Trump’s Threats Could Backfire, Boosting Liberals and Straining U.S.-Canada Ties – Alberta Premier
The latest on the trade war front, President Trump is moving ahead with planned tariffs for Canada and Mexico on March 4th. Question is, is Canada prepared and what’s the plan of action? Joining us today is the Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith. Premier, always good to be with you.
Welcome back. Thanks, Danielle. Nice to talk to you.
Yeah, well, look, the question is, Premier, if President Trump manages to force Canada’s hand here, what can Canada possibly do? I mean, if Canada retaliates, he will escalate as we saw with Colombia. What I hope happens, because this is what happened last time, is that it really was about border security, fentanyl, and preventing that dangerous drug from getting into the United States. And we were able to do enough to demonstrate that we were matching the US federal government’s efforts.
And so, as I understand it, we’re calling him our fentanyl czar, Kevin Brasso is in Washington for meetings this week. And what I would hope is that by showing that we have also matched the Americans in declaring cartels to be terrorist groups, we put 10,000 people on the border issue and shutting down fentanyl super labs, and we have also put in the Blackhawk helicopters, drones, additional enforcement with drug-sniffing dogs, and we’ve also actually apprehended a lot of product going in and out from America over the last month. I think once that is on the table, they’ll see that we are engaged wholeheartedly in addressing the problem, and I hope we’ll still be able to avoid them.
We got to that point last time, so I haven’t lost hope yet this time. Okay, yeah, if we could just dig a little deeper there, because I was going to ask you, do you feel that Canada’s response is enough to appease President Trump? I was listening to a press conference yesterday, and he said it was going to take a lot to kind of make him happy here on the front. He repeated 300,000 fentanyl deaths a year.
Do you truly think that what Canada has done is enough that he’ll look at it and be like, all right, it’s good? I would say my read on the President and the Commerce Secretary is that their objective is zero deaths from fentanyl, which is a wonderful objective to have. We have that objective. We have a very high per capita number of overdose deaths as well.
The question is, can it be done in a week? I think that’s where we have to have a realistic discussion. There’s two aspects of trying to deal with this deadly scourge. One is a law enforcement action, and the other is getting people who are addicted to this deadly drug into treatment.
We’re taking a two-track approach. We’ve been five years into a plan on addressing the issue of opioid deaths, and we’ve seen a massive decline in the last year, 40%. We’re not at zero yet.
If we can demonstrate that we’re doing both, we’re cutting off the supply, we’re working on recovery, and it is a long-term process, I’m hoping that we’ll be able to have a breakthrough there. If the goal is to have zero fentanyl deaths in a week, I just want to manage expectations. It’s a hard addiction to be able to battle, and that’s what we’ve got to be realistic about.
It kind of begs the question though, why did it take President Trump to get to this point of having to wake up to the fentanyl crisis and really crack down on it? Is it not something that Canada should have been on before? Every province is different. Remember, we’re a lot more conservative province in Alberta, and so we’ve taken a very different approach to the federal government. We were frustrated that they’ve taken a bit of a soft on crime approach.
They don’t keep these bad guys behind bars. Some jurisdictions have gone for what they call safe supply, which is similar to what America has down its east coast, and we’ve said we’re not doing that. We don’t think there is such a thing as a safe supply of opioids, and we embarked down this path of trying to get people into recovery.
We also had legislation, I believe six years ago, to ban pill presses because we were beginning to see that that was already becoming a problem. We’ve also developed different teams. We’ve got a team that shuts down drug houses, another one that apprehends fugitives, and we were just putting the finishing touches on our fentanyl border team when the President got elected, and so we were able to accelerate that.
I would say that our province recognized this problem years ago, and we are slowly but surely bringing along the federal government and other provinces to our way of thinking. We just announced, for instance, that we’re bringing in compassionate intervention legislation. We’re going to order people into treatment.
