thing they do seem to care about, regardless of their political stripe, is climate change. And I wonder if what is the conservative approach to climate change? Well, I can tell you mine. I believe that we've got to look at how we can achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

That's the time frame that we signed on to. It's more aggressive than China, which is 2060 and more aggressive than India, which is 2070, both of which are massively more emitting than we are. And that we've got technology that will help us get there. So whether there's carbon caps utilization and storage, whether it's the MOUs that I've signed with other premiers about looking at how we might bring nuclear, small modular, as well as can do into. to our province, intertize so that we can bring in hydroelectric power, and direct air capture,

which is another major investment that we've done. We're also investing in lithium, geothermal, small modular nuclear, and bitumen beyond combustion. So we are making investment in technology, because that's what I've observed, is that technology solves so many problems. The oil sands at one point was un-economic, and now it's the biggest source of revenue for our province from an industry point of view, but also from a government point of you. Is it killing the planet in the process, though? No. I mean, there's 6,000 products that come from a barrel of oil, including asphalt, which

you have to, which, you know, even if you drive an electric vehicle, you need roads to drive it on. So whether it's asphalt or lubricants or petrochemicals, I would say that you're finding that there are lots of uses that are non-combustion uses for oil and gas, and those to me are going to be foundation to foundational products for our economy. I mean, you, cement also uses a lot of, produces a lot of CO2. No one's talking about banning cement. We're just talking about ways that you make it less emitting. And that's the same thing that we're talking about with oil and gas. Let me ask you about the guy down south. Okay, how do I put this? Everybody's had a few more months now to think about how

things are going vis-a-vis Donald Trump. And I want to ask you about that as well because you were one of the very few people from this country who got to meet with him during the last federal election campaign. In hindsight, anything you'd have done differently. Well, I wish others had done more of what I had done, like reading Robert Lighthizer's book, because he was the previous trade negotiator, reading Donald Trump's book about the art of the deal, and reading up a little bit about President McKinley, who he seems to idolize. I think people would understand a little bit more about what he's trying to do and maybe about how to frame our arguments so that we can get to an agreement. That's what I have tried to do. What I would observe

about the president is that if he's continuing to operate the way he has for his entire career, he always has several positions that he looks at as a win. He's got his starting position, a middle position, and I'll take it position. And we've just got to understand that he's going to always put his most aggressive position on the table, but there's a deal to be had. And I think that unfortunately, everybody leads with emotions, they get hurt feelings, and rather than just lead with a negotiation, what is it that we need to do to get to yes? What I've observed is that the U.S. president is very, very clearly America first. So the way I have approached the U.S. is how do we mutually benefit from the cross-border trade? Because we clearly do. Alberta and the U.S.

have $188 billion with the cross-border trade. Much of that in oil and gas, but also in food products. And when I look at where we find ourselves at this moment today, we have zero tariffs on oil and gas. We've got zero tariffs on agriculture products. We have zero tariffs on the vast majority of goods that come out of Alberta. But you heard Mark Carney say, as we sit here taping this earlier today, that he expects that any final agreement with the United States

is going to have to include some tariffs. What do we think of that? Again, if you look at Robert Lighthizer's a frame, of the issue. One of the things that drives the Americans crazy is they don't have a national sales tax, whereas virtually every province or a country around the world does. We're not quite as bad as Europe. We only have 5% national sales tax, but Europe has 20% national sales taxes. So, Lighthizer's view was, okay, so you sell products into the American market, and we don't tax you, but my American businesses sell products in your market, and you tax them a sales tax. So they're looking at

tariffs as a way of equalizing that. And so if we have a, if we're committed to our 5% GST, I can understand why, uh, why that may be the position that the prime minister has now taken. But you know what? We'd count us, we should count ourselves lucky. If we got a 5% tariff equivalent to our GST, that would still be vastly lower than what we're looking at in other jurisdictions. I still hope we can get a tariff-free relationship because I think that the United States, the other thing I'd say is that we need to make the argument that no one benefits from taxing raw materials. It doesn't make sense. If you want to have tariffs on finished products because you're wanting to make sure that it's the value added that you get, maybe there's an argument there,

but it makes no sense to tariff steel or aluminum or copper or oil and gas or food products. It doesn't make sense to tariff any of those because you're just making it more expensive for your value-added manufacturers. So if we can frame our interests in terms of the American interests, I think we'll get to a deal. He does campaign on America First, and you do talk about Alberta first. Is there, how much overlap is there between a Danielle Smith conservative and a MAGA conservative? I would say what we've seen now is that we're very much a Canada first movement. And I am too.

