Q&A: Why Alberta Premier Danielle Smith sided with Trump about border issues in trade spat

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's 2024 was a year of following through on her promises — from health-care reforms to support for the oil and gas industry — even as her opponents fought her ideas. 

In a year-end interview at the legislature in early December, Smith reflected on a few pressing issues.

The Alberta government's next steps, she said, will be revealed in the provincial budget, set to be tabled on Feb. 27.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

After U.S. president-elect Donald Trump threatened a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods, you supported his concern that the Canada- U.S. border is too porous to drugs and migrants. Can you elaborate on your position?

The issue we face in Western Canada is clearly the drug overdose problem, and it's gotten even more acute post-COVID-19. Product is coming in from British Columbia and then finding its way down into the United States through Alberta, or precursors are coming into Alberta and then finding their way back into the United States.

We identified this problem years ago. Mike Ellis, my public safety minister, had already begun the process of training up a team of sheriffs that could be deployed for border patrol and addressing the fentanyl issue. It just seemed like, yup, this is a problem. That's a problem for us. It's a problem for the Americans. Let's solve it.

You have expressed concerns about Ottawa imposing on Alberta's jurisdiction; some people perceived Trump's tariff messaging in the same vein. How are you protecting Alberta's interests from foreign governments?

We've made no secret about our disappointment with the federal approach to addressing the issue of drug overdose and crime. They brought through a bill that created a revolving door of criminals and we've been working on trying to get that tightened up. It hasn't worked.

We also vehemently oppose their approach on safe supply. We don't think that the way that you get people off drugs is to put more high-powered opioids into the market.

I'm glad that the federal government is now beginning to see that there are consequences to the policies that they've adopted. Now they have to align with the things that we want to do to preserve our trade relationship — which is the most important trade relationship, probably, on the planet. 

What I think we can do in Alberta is talk to the Americans about how we jointly benefit from our cross-border trade. We can use oil and gas as a point of leverage to say, because of this strong relationship, all Canadian goods should be tariff-free.

You're restructuring Alberta Health Services with a goal of improving care. How did you get to the idea of restructuring AHS by function?

It came from looking into the system and trying to figure out what is the core business that Alberta Health Services is supposed to be delivering. And the answer was, everything. And if everything is your core business, then it's really hard to get a focus.