Now seen from coast to coast as the weakest link in the national response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s ugly tariff war on Canada, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith took to a podium in Grande Prairie yesterday to do some reputational damage control.
She trotted out a few pieties about how unfairly U.S. President Donald Trump is acting, plus a similar number of apocalyptic predictions about what will happen if we dare to push back, but at the end of a half hour of characteristic gaslighting it was evident that as long as she remains at the helm in Alberta, the province isn’t about to make any sacrifices to support the country.
And, no, she told a reporter at her news conference, she won’t postpone or cancel the separation referendum she has been promoting to hold together her shaky United Conservative Party coalition, which is riddled with separatists, and thereby remain in power. So if that makes us look more like a tasty morsel to be gobbled up by Mr. Trump and his minions, tough luck, Canada.
In Ms. Smith’s version of reality, Canada is helpless and the only thing we can do is beg state and federal U.S. politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike, to put pressure on their addled president to do the right thing.
Nevertheless, the premier called this “being smarter, more strategic, more agile and using our reputation and relationship with the American people to have these tariffs reversed.” (Good luck with that plan!)
“It means being more Canadian,” you know, “too friendly, kind and helpful to resist,” she advised smarmily.
But use oil as a bargaining chip, or just the threat of it – as even former UCP premier Jason Kenney has advised, for crying out loud – forget about it!
“This would bring the economies of Ontario and Quebec to a grinding halt,” she predicted, seemingly advising her former pal Mr. Trump’s minions about what they could do if Canada threatened to put an export tax on oil, say, to pay the cost of Canadian businesses hit by the latest U.S. tariffs. The cost of any such strategy, by the way, will soon be used by Conservatives like Ms. Smith to argue Canada can no longer afford to be Canadian.
“Do we really want an outcome where the Toronto Pearson airport no longer has aviation fuel so that people can’t fly? Do we really want people to be in their homes working from home because there is no diesel or gasoline to get them to work? Do we really want an affordability crisis in Eastern Canada?”
Oh, and don’t forget, she went on, if we do anything but roll over, the Americans will soon be pumping Venezuelan crude back up the pipeline to the Midwest’s heavy oil refineries and the mighty Athabasca Oil Sands will be abandoned forever.
This seems like an odd prediction for someone who normally says the market for Alberta oil will never stop growing, but there you go. And never mind that it’ll take at least a decade to get the Venezuelan tar sands plants back on stream. But to be fair, she did renew her call for another pipeline to the West Coast – presumably to be paid for by all Canadians.
Bizarrely but characteristically, the premier also rambled on for a spell about shipping Alberta crude by ocean tanker to the Irving refinery in St. John, N.B. How? From Prince Rupert via the Panama Canal, a part of the world she is said to be familiar with? It is a wonderment!
Ms. Smith also vowed that her government would form a business advisory committee made up of some of the usual suspects, and open another “concierge” service for worried business owners, both of which will allow the government to look busy while not actually doing very much.
Well, there’s something to be said for the idea that “jaw-jaw is better than war-war,” but usually that thought, whether it came out of the mouth of Winston Churchill or Harold Macmillan, comes with a very heavy “but” right after it. Not in Ms. Smith’s Pollyanna view of the American political scene, though, apparently.
For his part, Mr. Kenney told The Canadian Press on Tuesday, that while a full 50-per-cent tariff on Canadian oil in response to Mr. Trump’s bullying would probably not be a good idea, “you don’t deal with an aggressive attack on your economy by starting with listing all the things you will not do in reprisal by limiting your options, by weakening your position.”
This is obviously true, and Mr. Kenney may be willing to speak this particular truth because he still holds out some hope of someday becoming prime minister.
Mr. Kenney is also now taking on a more public role, including playing Oscar Madison in an Alberta political remake of The Odd Couple, which will also star former NDP premier Rachel Notley in the role of Felix Unger .
That is to say, the two former premiers will co-chair a campaign by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce to persuade Albertans to vote on October 19 to remain in Canada.
Her actions notwithstanding, Premier Smith claimed in her news conference to be on the same side. What could possibly go wrong?
Proud to be a Canadian, and embarrassed beyond words to be an Albertan right now.
No way you must have more money then brains just think if you didn’t ship to the us no more equalization payments to Ontario Quebec
Danielle Smith would love to just bend over and kiss Donald Trump’s rump. She doesn’t care about what’s best for Albertans, or Canadians. Traitor.
I agree. She needs to be outed. NOW
Just be ‘too friendly, kind and helpful to resist’? Ah, yes, that charm we’ve heard so much about. What is this, The Dating Game? Nobody asked for dating advice, Danielle, or didn’t you notice? Monkey business is for monkeys. Responsible Canadians wants responsible adults in charge of the nation and its tens of millions of souls.
(By the way, does this latest news mean Danielle Smith is cancelling those dozens of AI data centres, now that she’s suddenly concerned about Canadians freezing to death when the grid goes down in winter? Hurray! Some common sense at long last.)
