“It’s not helpful,” Smith said of Trudeau’s public statements this week, evidently doing her best to sound diplomatic in a situation where Trudeau himself has dropped diplomacy in the dumpster.
Instead of addressing Trump’s long-standing concerns about illegal migrants and fentanyl crossing the Canada-U.S. border, Trudeau scolded American voters for failing to elect progressive left female candidate Kamala Harris.
“These are regressive and reactionary forces that want to push us backwards and unfortunately succeed too often,” Trudeau said. “Just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president.”
Trudeau then proudly reminded the world about what a great feminist he himself is.
Trudeau’s speech is being treated like a bad smell in the United States, with Trump confidante billionaire Elon Musk labelling Trudeau as an “insufferable tool.”
Smith said she expressed her concerns about Trudeau’s speech to Trudeau and Canada’s other premiers in their conference call on Wednesday. “I think the American people voted pretty decisively for the Republicans and for president-elect Donald Trump, in particular, and as a trading partner, an ally of the United States, I respect their vote.”
As for the ban or tax on Canadian oil exports, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said this week he’ll do whatever it takes to protect Ontario’s export trade to the U.S., even if that means cutting off oil and gas moving in pipelines from Ontario to the U.S. “My Number 1 job is to protect Ontario, Ontarians and Canadians as a whole since we’re the largest province.”
Smith shot down Ford’s ideas.
“Under no circumstances will Alberta agree to cut off oil and gas exports,” she said.
Smith was more forceful in denouncing a plan put forward in Bloomberg News by international trade insider Steve Verheul of the Bay Street firm GT & Co. Verheul was Trudeau’s chief trade negotiator from 2017 to 2021 and renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement with the first Trump administration, so his idea can’t be ignored.
Canada anticipates the Americans might not want to put the Trump tariff on oil and gas and food products from Canada, Verheul said. To strike back at the U.S. and to try to convince them not to put the Trump tariffs on other Canadian exports as well, Verheul suggested Canada itself would put a retaliatory export tax on oil and gas and food products, thus driving up costs for American consumers.
“It’s a terrible idea,” Smith said when I asked her about this proposal.
Alberta is the owner of its own oil and gas and has $122 billion in export trade, Smith said, but if Ottawa imposed its own 25 per cent tax on that, $30 billion would be going to Ottawa..
If this dispute turns into Alberta transferring $30 billion more to Ottawa, all in the name of saving Ontario and Quebec trade interests, it’s hard to imagine the political fury unleashed in Alberta. It will shake the nation.
Smith spoke out Thursday as she announced Alberta’s own plan to thwart illegal activity around firearms, drugs or migrants at the 300-km Alberta-U.S. border.
Alberta plans to boost federal border control by bringing a new Alberta patrol team of sheriffs with 51 armed officers, drug patrol dogs and 10 surveillance drones.
“What we need to do is address the serious concerns that the U.S. administration has identified, which are our shared concerns, the border, fentanyl, in particular, the opioid death crisis,” Smith said.
This dispute shouldn’t be complicated. Trump has identified valid concerns about illegal drugs and out-of-control immigration. The Canadian public has long been desperate for action on these same problems. Maybe it’s better to focus on solutions, as opposed to insulting Trump and American democracy, while coming up with shocking retaliatory plans so incendiary and divisive that only a combination of Bay Street, Queen’s Park and Ottawa could have concocted them.
