Alberta Premier Danielle Smith finds herself on the centre of controversy due to her refusal to be a part of a “Team Canada” strategy to Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
Whereas different provincial premiers have signed on to a typical strategy, Smith visited the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida to make the case in opposition to tariffs — at the least these affecting the Alberta oil and gasoline trade.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith at a gathering of Canada’s premiers in Toronto in December 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
She refused to hitch the opposite first ministers in signing an announcement committing to a unified strategy.
She’s additionally signalled her disapproval of proposals to limit power exports or to impose an export tax on them if Trump exempts them from the tariffs.
This has angered many Canadians, together with some Albertans.
Alberta oil exports
Smith’s maverick strategy displays Alberta’s distinctive financial circumstances, its inner politics and its longstanding conflicts with the federal authorities. Any effort to deliver Alberta right into a Staff Canada strategy must take these components into consideration.
Canada’s high export to the US is power merchandise, principally oil and gasoline. Virtually the entire crude oil that Canada exports goes to the U.S., and most of it comes from Alberta. Alberta exports about 80 per cent of the crude oil it produces.
Though it’s not Canada’s largest province, Alberta is Canada’s largest exporter to the U.S. Meaning the province’s economic system is extra uncovered to the Trump’s tariff threats than every other province.
Crude oil exports to the U.S. are vital each to the Albertan economic system and to the provincial authorities’s funds. In 2024-25, royalties from bitumen are projected to be value $15.6 billion to the Alberta authorities. Put one other manner, 20 per cent of the revenues the Alberta authorities expects to absorb this fiscal 12 months are from this supply. This doesn’t consider income from company and revenue tax from the trade.
Pumpjacks seen exterior Calgary. In Alberta alone, roughly 237,000 drilled wells will must be deserted throughout the coming years.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Inside politics
Alberta has a protracted historical past of ties to the U.S. Historian Nelson Wiseman has argued that American settlers who got here to Alberta early within the twentieth century formed the province’s political tradition alongside the traces of America’s rugged individualism. The rise of the oil trade created new ties between Alberta and Texas.
Previous to the 2024 election, Albertans had been extra probably than different Canadians to say that they’d vote for Trump if they might vote within the American election. Based on a Leger survey, 29 per cent of Albertans would have voted for Trump as in comparison with 21 per cent of Canadians.
Current polling information from the Angus Reid Institute reveals that the overwhelming majority of Albertans (82 per cent) reject the concept of changing into the 51st state. Though this can be a giant majority, it’s smaller than in the remainder of the nation at 90 per cent.
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This implies the variety of voters who would view Smith’s go to to Mar-a-Lago positively is larger in Alberta than in different provinces. Given Smith’s populist orientation, it’s cheap to assume her core supporters can be inclined to view the go to favourably.
Beefs with Ottawa
There’s a lengthy historical past of regional alienation in Alberta, courting again to 1905 when it turned a province. Management over pure sources has been a persistent battle between Alberta and Ottawa. These conflicts heightened within the early Nineteen Eighties over the Nationwide Power Program.
For the reason that election of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal authorities in 2015, there was vital battle over the province’s skill to construct pipelines, the carbon tax and proposed rules to restrict greenhouse gasoline emissions.
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Smith ran for her get together’s management in 2022 on a platform of passing a Sovereignty Act to empower the province to chorus from implementing federal legal guidelines. The laws she ultimately handed couldn’t accomplish this throughout the rule of legislation, however did set out a framework for conflicts with Ottawa.
The day after saying that she wouldn’t signal on to the Staff Canada strategy, Smith launched a social media assertion that revisited a number of long-standing grievances with the federal authorities, together with failure to make sure pipelines had been constructed, efforts to manage greenhouse gasoline emissions, and to deal with Alberta taxpayers with respect after they contributed to equalization.
Is there frequent floor?
Having the most important exporting province exterior the Staff Canada strategy in opposition to Trump doesn’t place the nation nicely to barter with a second Trump administration.
Public disputes over whether or not Canada would restrict exports to the U.S. have revealed at the least a part of Canada’s negotiating place.
Might Alberta be introduced into the fold? The decades-long animosity between Alberta and the federal authorities makes it troublesome to think about. When a brand new prime minister tackles these challenges, will probably be important to consider the financial and political circumstances which have introduced Canada up to now.
