As Albertans will attest after experiencing the Conservative dynasty and the last two UCP premiers, not all Conservatives are created equal.
Jason Kenney took Alberta in directions Previous Progressive Conservative leaders never dared to do so, while Danielle Smith rose to leadership thanks to repudiating Kenney’s COVID management, and he did his part reprimand his idea of the Law of Sovereignty.
The current Alberta premier, a former talk show host and lobbyist, also didn’t seem to have much in common with Ontario Premier Doug Ford, a businessman from a political dynasty of sorts. But they both have often used he “populist” label; Ford and Smith made direct payments to residents to alleviate the affordability crisis.
Until this week, there were generally friendship and agreement between the pair of Conservative premiers from Canada’s oil province and its manufacturing heartland. They had even been regular Canadian twins on Fox Business and Fox News, both presenting conservative American networks with the evils of tariffs and the benefits of Canadian trade.
Then came this week, and their markedly different approaches and positions around the threat of Donald Trump’s tariffs and potential retaliation from Canada itself. That may be due in part to their own personalities and backgrounds, but it also has its roots in their own backyards.
Smith defiantly kept his own signature on the joint statement the prime minister and all other prime ministers signed on the response to the US president-elect’s proposed import tax of up to 25 per cent on all Canadian goods. She was the only prime minister to do so, arguing that she could not tolerate Canada continuing to consider or threaten to use export taxes or other oil sanctions as a pressure point in a trade war.
“We will take all necessary steps to protect Albertans’ livelihoods from such destructive federal policies,” Smith said.
By attributing it to the federal Liberals, Smith overlooks the fact that, with his statements and comments, these policies are now supported (at least in theory or principle) by all of his counterparts.
Ford had helped coordinate the position statement that Justin Trudeau and 12 provincial and territorial leaders of various political persuasions had agreed upon.
At the end of those leaders’ meeting Wednesday, Ford said he understood Smith’s push to defend his province’s energy industry.
And he added clearly: “I have a different theory, that [you] “Protect your jurisdiction, but country comes first.”
Ontario’s premier has talked a lot about retaliation in the weeks since Trump first issued his tariff threats, saying in December that his province’s hydroelectric agency could cut off power to US.
“In my opinion, you can’t let someone hit you over the head with a sledgehammer without hitting it twice as hard,” Ford had said before the one-day premiers’ summit. And, faced with the idea of taking taxes on oil exports off the table, the player’s astute comment came: “If you’ve got some aces, keep your aces.”
Smith, on the other hand, wants to protect Alberta’s star industry.
She has consistently denounced the idea of strangling her region’s energy exports to make Americans cringe in a trade war. He doesn’t even want to talk about what retaliation to use or threaten, and said in a briefing with reporters on Monday that he doesn’t “think it’s useful to negotiate that in public.”
This week’s most indelible iconography of these leaders couldn’t be more different, either. She was photographed at Mar-a-Lago. meet Trump himselfalongside Kevin O’Leary, the Canadian businessman who proposed merging the two countries with a common currency, regulations and more.
Ford? He sported a baseball cap stating “Canada is not for sale.”
Outside of Alberta, there has been condemnation of the distance Smith has created from Team Canada’s approach. “Nothing should be taken off the table before negotiations even begin,” international affairs expert and former Trudeau adviser Roland Paris said on social media.
“Trump has found his weak link in Canada. He didn’t need to look far. She gave herself to him.”
But within his province, there is more understanding of his calls for the province’s sector to be protected from both Trump’s measures and Canada’s response.
All leaders are employing a position of negotiating first and retaliating later, said Gary Mar, executive director of the Calgary-based Canada West Foundation.
“But the form of that retaliation will be different. Yes. Depending on what part of the country you are in, that shouldn’t surprise anyone,” said Mar, Alberta’s representative in Washington under President George W. Bush. administration.
Mar reasons that threatening to limit or tax oil shipments would greatly harm the energy sector and create excesses because much of Canada’s oil goes south, and that Washington could mitigate the price impact of any oil tax by opening the strategic reserve. of US oil.
Prime Minister Doug Ford wore the hat while speaking to reporters before a premiers’ meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to discuss Canada’s response to the threat of U.S. tariffs. It was designed by an Ottawa-based company in response to US President Donald Trump’s recent musings about Canada becoming the 51st state.
What Smith and Ford warn and threaten in various ways may also have a lot to do with their own provincial economies. When Ontario’s premier muses about strangling energy exports, he’s talking about sacrificing a significant, but not defining, source of government revenue and jobs in his province to protect against tariffs on auto manufacturing, the sector. most lucrative in Ontario.
But if Alberta’s energy sector were to become a bargaining chip, the province’s vital industry would be sacrificed, and why? To defend against threats to less important sectors in Alberta and the crown jewel sectors in other parts of the country.
Mar also sees merit in former businessman Ford’s tactics, which he says are straight out of Trump’s own playbook: literally, his The art of the deal.
“You always try to put the person you’re negotiating with on the defensive,” Mar said. “[Trump] turns uncertainty into a weapon, and has done so again and again.”
But trying to straddle both approaches, Mar adds: “I understand the need to say everything is on the table, but we’re going to have to be careful to understand what the impacts are going to be.”
Smith is also in a long line of Alberta leaders who routinely battle with Ottawa, which is less traditional in the province where Ottawa is located. Neither jurisdiction has much of a history of war with the United States, Canada’s historic ally and dominant export customer.
Following weekend meetings with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith urged the federal and other provincial governments to prepare for tariffs but advised against using Canadian energy. as a negotiation threat.
Different identities in western and central Canada may also be at play. A Study by the Environment Institute Last year he found that there are many more Albertans who identify primarily with their province (and Smith has made “Alberta first” a rallying cry for that base) compared to Ontario, where people in Canada are less likely to clings mainly to its provincial belonging. .
While Ford and Smith are arguably the most powerful Conservatives in Canada’s government, they are likely to be overtaken by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre if he wins the next election.
It is almost impossible to predict where relations between the United States and Canada will be after the federal election scheduled for the spring. But given Smith’s tensions with Ford and other premiers, the Alberta leader’s rocky relationship with her Confederation partners may not end if Poilievre replaces Trudeau.
The federal Conservative leader recently praised Smith, calling her a “fantastic leader” in Jordan Peterson Podcast – and seems to have a most stubborn relationship with Ford. But Poilievre has not come out in favor of either side of the issue of keeping a retaliatory tax on oil exports as an option, or of Smith’s option to opt out of Team Canada’s approach.
Meanwhile, it’s unclear whether he’ll stay quiet about Smith’s strategy. He repeatedly dodged the question during a news conference Thursday, instead blaming the federal Liberals for dividing Canadians and failing to build more oil pipelines and gas export terminals for non-U.S. shipments.
He said that instead of a unified response, there are “ten different foreign ministers, handling things separately.”
Ford may not see it that way. You would see nine of Canada’s provincial leaders together and Smith alone.
During a news conference following a visit to a steel manufacturing company in Windsor, Ont., Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pointed to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith as the only provincial leader who does not support implementing tariffs. of retaliation in case the United States imposes them on Canada. Trudeau’s comments come a day after the first ministers’ meeting in Ottawa.