And about the Panama Canal: read the news! How odd that someone who lives in that banana-producing republic part-time has not heard about the shipping restrictions due to drought and low water levels in the canal, or the high fees in place due to that tiny little hiccup with the Strait of Hormuz.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/21/panama-canal-reduce-shipping-el-nino-drought
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/companies-are-paying-millions-to-cross-panama-canal-during-strait-of-hormuz-chokehold
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Hormuz-Blockage-Boosts-Panama-Canal-Oil-Tanker-Traffic.html
Yes, Kenney seems to be waiting in the wings for the Danielle Smith show to end, collapsing under weight of its own ridiculous contradictions when she can no longer glibly paper them all over. I suspect moral bankruptcy happens much like its financial counterpart, slowly at first and then more quickly.
Canadians are getting tired of our separatist enabling premier with a soft spot for MAGA and I also don’t feel her do nothing advise is going over that well with Albertans now either. Being so out of step with the public mood will have political consequences.
It would have been smart for her to at least put her referendum plans on hold. Even the PQ in Quebec was able to read the situation and do that. Also, at least they are honest enough to campaign about having one eventually, rather than stealthily springing it on voters as Smith has. Yet we continue to head like zombies towards a referendum in the midst of what is a national crisis. If that is not dancing around the deck chairs while the ship takes on water, I don’t know what is.
If this makes no sense, there actually was a simple explanation for this before from Kenney himself. His party was taken over by lunatics. So it seems Smith is captive to, or one of them, herself.
Kenney is not in the wings waiting for Smith to toople. My prediction is PP will not survive his next leadership review and Mr Kenney will throw his hat in the ring.
Once again, Danielle Smith is a hostage of her caucus—except she has nowhere to cross the floor to.
She has somewhere she could (and arguably should) cross the undefended border to, though.
Here’s your cowboy hat, Danni. What’s your hurry!!
Funny I can think of no country that willingly surrender its sovereignty. Danni has become Daft Danni. Isn’t it about time to start drawing up plans for export controls on Canada’s exports to the USA, such as oil, and electricity. They say they don’t need it. Time to look in a planned way for other markets. As Canadian Nationalists once said, close the 49th parallel.
Ms. Smith could have given her position that it really is in Canada’s best interest to follow my suggestion a lot more credibility if she had also taken American liquor off the shelves.
At the same time, this situation does show how we have a real vulnerability with Alberta oil products going through Michigan to get to Central Canada. While I quite like the idea of applying an export tax on oil going to the US, we do need to develop a contingency plan to get energy to the east.
Smith and the UCP are still leading in the polls. Instead of just railing at Smith and the UCP, let’s try to remember Smith has the support of more than half of the voting public in Alberta. Time to start railing at the people that support her.
As well, does anyone that follows this blog doubt that Smith will order a referendum on separating regardless of how the October 19 vote turns out. Her reasoning, of course, will be that democracy demands it.
That is the rumor. A separatist leader once said that separatism was going ahead, regardless of the outcome of a referendum. Is it is a done deal? Does this explain why Danielle Smith has been very agitated these past few days, harping on the federal government to hand over the country and worship the US president? Why? What has she done? What didn’t she want us to notice? Does it have to go with that purloined voters’ list and her refusal to do anything about it? How is that RCMP investigation coming along?
You are the minority
Maybe you should leave alberta.
I don’t know about anyone else but I’ve been getting phone calls and emails from across the country from friends demanding to know why Albertans are so gutless. Some have even used the word – coward. Is this the unique Alberta identity that Dani keeps talking about? Bunch of spineless wimps in cowboy hats.
Is it just me, or does Danielle Smith sound like she’s justifying an abusive spouse?
Not just you.
‘too friendly, kind and helpful to resist …’ ?! The nauseating hypocrisy of Danielle Smith continues, not unabated, but ramped up to even more ridiculous levels. Of the many positive human qualities Smith does not possess – friendliness, kindness and helpfulness would certainly rank in the top ten, along with decency, compassion, loyalty, foresight, a willingness to listen in good faith, etc., etc.
Smith is a complete embarrassment! Even Moe is standing up for Canada. The only thing Smith stands for is greed. Her and her AI BS, piss poor environmental polices, privatising our health care, book banning, public education down grades. FRIG! This greedy….. needs to be returned to her handlers in the U.S., so we can get a real premier to lead Alberta.
Honour has been stricken from the UCP lexicon.
For those too timid to consider treason it’s time we stop calling Smith a separatist and start calling her what she really is: a Quisling. Unlike her many rabid supporters, she not only is motivated by a hatred and distrust of the Federal Government, but has been, for some time, clearly collaborating with her many, many American friends in high places. The very definition of the word quisling.
The federal government of canada has been in power for 11 years. In that time it has completely destroyed canada. Anyone who supports them is literally insane.