We’re not going to sit and watch them overdose 186 times and slowly kill themselves on the street. We’re going to end the demand by getting people clean and on pathway to recovery. I would say that those are the kind of steps that we need to take, and I hope that the President sees that America can follow down in the same path, but it is going to probably take several years for us to be able to really turn the corner on this.
Let me ask you. Let’s say the tariffs do move forward. Let’s just play out the scenario.
We know that the U.S. gets 60 percent of its crude oil from Canada. Couldn’t Canada use that to its advantage in a negotiation? I think we already have. I mean, what I’ve seen with the President is he is open to a reasonable argument, and he has some very good people who understand the energy industry very well, like Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, like Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
I think the fact that when the initial fentanyl tariffs, the 25 percent, were announced, the fact that they were giving a lower rate to energy resources tells me that that message has gotten through. It’s not just oil and gas. It’s also critical minerals, of which Canada, I think, has all of the ones that the Americans need, and we continue to be the principal supplier to America of those resources, whereas in the rest of the world, China is wrapping up the supply of those critical minerals.
I think we have a great partnership there, plus electricity. British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, they all sell electricity into some big markets into the United States. I think the recognition that those kind of resources, those raw materials, go into making value-added products that help American industry create products that we then buy back, I think we’ve managed to make that argument there.
We just have to start making it on food, on intermediate products like auto parts, and on every other area where we do have constructive trade relationships, but I think the president is open to a reasonable argument. Well, I was going to ask you, you would know you were the only premier, correct me if I’m wrong, to have been invited by him in person to go down to Mar-a-Lago ahead of his presidency. Can you share any insights from that discussion with him, especially on the front of taking in Canada as the 51st state? How serious do you think he is? Well, I would say I was invited at the invitation of Kevin O’Leary, who, if you know how Mar-a-Lago works, it’s a private club, so you have to get an invitation from a member, so I was a guest of Kevin O’Leary’s, and had an opportunity to have a few words with the president.
I wanted to find out if he was interested in buying more energy from Canada, and he seemed to be interested in that, because I think it also goes to the president’s larger aspirations internationally. If Canada is able to sell into the United States so that American refineries can provide cheap gasoline and diesel and aviation fuel to Americans, then that allows for the US producers to export WTI internationally and use that for strategic purposes. So maybe more gets sold to India so that they’re less reliant on Russia.
Maybe more gets sold into the European markets as well so that they’re less reliant on some of the more hostile regimes. I would say that Canada is able to provide the solution on both fronts to America. Not only can we keep consumer prices low, but we can also then ensure that international security interests are also met.
That’s why I’m continuing to be hopeful that as we make this case, that we’ll be able to maintain this virtually tariff-free relationship. I want to ask you, because many critics are quick to blame PM Trudeau for Canada even finding itself in this position with Trump. Do you think that’s an accurate attack? What I’ve observed is that it seems that the president is fighting with everybody.
I don’t know that he’s singling out Trudeau in any particular way. He does seem to have a large number of grievances with a large number of his trading partners, and so we’re in the mix on that. I think we’ve got one of the best arguments to make about how our integrated economy benefits both.
I know he’s very annoyed by value-added taxes. Those are those national sales taxes, because America doesn’t have a national sales tax. But ours is one of the lowest in the world.
It’s only 5% compared to over 20% that you see in other jurisdictions. So if he’s talking about reciprocal tariffs, I would say that because we have a mostly tariff-free relationship, we should be able to make that argument. But it comes with a price of entry.
We don’t want to be seen by the United States as allowing China to dump cheap goods into our country and making it into the U.S. That was one trade irritant. And we also don’t want to be seen as a jurisdiction that is causing any kind of national security threat to the United States. I think that we have a little bit more work to do on that front so that we can avoid the initial tariffs that he’s promised on March the 4th.
I think it raises an interesting conversation here. Because look, there’s growing resentment in Canada. I speak to my Canadian family and friends all the time.
