Alberta premier says she'd form second Fair Deal Panel if Ottawa doesn't meet policy demands

Jack Farrell · The Canadian Press

· Posted: Mar 21, 2025 8:28 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 minutes ago

A time aft threatening a nationalist unity crisis, Premier Danielle Smith says she would onslaught a sheet to canvass Albertans connected what to bash if her database of demands is ignored.

Smith, facing repeated questions from reporters successful Calgary astir however acold she'd beryllium consenting to spell successful a renewed combat with Ottawa, said Friday she'd onslaught a 2nd Fair Deal Panel to "listen to what it is that Albertans privation to bash successful consequence."

Smith's latest demands, posted connected societal media Thursday aft a gathering with Prime Minister Mark Carney successful Edmonton, see ending a fig of policies enactment successful spot nether erstwhile premier curate Justin Trudeau.

She says those policies, specified arsenic Ottawa's projected emissions cap, person done thing but harm Alberta's lipid and state sector.

Smith said successful a connection aft the gathering that she wanted her demands meaningfully addressed wrong months of the adjacent national election, which is expected to beryllium called Sunday.

The archetypal Fair Deal Panel was formed by erstwhile United Conservative premier and Smith's predecessor Jason Kenney soon aft helium took bureau successful 2019, citing the province's wide vexation with the national government.

The sheet was tasked with uncovering ways to summation leverage against Ottawa.

At the time, then-Opposition NDP person Rachel Notley said the full endeavour was a mode for Kenney to stoke "the fires of separation successful bid to distract from his ain economical failures."

The sheet published a study successful 2020 with much than 2 twelve recommendations, including to make an Alberta pension program and to regenerate the RCMP with a provincial constabulary force.

Kenney adopted neither. Five years later, Smith hasn't explicitly committed to the recommendations.

Smith said Friday her database of preferred national argumentation reversals is reasonable, particularly if Carney's Liberal authorities is arsenic antithetic arsenic Trudeau's, arsenic Carney says it is.

She besides took contented with what she said were conflicting messages coming from Carney's government.

She said that successful their gathering Carney alluded to the anticipation of scrapping the yet-to-be-implemented emissions cap. But Environment Minister Terry Duguid told The Canadian Press successful a caller interrogation that the headdress would spell ahead.

The mixed messaging led Smith to telephone connected Friday for clarity from the premier minister.

Smith said Albertans and Canadians needed to cognize what the committedness is earlier an election.

Besides ditching the emissions cap, Smith said she wants guarantees that pipelines tin beryllium built successful each absorption and that Ottawa's single-use plastics prohibition volition beryllium abolished, "so we tin commencement utilizing straws again."

She's besides calling for net-zero energy and conveyance targets to beryllium shelved and for Canada's greenwashing instrumentality to beryllium repealed.

"None of what I enactment connected present is unreasonable," Smith said. "And if determination is simply a existent alteration of heart, past the premier curate and his furniture volition determination successful that direction."

NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said Thursday that Smith is "playing chickenhearted with people's lives," astatine a clip erstwhile galore Albertans consciousness their livelihoods are already nether menace due to the fact that of tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump.

"It's juvenile, it's childish, it's not precise bright, and it's surely not going to get Alberta what we need," Nenshi said.

Smith provided fewer details connected what she'd expect retired of a 2nd Fair Deal Panel but said she believes successful "direct democracy."

"I ever consciousness similar large important decisions request to beryllium enactment to a referendum of each Albertans," she said.

"I don't privation to prejudge what it is Albertans mightiness want. But determination are mechanisms to beryllium capable to place those, truthful we tin enactment it to the people."