I'm constantly looking for ways that we can now do more business, East and West. I mean, those are the bulk of the conversations that I have right now. And I would love to build pipelines north-southeast and west. But if I had my priority, I would rather work with our friends in British Columbia and nationally to try to get new markets opened up by going up the Port of Prince Rupert with a million barrel a day bitumen pipeline and opening up all those markets in Asia. Or working with our friends, Scott and Wob to get a pipeline either to Churchill or maybe with Doug to get one up to James Bay so that we can, with some ice breakers, get our product up and over to Europe. But those to me are really interesting nation-building projects, and that's what we've got to be talking about now. So I'm far more in that framework. If it does turn out that we're able to get some agreement with the United States on tariffs

and return to the kind of relationship we had under the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and build more pipelines to the U.S. I'd like to do that, too. But a lot of my effort right now is spent working with my fellow premiers. I want to check something with the source that I heard, which is when you went to Mar-a-Lago, you were apparently told by Trump's aides, he does not like to be contradicted. And I wonder, first of all, is that right? It is right.

It is right. Okay. Do you think world leaders, including, of course, the new prime minister of Canada, have figured out that you must flatter Trump's ego first before you can talk Turkey with him? Or you find areas where you can agree first.

So when I was told that, I said, okay, well, I want to see if I can get him to agree that he wants to buy more oil and gas from Canada. And he did say yes to that. So you should always try to sort of, start with areas of common ground and agreement. And I think that with President Trump, it was, in some ways, he's pretty transparent about what he wants. He wanted us to meet our 2% NATO commitment, now 5%. He wanted us to be serious about Arctic security. He wants us to be serious

about the fentanyl and border crisis. He cares about critical minerals. He's concerned about China. He wants to be an AI superpower. He wants to be an energy dominance superpower. And if all of those things are not in conflict with what Canada wants as well. I just think we have to learn how to frame our arguments in terms that he will hear. If we are asking him, do this because it benefits us, Canada, I don't know that's a very persuasive argument. I know, but it used to be, and I want to ask you about this, because back in the day, I'm going back 40 years now, when Brian Mulrooney was the prime minister and he wanted an acid rain agreement from the United States, and everybody was telling Ronald Reagan, don't do it. Ronald Reagan said, we are going to do it. Ronald Reagan said we are going

do it because Brian needs it. We don't live in that world anymore. Do you regret that? I think they had a very good personal relationship. And I think when you look at all of the big deals that have been signed around the world historically, it begins with a really good personal relationship between two world leaders. So Mulroney had that with Reagan, but so did Margaret Thatcher. She had that with Reagan as well. I think there was some cordiality during the Clinton years also. So it is a little bit difficult when you've got two political leaders that come from different ideological perspectives. But I thought that their relationship started off a heck of a lot better than I did with Justin Trudeau. And it's still new.

So I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt. Let's see if Prime Minister Carney is able to make some inroads and develop that relationship. And then it may end up resulting in an agreement. Here's another thing I want to check with the source. I am told you obviously had a lot of admiration for Margaret Thatcher. She was known as the Iron Lady. Do they call you the Iron Lady of Alberta? I have heard that.

Maybe behind my back. I don't know that I've been called that. Not to your face? I did have someone do, there's this online, I don't know if you're allowed to call them tweeters anymore. What do they call them now that they're on X? Xers. Online Xer. And he keeps using AI to generate images of me.

So he generated like a Game of Thrones, Queen of the North image of me. My husband loved it so much that I printed it off for him and it's on his desk. But that might be my favorite image that I've seen. Okay. I want to ask you if I can, just a few questions that are a little more personal and out of the headlines. For example, I discovered your name is actually Marlena Danielle Smith. Why do people call you Danielle instead of Marlena? My mom always intended to call me Danielle.

and it was just musical to the ear. She said, Danielle Marlena sounded better than Marlena. Marlena Daniel sounded better than Danielle Marlena. She didn't do that with any of my Sibs. All of my siblings are their first name. They have a first name and a second name. They go by their first name. So it's been the bane of my existence.

It wasn't as bad prior to 9-11, but after 9-11, I've had to start traveling using my first name. Because of requirements. No one told you that. No. Where does Marlena come? from? A song. But the song, the Marlena in the song is spelled differently from the way you spell you're Marlena. I know. It's a mystery. That may be something I have to set up an interview with

mom for. She'll remember. Okay. I'm going to list a bunch of things here. McDonald's, a bingo parlor, waitressing, school board trustee, Canadian Property Rights Research Institute, TV host, radio host, Canadian Federation of Independent Business. You've done all those things. Which of all of those jobs, do you think best helps prepare you for politics? I would see my last two, Albert Enterprise Group, as well as being a radio host on chorus. For a couple of reasons, when I was with Albert Enterprise Group, they were mostly private businesses. So I got to see the part of the market that is not subject to the up and down of the stock market. It doesn't have the regular reporting. They're not storefronts that you walk through. It's mostly business to business.

And I saw how much government regulation really interferes with their ability to do their work. So business advocacy has been very important to me in trying to find a way to make sure that job creators are not interfered with what they do. But the radio host job was a good one for me because there's something about being on radio because you have to be on for three or three and a half hours. You talk to a lot of people. I think I did 30 to 35 guests a week. But I always had a call-in segment. And I was just always struck by the number of people who would call in sharing, sometimes deeply personal stories and sometimes really heart-wrenching stories. And so it got me to really remember how fragile people are.