So many angry at the United States now, angry at President Trump. We saw the crowd booing the anthem during the hockey match. We get it.
But I think the conversation is, is it fair to blame the United States and President Trump? Or is this really a question of self-reflection and a moment of self-reflection for Canada that has relied on the U.S. for so long as a main and sole trading partner for having barriers to interprovincial trade, which are only unwinding now? I would say that perhaps the President misjudged the Canadian potential enthusiasm for a 51st state. Maybe someone told him that it would be welcomed with open arms. I think he maybe got some misinformation on that.
Because what it has resulted in is exactly that self-reflection you’re talking about. People are saying, why is our sovereignty under threat? And then as we start looking, we say, oh, gee, every single province does more trade with the southern states just south of them than with each other. And so we’ve begun a discussion in Canada about how do we build more pipelines? How do we build more transmission lines? How do we get more port access? How do we take care of our Arctic security? Because we have an obligation to do that for our own sake.
And so I think that that’s been a very good conversation. We’ve got our trade ministers getting together to talk about how to do mutual recognition and just tear down all of the interprovincial non-tariff barriers between our provinces, which is good. I think having more trade with each other is positive.
Maintaining a strong relationship with the United States is going to benefit both our countries, but then also looking internationally for other markets so that we can diversify our customer base. I think that that is a good, healthy conversation for a sovereign state to have. Yeah, well, just to go back to my earlier point, it almost took President Trump kicking Canada in the behind to wake up the nation.
I mean, I’m so happy to see Canadians protective of Canada once again, but it’s like, where was everyone? Where has everyone been for the past decade? I think prior to Donald Trump getting reelected, you have to remember that the Biden administration was very much in sync with where this prime minister is. And before that, too, with the Obama administration and the signing on to the Paris Accord, I think everybody was in a bit of a brain fog thinking that we could run our economies off wind and solar and batteries. And then something has happened.
Electricity got very expensive. Gasoline and diesel got very expensive. Supply chains got disrupted.
And we ended up with a supply chain crisis, an affordability crisis, an inflation crisis. And the regular consumers, regular homeowners just said, enough is enough. And that is what everybody’s had to respond to, is that there’s been a recalibration.
I think America was there faster, maybe than the rest of the world. But I think everybody is having that soul searching that they have to do, because you’ve got to take care of your people first. And when people are hurting, that’s the priority.
So I would say that it’s not just Canada having to do that. Europe is having to do that as well. And I think we’re ending up with a far more practical reality that is going to be beneficial.
It’s going to help generate more jobs, but also help to ease the burden on consumers. Just switching gears here, watching the liberal leader debate the other night, I want to bring up Freeland’s comments where she claimed that the US, quote, turned predator. She spoke about partnering with Denmark and nuclear-armed France, UK, the take on the US, who she now perceives as the enemy.
I mean, she basically brought up nuclear war. Curious to get your thoughts on these comments. People say crazy things in a leadership race, and I certainly can’t defend anything she said.
I would say that the idea that we should continue to have partnerships with allies is a positive one. I mean, we do have some European allies, but those allies are also allies of the United States. America is our closest friend and trading partner.
We have gone to wars together, fought together. We’ll continue to do that. We have an integrated NORAD system where we equally support each other.
We’re talking about how we would be able to expand that partnership, and so I don’t put much credibility. I would just say having that kind of inflammatory language at this point in our relationship with the United States being so tender, I think it was a misjudgment on her part. We only have 10 more days for Justin Trudeau to be prime minister.
There will be a new prime minister, and I hope we can have a reset when that happens. And I’m going to circle back there, but first, just more along these lines, I saw a report from Financial Times reporting that Peter Navarro, close advisor to President Trump, pushing for the U.S. to remove Canada from the Five Eyes intelligence program. It includes the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand.
