Alberta Premier Danielle Smith finds herself on the centre of controversy due to her refusal to be part of a “Team Canada” approach 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 estate in Florida to make the case in opposition to tariffs — no less than these affecting the Alberta oil and fuel business.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
She refused to join the other first ministers in signing a statement committing to a unified strategy.
She’s additionally signalled her disapproval of proposals to limit vitality exports or to impose an export tax on them if Trump exempts them from the tariffs.
This has angered many Canadians, including 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 convey Alberta right into a Group Canada strategy must take these components under consideration.
Canada’s prime export to america is energy products, largely oil and fuel. Almost all of the 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. Which means the province’s financial system is extra uncovered to the Trump’s tariff threats than every other province.
Crude oil exports to the U.S. are essential each to the Albertan financial system and to the provincial authorities’s funds. In 2024-25, royalties from bitumen are projected to be price $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 take note of income from company and earnings tax from the business.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Inside politics
Alberta has an extended 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 shaped the province’s political culture alongside the traces of America’s rugged individualism. The rise of the oil business 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 may vote within the American election. In line with a Leger survey, 29 per cent of Albertans would have voted for Trump as in comparison with 21 per cent of Canadians.
Recent polling data from the Angus Reid Institute exhibits that the overwhelming majority of Albertans (82 per cent) reject the thought 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 greater in Alberta than in different provinces. Given Smith’s populist orientation, it’s cheap to suppose 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, relationship again to 1905 when it grew to become a province. Management over pure sources has been a persistent battle between Alberta and Ottawa. These conflicts heightened in the early 1980s over the National Energy Program.
For the reason that election of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal authorities in 2015, there was vital battle over the province’s potential to construct pipelines, the carbon tax and proposed laws to restrict greenhouse fuel emissions.
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Smith ran for her celebration’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 eventually passed couldn’t accomplish this inside the rule of regulation, however did set out a framework for conflicts with Ottawa.
The day after asserting that she wouldn’t signal on to the Group Canada strategy, Smith launched a social media statement 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 fuel emissions, and to deal with Alberta taxpayers with respect once they contributed to equalization.
Is there widespread floor?
Having the biggest exporting province exterior the Group Canada strategy in opposition to Trump doesn’t place the nation effectively to barter with a second Trump administration.
Public disputes over whether or not Canada would restrict exports to the U.S. have revealed no less than 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 tough to think about. When a brand new prime minister tackles these challenges, will probably be important to take note of the financial and political circumstances which have introduced Canada up to now.
