USA

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith — who’s stood in staunch opposition to the idea of cutting off energy exports to the U.S. in response to the potential imposition of tariffs — insists she isn’t creating a national unity crisis by publicly opposing her fellow premiers on the issue.

“I think the problem that we saw is that we were getting together as a group of premiers and the prime minister saying, ‘let’s not negotiate this in public,’ and I did my part, saying, ‘let’s focus on the things that we know the Americans care about: national security and border security,’ and everybody else went off freelancing,” Smith told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos in an interview airing Sunday.

No Canadian has been more visible, more strategic, and more on-the-ground on the U.S.-Canada tariff file than Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. You don’t have to like her approach to recognize that she has been enormously successful in securing an in-person audience with decision-makers in the U.S., to whom she has been making her case for Canadian carve-outs to U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25-per-cent tariff threat. (As she confirmed in a news conference on Jan. 21, she is pushing for a national exemption, and not simply a provincial one.) Her social media feeds have documented her meeting with senators from West Virginia, Florida and Oklahoma, governors from North Dakota, Louisiana, Arkansas, Montana, Mississippi and others in the days before and after inauguration – and that’s following her visit to Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, where she had the direct ear of Mr. Trump.

As a wise Canadian once put it, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. And when it comes to the partnership with Canada, the average American has no idea what they’ve got.

Before President Donald Trump drives his tariff bulldozer through paradise, Canada needs to launch a crash program of talking to Americans about the world’s most successful economic relationship and friendship, what will happen when it’s gone, and how much that will cost them.

With a PM like Trudeau it’s a wonder they let any of us cross the border.

As Canadian politicians try to come up with a response to Donald Trump’s tariff threat, a sticking point has emerged over a significant Canadian retaliatory option: limiting exports of Canadian oil and gas to the U.S.

The majority of Canada’s oil exports, largely produced in Alberta, go to the United States. And Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has flatly refused to entertain the option of cutting off that supply to American refineries if Trump slaps a 25-per-cent tariff on all Canadian goods, including gas and oil.

“Continental energy security” was the watchword of both governments and industry for much of the past quarter century in North America: the idea that by linking the U.S. and Canada in a tight web of pipelines and refineries, both countries would protect themselves from threats and hostile trade actions that — it was assumed — would come from outside North America.

The website of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers is still littered with references to the now-obsolete notion that increasing interdependence with the U.S. would make Canada safer: “Over the past decade, Canada has strengthened its continental energy security by reducing reliance on overseas oil and increasing the share of imports from the United States.”

“Continental energy security” remains the right approach.