So military sources I have spoken to say if this were the case, this would be absolutely devastating. Do you have any insights on this, or have you heard anything more? It would be devastating, and I know that there has been some distancing of Canada from that Five Eyes partnership in previous years. And part of it was because I think a naive government, federal government, thought that they could have a free trade agreement with China and thought that they could have Huawei be the provider of our IT infrastructure.
And I think when the two Michaels, two of our diplomats, were taken into Chinese custody and held for four years, I think that that really changed Canadians’ views about China. But prior to that, I could imagine the Americans were looking and saying, why are you getting so close to this nation that’s a communist totalitarian regime? Why are you doing that? And so I think that there’s probably a little bit of work that needs to be done to repair the trust on that relationship. But I can tell you, Canadians have no appetite to get closer with China after what we’ve seen with that regime over the last number of years.
It may have been 10 years ago. I think a lot of people had hopes that China, as it became more developed economically, that it would develop also more democratically on the political side. It’s been the reverse.
They’re actually a predatory nation that is trying to export their particular brand of state totalitarian capitalism. And I think what has happened is that it’s been hollowing out all of the manufacturing sectors, the key resource industries in all of our allies, us Americans and other nations included. And now we’ve all had to realize that we’ve got to respond to that in an appropriate way.
And so Five Eyes is an important part of that. Being part of that partnership is an important part of it. But it has just been in the last few years that I think we realized that China is becoming an increasingly hostile regime.
Yeah, definitely something to keep following. Just to wrap here, Premier, you mentioned the race heating up here, and the Liberals making up substantial ground. I mean, we have a latest Leger poll showing a Liberal party led by, let’s just say, Carney, would beat the Conservatives.
This is a little shocking when just a few weeks ago, the Conservatives seemed absolutely destined for an overwhelming victory. So what has happened? Is it raising the question or the indication that Canadians perhaps feel Carney, right, or possible Carney would do a better job standing up to President Trump than, say, Polyev? What’s it telling us? Well, I have warned those who are close to the President and advisors to the President that the more he threatens Canadian sovereignty, it’s actually creating the opposite effect of what he might like. I think that, in fact, Pierre Polyev and Donald Trump would have a lot in common.
And it would be amazing to see the kind of things we could do in North America to have a Conservative government nationally in Canada and a Conservative government in the United States as well. But I think that what you’re witnessing is the more that the President speaks aggressively, the more it benefits the Liberals. And I think that that could really set back our relationship to have them so far out of sync.
Mark Carney is no friend to oil and gas development. He has written a book about how he would like to keep it in the ground. He believes in the old ideology of wind and solar and batteries.
He thinks that we should aggressively transition away from not just emissions, but use of oil and gas altogether. And I think it would be hostile to America’s interests. So I’m not encouraged to see those poll results.
But this is what I would hope. This is what I would like to see. I would like to see an early election so that we can resolve this problem one way or the other, so that we can put on the table what the two different political parties have to offer.
Canadians can make their choice. And then whosoever at the table has a four-year mandate. And then we really get down to talking about some of the irritants between our two countries and hopefully resolve them.
Yeah, really good points, Premier. I mean, I have one friend who’s a great political analyst who reminds me, look, Canadians love credentials, Bank of England, Bank of Canada. And they see that as a power play for Carney.
Well, and it did actually give him a boost that he was a Bank of Canada governor during one of our most popular conservative prime ministerial tenures under Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper’s made it very clear he does not endorse Mark Carney in any way, shape, or form. But because he was around during that time of the financial crisis, and Canada was seen to weather it relatively well because we have a more concentrated banking industry, I think there is some additional credibility he has for that.
But I would say that when I look at the devastation that we’ve seen in Canada, the decline in productivity, the $175 billion worth of resource projects that have been cancelled, the inability to be able to get our products to new markets, that lies at the feet of the current government. So I’m quite keen to see what a new government will do. Premier Danielle Smith, thank you so much for your time today.
You bet. Thank you. And thank you so much for watching.
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That’s it for me.
