Smith says she’d form second Fair Deal Panel if Ottawa doesn’t meet policy demands

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This article was published 21/03/2025 (221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A day after threatening a national unity crisis, Premier Danielle Smith says she would strike a panel to poll Albertans on what to do if her list of demands is ignored.

Smith, facing repeated questions from reporters in Calgary about how far she’d be willing to go in a renewed fight with Ottawa, said Friday she’d strike a second Fair Deal Panel to “listen to what it is that Albertans want to do in consequence.”

Smith’s latest demands, posted on social media Thursday after a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney in Edmonton, include ending a number of policies put in place under former prime minister Justin Trudeau. 

She says those policies, such as Ottawa’s proposed emissions cap, have done nothing but harm Alberta’s oil and gas sector.

Smith said in a statement after the meeting that she wanted her demands meaningfully addressed within months of the next federal election, which is expected to be called Sunday.

The first Fair Deal Panel was formed by former United Conservative premier and Smith’s predecessor Jason Kenney shortly after he took office in 2019, citing the province’s widespread frustration with the federal government.

The panel was tasked with finding ways to gain leverage against Ottawa. 

At the time, then-Opposition NDP leader Rachel Notley said the whole endeavour was a way for Kenney to stoke “the fires of separation in order to distract from his own economic failures.”

The panel published a report in 2020 with more than two dozen recommendations, including to create an Alberta pension plan and to replace the RCMP with a provincial police force.

Kenney adopted neither. Five years later, Smith hasn’t explicitly committed to the recommendations.

Smith said Friday her list of preferred federal policy reversals is reasonable, especially if Carney’s Liberal government is as different as Trudeau’s, as Carney says it is.

She also took issue with what she said were conflicting messages coming from Carney’s government. 

She said that in their meeting Carney alluded to the possibility of scrapping the yet-to-be-implemented emissions cap. But Environment Minister Terry Duguid told The Canadian Press in a recent interview that the cap would go ahead.

The mixed messaging led Smith to call on Friday for clarity from the prime minister.

Smith said Albertans and Canadians needed to know what the promise is before an election.

Besides ditching the emissions cap, Smith said she wants guarantees that pipelines can be built in every direction and that Ottawa’s single-use plastics prohibition will be abolished, “so we can start using straws again.”

She’s also calling for net-zero electricity and vehicle targets to be shelved and for Canada’s greenwashing law to be repealed.

“None of what I put on here is unreasonable,” Smith said. “And if there is a true change of heart, then the prime minister and his cabinet will move in that direction.”

NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said Thursday that Smith is “playing chicken with people’s lives,” at a time when many Albertans feel their livelihoods are already under threat because of tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump.

“It’s juvenile, it’s childish, it’s not very bright, and it’s certainly not going to get Alberta what we need,” Nenshi said.

Smith provided few details on what she’d expect out of a second Fair Deal Panel but said she believes in “direct democracy.”

“I always feel like big important decisions need to be put to a referendum of all Albertans,” she said.

“I don’t want to prejudge what it is Albertans might want. But there are mechanisms to be able to identify those, so we can put it to the people.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 21, 2025.