Interview: Danielle Smith explains why she trusts Mark Carney

Can a conservative ever trust a liberal?

“Just because it’s a Liberal government in Ottawa, and a Liberal prime minister, doesn’t mean it has to be fractious,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith tells me. With mutual respect, she says, “the sky’s the limit on what we can do.”

Smith points to history: Alberta premier Ralph Klein, a Progressive Conservative at the time, and Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien worked together to unlock the oilsands.

“That’s what we can return to,” Smith says, hopefully.

She is in surprisingly good spirits when we meet for a face-to-face interview in her Calgary office at the McDougall Centre. At least for today. Just the day before, separatist firebrand Jeff Rath was vowing to replace her as leader of the United Conservative Party. The day before that, Mitch Sylvestre of Stay Free Alberta was threatening to organize a leadership review of Smith.

That’s mostly inside baseball for political junkies. The bigger question on many Albertans’ minds is whether they can trust Prime Minister Mark Carney to deliver on a promised West Coast oil export pipeline. Smith has said publicly that she does. I want to know why.

“The main reason is the complete difference in dealing with this prime minister than the previous one,” she says. Her first conversation with Justin Trudeau was intended to be constructive: an offer to collaborate on an energy and emissions plan with a 2050 target. Instead, for two and a half years, she reports, “every time I opened the newspaper, it was one new terrible policy after another designed to shut down Alberta’s oil and gas.”

Trust was impossible under Trudeau, especially with Steven Guilbeault as environment minister. “I tried and tried and tried,” Smith says. She sees Guilbeault’s impending departure this summer as good for the country, but worries others like federal NDP Leader Avi Lewis will keep pushing to “keep fossil fuels in the ground.”

“If Wab Kinew and David Eby wanted to be helpful,” she adds, “maybe they could call Avi Lewis and get him to dial it down, because it’s politicians like that who I fear are going to continue to inflame the sentiments in Alberta.” She’s just finished hosting the Western Premiers’ Conference in Kananaskis and I get the strong impression this message was delivered.

With Carney, it’s different. “I saw a spirit of goodwill,” she reports. “He wasn’t interested in a compromise — he was interested in a win-win. That was the language he used in our first meeting.”

When they announced the pipeline MOU implementation phase in mid-May, Carney called trust “the most important commodity in the world” — something Canada has in abundance and is building today.

Smith describes the MOU as “a great accommodation of both desires — to develop our energy as well as to reduce emissions over a reasonable time frame.” It’s her proof point to Albertans that Canada can work.

“We got to a pipeline MOU in November 2025,” she explains, “then we developed a number of different agreements.” Alberta’s premier and the prime minister ticked off the boxes: on methane; on Alberta’s environmental process taking priority; and on carbon pricing. Next up: oilsands producers and the carbon capture commitment.

Carney is also shifting Ottawa’s direction on net-zero power regulations, greenwashing rules and the emissions cap. “And the result is the chief architect of all of these terrible policies (Guilbeault) quit today,” the premier notes.

Some Albertans won’t believe it until first oil flows, Smith acknowledges with a wry chuckle. Her milestones: the oil export pipeline declared a project of national interest by Oct. 1 and final conditions/approvals by Sept. 1, 2027, enabling design and construction to begin.

“It’s not easy, you don’t agree on 100 per cent of things 100 per cent of the time,” she reiterates. “But when you have a prime minister who is willing to work with us, that is how the country is supposed to work, and I think it is working.”

Smith faced sharp criticism for adding an independence question to the Oct. 19 referendum in Alberta. How can she back a West Coast pipeline while floating separation? critics ask. On the day we spoke, another grassroots group launched — Alberta’s Voices — accusing her government of thinking Albertans are “dumb.”

The October ballot now includes 10 questions: control over immigration, constitutional matters, and the new independence one — asking whether Alberta should remain a province of Canada or direct the government to begin the legal process for a binding separation referendum.

At the Western Premiers’ meeting, B.C.’s Eby and Manitoba’s Kinew pressed her on the duty to consult First Nations on the pipeline. Smith agrees on that point: “On a major project like a pipeline to the West Coast, absolutely, we have a duty to consult — and beyond that, we think we have a duty to provide equity ownership so the Nations can benefit from development. There’s no dispute, for me, for proponents, on that.”

But she draws a firm line on the referendum: “I have a right to ask our citizens whether we want to change our relationship with Ottawa. That’s our right.” She’s honouring Alberta’s Citizen Initiative Act after one separatist group gathered roughly 300,000 signatures and a pro-Canada group about 400,000. “When you have 700,000 people say they want to have a conversation, you don’t solve the problem by shutting the conversation down.”

Alberta, she says, has a tradition of letting citizens decide big issues through referendums — prohibition, the Olympics, fluoride. “It’s part of our culture and our laws. I ask for respect that we do things a little differently in Alberta.”

Hell hath no fury like Albertans scorned. It’s significant that the 300,000 who signed a petition for a referendum on separation did so in the dead of winter. It’s also been noted that the recent court decision quashing their petition seemed oblivious to the 400,000 who signed the Forever Canada petition during the summer and fall.

Smith is also seeking a mandate on immigration: more like Quebec for economic migrants, and like the U.K. and Australia for guest workers who pay their own way. Under Section 95 of the Constitution, provinces have rights here and if the referendum delivers that mandate, she expects Carney to engage in good faith.

Smith isn’t naive about the trust-building ahead. Yet her optimism stands out. Earlier this week, I watched the debate between pro-Canada former premier Jason Kenney and separatist spokesperson Keith Wilson. It was a classic fear versus hope showdown.

“I don’t know that Albertans are going to be persuaded by fear,” Smith says. She sees the West as Confederation’s powerhouse and believes Ottawa is finally paying attention. Smith is squarely in the remain in Canada camp. The real obstacle, in her view, isn’t fellow Canadians but “misguided politicians who decided to target Alberta” and block its ability to create wealth. One of them — Guilbeault — just resigned.

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