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But she has warned Carney that unless certain environmental laws are repealed or significantly revised, there will be an “unprecedented national unity crisis.”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.
politico.com |
