In recent weeks, I’ve found myself wrestling with an all-too-familiar irritation: taxes. Not the paying of them — which is a civic duty — but the monstrous, ever-expanding burden of them. We Canadians have long accepted that our governments dip deeply into our pockets because, we told ourselves, the returns were worth it. Roads. Healthcare. Security. Civilization itself.
HUNTSVILLE, Ontario — Many Canadians are furious with President Donald Trump, aghast at his trade war and his calls to annex their country. Then there’s Danielle Smith, premier of Alberta. “We have a longstanding relationship with the Americans that goes back over 100 years, and it’s going to last 100 years or more,” she says in an interview with POLITICO Magazine.
Smith’s approach may be distinct in part because she’s a Conservative who meets regularly with Trump administration officials. Her oil-and-gas-rich Alberta also has a large trading relationship with the United States that is largely tariff-free.
The recent comments from RCMP Staff Sergeant Camille Habel, who decried traditional values as a path to extremism, should be fuel for every Albertan committed to building a provincial police force that truly reflects our values, not Ottawa’s vision of what we should become.
Habel’s statement, framing beliefs rooted in community and local culture as potentially dangerous, highlights a growing disconnect between the RCMP and the values that Albertans hold dear. This underscores the urgent need for a police force that is accountable to our province and its distinct way of life.
OTTAWA — The premiers of Alberta and Ontario both said at a meeting Monday that they are cautiously optimistic that Prime Minister Mark Carney will successfully get a new oil pipeline built in Canada. But Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the planning should not be limited to just one.
Meeting with her Ontario counterpart in Calgary, Smith said Alberta crude oil should have access to a “growing share” of pipelines. “I’m of the view there’s probably room for more than one pipeline, probably several.”
It should be evident to Albertans that the province is on a collision course with the federal Liberal government, driven by a fundamental disagreement: will Alberta and Western Canada be allowed to fully develop its hydrocarbon endowment, or will that economic value be lost in pursuit of the climate policy known as “net zero”?
This collision is inevitable and imminent. Net zero is difficult to reconcile with growing, or even sustaining, existing hydrocarbon production in Canada.
Sometimes you get the impression the Liberals want Alberta gone.
CALGARY — Whether Alberta should withhold social services from some immigrants is among the issues Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is tabling for debate this summer when she travels the province to consult citizens on potential referendum questions.
The tour is part of what Smith has dubbed the “Alberta Next” panel. At a news conference Tuesday, she announced details of its work and named its 15 members.
At the same time, six online surveys were launched on the panel’s website, which are to help inform what questions the government puts to a referendum next year.
SASKATOON, Sask. — Pushing for an oil pipeline to be on the first list of major projects to be fast-tracked by the federal government is about more than mounting “just an ideological argument,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said at the opening of a meeting between premiers and the prime minister on Monday.
Speaking to reporters on her way into the First Ministers’ Meeting in Saskatoon, Smith expressed hope other premiers would rally around her desire to see a pipeline built carrying Alberta bitumen to the coast of British Columbia.
All of Canada is waiting to see which of the Mark Carneys that we saw in the recent election campaign emerges as the new prime minister. The two choices are the long-standing climate-change advocate who was apparently the inspirer-in-chief of the Justin Trudeau government, and who persuaded that regime to bind itself with non-biodegradable hoops to the notion that climate was the greatest problem facing Canada. This, of course, is nonsense. Canada’s greatest problems are economic competitiveness and a declining comparative standard of living with steady net capital outflows, as well as the disintegration of the Confederation and the official self-degradation of the country.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says Prime Minister Mark Carney has the power to squash a separatist movement.
Smith made the remarks Thursday afternoon as she wrapped up a meeting in Yellowknife with Canada’s western premiers, who said in a joint statement they’ve agreed to identify, plan and develop new economic corridors to connect provincial resources to international markets.
During an afternoon press conference, Smith emphasized Carney is the one with the ability to make this happen and keep Canada united.
Is Alberta truly strong and free? That’s a loaded question these days. It has been nearly month since the 2025 federal election, and I think it’s safe to say Alberta continues to experience a fierce wave of political rage.
Talk of independence is at a fever pitch, surpassing what was experienced in the 1980s or the 2000s. The tut-tut condescension of Eastern media, and the finger-wagging of federalist lap dogs like failed premier Jason Kenney, are doing nothing to quell the sentiment. These voices don’t even register in our communities anymore.
The Alberta government is launching a new research centre to study the political and economic dynamics between Canada and the United States, as U.S. President Donald Trump‘s trade war and 51st-state rhetoric have upended the previously close relationship between the two countries.
The New North American Initiative, led by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, will receive $6.5-million over three years from the province. Post-secondary institutions and universities on both sides of the border will share expertise on navigating the new Canada-U.S. landscape.
It’s apparent that a fourth Liberal victory has triggered a surge in anti-Ottawa sentiment in Alberta, but have things changed so much that a populace long opposed to pulling the province out of the Canada Pension Plan now supports it?
One reading of fresh polling commissioned by the Premier Danielle Smith’s government argues as much.
A Postmedia writer got his hands on a provincially funded survey by pollster Janet Brown’s Trend Research, and used the results to argue that most Albertans — 55 per cent — now back an APP instead of a CPP.
OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith didn’t hide her dismay at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s choice of Toronto-area MP Julie Dabrusin as his new environment minister on Tuesday.
“I am very concerned the prime minister has appointed what appears to be yet another anti-oil and gas environment minister,” said Smith in a statement on Carney’s cabinet picks.
h/t DS
As Alberta lurches towards a potential referendum on seceding from Canada, a majority of Canadians think the threat of separation should be taken seriously.
A new Leger poll for the Association for Canadian Studies shows that 52 per cent of Canadians believe the threats should be taken seriously — a view that’s held most strongly in Alberta itself.
Alberta separation is top of the news in the United States.
USA is paying attention to what Danielle Smith and Alberta is saying.
Will Mark Carney Liberals finally listen? pic.twitter.com/3JvX4Wn00K
— David Krayden (@DavidKrayden) May 7, 2025
So, Ontario Premier Doug Ford is unhappy with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and her hints at a separation referendum next year in Alberta. Well, the feeling is mutual. Ford isn’t very popular or respected in Alberta.
I’ve taken to calling Ford the Liberal Premier of Ontario. I know he styles himself as a Conservative, but after his behaviour during the recent federal election an outside observer unfamiliar with his party affiliation would be forgiven for assuming Ford and Liberal Leader Mark Carney were political bunkmates.
How can you not like Danielle Smith?
She has no problem in standing up against Ford and telling him to stand in his own lane.
I'm from BC. So wish we had a premier like her.pic.twitter.com/FyC8utOFqt
— TheRealMrBench (@therealmrbench) May 8, 2025
An insincere change of heart by Carney Suck-Up Ford
WHOA – SOMETHING HAPPENED
They CLEARLY had a meeting about Alberta.
Doug Ford suddenly talking about his great relationship with Danielle Smith
and how Albertans have been ignored for 10 years?? pic.twitter.com/mJYuCOvBPd
— Tablesalt (@Tablesalt13) May 7, 2025