Smith actually said that she thinks we should be “too friendly, kind and helpful” to resist? I take that to mean that she wants us to be ‘too scared, stupid and docile’ to resist, which, when you think of it, is how she likely thinks of Albertans already considering the contempt that she has displayed for most of us since becoming premier. I can only wonder what’s coming next from our faux-Canadienne leader. My guess is that she will be lobbying Mark Carney to replace Dominic LeBlanc with her own hand-picked candidate Ben Dover.
Does anyone else wonder what Danielle Smith has suggested for Alberta’s new name when she giggles and acts irresistible while handing it over to the US?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/trumps-tariffs/article/trump-executive-order-renames-lake-ontario-live-updates-here/
How about North Montana?
My recent Substack essay on the proposed Northern Shield pipeline to Ontario includes an explanation of how vulnerable Eastern Canada is to shutdown of the two pipelines through the US that currently provide all of Ontario’s crude oil and about half of Quebec’s supply: https://robertbott486534.substack.com/p/the-northern-shield-oil-pipeline
Almost all Canada’s non-US crude oil imports today arrive at the deepwater port serving the Irving Saint John refinery. The port’s unloading facility can handle supertankers carrying 2 million barrels or more. Since the 2010 closure of the Come-by-Chance refinery in Newfoundland, Irving is the only oil refinery east of Quebec. However, the Come-by-Chance facility has been converted to produce renewable fuels from biomass, currently producing up to 18,000 b/d of biodiesel.
Most of Newfoundland’s offshore crude oil production is exported to Europe, although some shipments have gone to US refineries and to Irving in New Brunswick. Before the Iran war, the last delivery of Newfoundland oil to Irving had been in 2020. One reason for the infrequent shipments was that Canada’s Coasting Trade Act, similar to the US Jones Act, requires that Canadian-registered-and-crewed vessels to ship goods or people between points within the country. Canada has few ocean-going oil tankers.
In March and again in May, the Canadian Transportation Agency granted Irving waivers to use foreign tankers to deliver up to a total of about 1.68 million barrels of crude oil from Newfoundland to the New Brunswick facility. The agency determined that no Canadian ship was available for those deliveries. Saudi Arabia has long been a primary supplier of crude oil for Irving. With Saudi shipments curtailed by the Gulf conflict, Irving has had to rely on other sources such as Nigeria and the US as well as Newfoundland.
The full weight of how much rank and file albertans DESPISE the seppies and how tiny the separatist “cOaLiTiOn” is settling over Yankee Doodle Dani like a burial shroud. Yet, it’s clear she doesn’t want the implications of that reality impact her personally, either by doing the right thing and resigning the mandate she lost ages ago, or having it negatively impact her relationship with the deranged occupant of the gilded White House, Who makes Richard Nixon look saintly by comparison: Donald J Trump.
You don’t spend all that time being a sycophant to a demented senile old fool with shit in his pants unless you’re banking on getting something for it personally. Too bad for Danielle she’s caught in the concertina wire and Canadians of all walks of life are calling for Carney to shell no man’s land to hell.
Now she will not only be known as an in effective and corrupt premier but a legendary traitor in the history of our country, one who wants to give the keys to the worst president in the history of that country, because she is beside herself in her desire to be an American.
She has no shame, and thus I will not try to shame her, but Danielle Smith does and should know she is absolutely hated and despised by not only albertans but Canadians all across this great land.
Resign already you bobble headed idiotic gaslighting moron; take your ill gotten gains and flee to panama like we ALL KNOW YOU ARE PLANNING TO.
UCP is a caucus of losers, I cannot wait for albertans to flush them like the turds they are.
Now that Scott Moe has turned his back on Smith, what’s left for her to do but to campaign to becomes the first president of the Free Alberta Republic.
Queen Danielle’s next mission will be wars of conquest against Saskatchewan, BC, and anyone else Seppie podcasters declare the enemy of the week. And that referendum that no one wants still hasn’t been decided yet.
But, to be fair, Smith would have favoured a fair and equal airing of the grievances for A. Hitler.
I would say Kenney is more Felix Unger like. Many people are saying Rachel enjoys a stogie from time to time.
really Premier Smith …grow a pair. I was Conservative voter but will be looking at Liberal or NDP next election. at least Carney takes a stand. We do not need to bow to the orange Jesus down south, we need to find alternate countries to export our products to, and delete our interprovincial tariffs. Why can’t we be self sufficient? We have enough natural resources in Canada! Could we build more of our own resource refineries, process our own agricultural products to supply our own people with reasonably priced products? I understand it would take time…start NOW! Just saying… I don’t know a lot politically, but I can see a snow job. $100 Dani bucks won’t change my opinion.
My goodness I never thought one day I would be embarrassed to be Albertan.
With summer nearing it’s end, can anyone tell me one damn thing Smith has done to ‘campaign for Canada’ as she claimed she would do at the start of summer? Did she wear a Canada flag pin at a speech on Ponoka? Anything? I think not.