Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says the public desire in her province to quit Canada has never been higher.
Speaking Thursday to reporters in Calgary, Smith said Albertans feel deeply frustrated and angry with Ottawa.
She cited a separatist candidate who garnered almost 18 per cent of the vote in a byelection in the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills riding earlier this week.
“I’ve never seen such a high level of separatist sentiment,” she said.
Smith said the byelection result was record-breaking in terms of separatist support, but a 1982 byelection in the same Alberta riding saw a separatist candidate win with more than 40 per cent of the vote.
She said the fact that her United Conservative Party candidate won Monday’s byelection means the public wants her to work with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government.
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Asked what her government could do to quell separatist desire, Smith said it was Ottawa’s responsibility — as it was following that 1982 byelection.
“A couple of years later, after (then-prime minister) Brian Mulroney got rid of the National Energy Program, the sentiment evaporated,” she said.
“This is really in Ottawa’s hands.”
The present-day equivalent to that program – which introduced price controls and hiked the federal share of tax revenue from oil production – is several laws that Smith said stifle energy production and investment in Alberta.
In recent months, she has called for Carney to abolish several federal policies and programs, including a proposed emissions cap, net-zero electricity grid regulations and the West Coast tanker ban.
“If Ottawa wants to work with me to cause that (separatist) sentiment to subside, then we need to materially address the nine bad laws that have created that negative investment climate,” she said.
“If they make the changes that we’re requesting, then I suspect they can take the air out of that movement.”
Speaking alongside Smith was federal Internal Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland.
Asked what she thought of Smith’s assessment, Freeland said she hopes Albertans will see recently passed legislation to speed up the approval process of major projects as a sign that Canada has reached a “turning point.”
“I think we are on a really good path recognizing we need to be united,” Freeland said. “We need to find ways to build Canada.
“With that approach of positive intent — a shared recognition of the challenges Canada is facing, Alberta is facing — I really think that we are at the beginning of a new chapter where we’re going to get a lot more done a lot faster.”
Smith said Ottawa’s legislation, which passed in the Senate Thursday, gave her hope that change was happening.
Earlier this week, Smith announced a 15-member panel that would tour the province this summer to gather ideas on how Alberta can fight federal overreach.
It’s an endeavour that former premier Jason Kenney did in 2019. Smith has said her panel is using Kenney’s as a jumping-off point.
Smith’s panel will discuss creating a provincial pension plan, police force and tax collection agency.
The panel is also polling Albertans on creating its own immigration permit system that would cut off non-approved immigrants from accessing provincially funded services like health care and education.
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