Alberta Premier To Trump: Stay Out Of Our Separatist Fight

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she does not want the U.S. president to wade into the separatist movement brewing in her oil-and-gas rich province.

“I don’t want any foreign interference in our politics here,” Smith told POLITICO’s Alex Burns during an on-stage interview Wednesday at the US-Canada Summit, co-hosted in Toronto by Eurasia Group and BMO.

Her comments come amid growing concern the movement, fueled by frustration over Ottawa's environmental and energy policies, could attract attention from abroad and fuel Donald Trump's desire to make Canada “a 51st state.”

Trump, who joked this week with Prime Minister Mark Carney in the Oval Office about a U.S.-Canada merger, loudly backed the Brexit movement, which saw Britain leave the European Union in 2020.

Smith said she would not welcome Trump’s support for the separatist push in Alberta, which has grown out of the province’s frustration with Canada’s federal government.

Alberta residents will likely vote on a similar question that was asked to British residents during the 2016 EU referendum: Do you want to remain in Canada?

“I want that vote to be ‘Yes,” Smith said. “But I cannot control the emotion of Albertans.”

Smith has blamed Ottawa’s environmental laws and regulations for stifling investment and blocking natural resource development in her province.

“I told the prime minister, ‘Your predecessor Justin Trudeau created a separatist movement in Alberta, but you can cause it to dissipate,” Smith said.

Smith said her job is to convince Albertans that Canada works. “It’s working on so many levels," she said. "I feel pretty confident in my relationship with the prime minister.”

But she has warned Carney that unless certain environmental laws are repealed or significantly revised, there will be an “unprecedented national unity crisis.” She extended a deadline she had set for the government to mid-November — when Carney has said he’ll announce a new tranche of national projects he wants to fast-track.

“It’s pretty obvious that Albertans are frustrated at having 10 years of terrible policy that have suppressed our ability to develop our wealth,” she said. That includes a law that bans the movement of certain oil loads from British Columbia’s north coast.

A centerpiece of Smith’s energy agenda is a bitumen pipeline from Alberta to the coast of British Columbia. She says it could carry as much as 1 million barrels per day, while reaching new markets in Asia.

“It would generate about C$20 million a year in annual GDP, which allows for everybody to have the dollars they need to pay for their priorities,” Smith said. The premier’s office later clarified that the figure is C$20 billion a year in annual GDP.

British Premier David Eby is against Alberta’s proposal, which he says is not real.

"The test for me about whether the project exists ... Is there a proponent? Is there funding? Does it look like they're going to invest? Are they approaching a final investment decision? Are they investing? Are they ready to go? Have they applied for permits? Have they gone through environmental assessment process?" he said Tuesday afternoon. "When I apply that test to the pipeline, it fails on every count.”