They can be really hurt, especially by government action. And we have to be very careful in government when we're passing policy to put it through a lens of how it's going to impact real people. So I would say that those two final experiences were the last ones that I needed to prepare me for the job. One of the things that I remember this when I was on your radio show, you are really good. I mean, you're a very good talker. And I wonder whether, clearly, you have gained a huge amount of confidence over the years in your ability to speak and communicate. I wonder if that sometimes gets you in trouble because you think you can talk your way out of anything and you sometimes can't. Well, what I also learned about talk radio, which I really liked, is that if you make a mistake, someone will call you in and correct you immediately.

And I don't have a personality type that gets my backup when people correct me. Some do. I just feel like that's the way that I learn. I have a pretty defined worldview. I have a pretty good idea of what I think is the right idea or the right policies. But I'm not always right. And so someone will come in and say, well, have you thought of this? That's why what I do love about the exercise of journalism is talking to a broad variety of different perspectives.

And sometimes it affirms what you think. and sometimes it challenges it, and you have to be open to making changes. Where I get in trouble is that when I was on radio, I learned how to stack my arguments. And so what I would do is if I begin with my strongest argument, and then I'd move to my second strongest argument, then I go down, I have like six or seven reasons

why someone should agree with me. And that can be a little bit overwhelming. I sometimes feel like people feel like I'm trying to bulldoze them. So I do try to be. A little more restrained that I used to be in my talk show host days. In our last few minutes here, let me ask you a couple of snappers here. Of any premier in Canadian history, which one is your favorite? Oh, Ralph Klein.

Because? Well, he had a real transformational challenge that he had when he first came in, going from terrible books that he inherited and a huge debt. And he made some transformational decisions in how programs were delivered. And the ideology that he followed was the labor ideology from New Zealand, which is one that has stayed with me, is again, if you're going to spend money, you've got to earn it first, which is why you need to have a strong economy in order to take care of people. Same question, prime minister. Your favorite prime minister of all time, and why? Margaret Thatcher. I kind of meant Canadian prime minister, but okay. How about Canadian prime ministers?

I like different prime ministers for different reasons. I probably won't surprise you that I probably have more affinity towards the conservative prime ministers. But I got involved in politics when Brian Mulrooney was prime minister. He was near the end of his tenure. But what I loved about Mulroney sitting around talking with my dad, ended the National Energy Program, tackled the issue of inflation, brought down interest rates, established the free trade agreement. But he made some things, some decisions.

that were a little unpopular, like the GST, and the decision around the aircraft that went to Quebec instead of Manitoba and ended up collapsing his leadership. But I think on balance, he had a lot to be proud of after he left. Stephen Harper, I admired some big early decisions that he made. You're getting rid of some irritations from the West, like the gun registry and the Canadian Wheat Board. And he had his own challenge trying to manage through a major financial crisis.

But I also admire the work of Kretchen and Martin together. And when you look back on history, that is the period of time that we had the most successive surpluses and really started paying down our debt. And that didn't happen easily. I have a lot of respect for politicians to make courageous decisions like that because you just can't keep on printing or spending money forever without being able to get back into balance. You know, Peter Lohyed won four straight elections here and never lost a seat.

Can you imagine doing that? No, that's remarkable. I already lost seats, so I'm already broken that streak. Last question. I had the chance to interview Conrad Black a few weeks ago. And he said, unprompted by me, that he thought you were the best politician in the country today. Oh, my gosh. Most effective.

How flattering. What do you think is the most important lesson you have learned? Because your path to the Premier's office was hardly what I would call a straight line, right? That was the most circuitous son of a gun I think a lot of people have seen. in the history of politics in this country. What's the most important lesson along that path that you learned that has contributed to your being in the Premier's office today? You have to start with finding areas of common ground.

I didn't used to be like that. I think maybe when I first got started in politics, I was more interested in the debate and finding the way to get into a little bit of a tussle. But it just hurts relationships. And so you have to be. You always have to enter into a discussion with somebody trying to preserve the relationship, trying to find the common ground.

If you can find one thing you agree on, you might be able to find two things that you agree on. And so the joke that I make is that every person I meet is either a current UCP supporter or a future UCP supporter. I just have to find that one issue where we're going to agree. And it just, it changes the approach that you take. It's just a lot more fun of a job when you have good relationships and you can enjoy it than when you're fighting. I know that that may seem to be counter to what you would observe in Eastern Canada. You have to pick your moments. And I always do try to start off with some common ground.

But you have to also be prepared to fight for the things that you believe. And then people will trust you. If you can say, hey, look, I can find some agreement over here. But this isn't a hard line for us. Then I think people will follow you. Premier Smith, thanks so much for your time. My pleasure. Thank you.