Now seen from coast to coast as the weakest link in the national response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s ugly tariff war on Canada, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith took to a podium in Grande Prairie yesterday to do some reputational damage control.
She trotted out pieties about how unfairly U.S. President Donald Trump is being, plus a similar number of apocalyptic predictions about what will happen if we dare to push back, but at the end of a half hour of characteristic gaslighting it was evident that as long as she remains at the helm in Alberta, the province isn’t about to make any sacrifices to support the country.
And, no, she told a reporter at her news conference, she won’t postpone or cancel the separation referendum she has been promoting to hold together her shaky United Conservative Party coalition, which is riddled with separatists, and thereby remain in power. So if that makes us look more like a tasty morsel to be gobbled up by Mr. Trump and his minions, tough luck, Canada.
In Ms. Smith’s version of reality, Canada is helpless and the only thing we can do is beg state and federal U.S. politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike, to put pressure on their addled president to do the right thing.
Nevertheless, the premier called this “being smarter, more strategic, more agile and using our reputation and relationship with the American people to have these tariffs reversed.” (Good luck with that plan!)
“It means being more Canadian,” you know, “too friendly, kind and helpful to resist,” she advised smarmily.
But use oil as a bargaining chip, or just the threat of it – as even former UCP premier Jason Kenney has advised, for crying out loud – forget about it!
“This would bring the economies of Ontario and Quebec to a grinding halt,” she predicted, seemingly advising her former pal Mr. Trump’s minions about what they could do if Canada threatened to put an export tax on oil, say, to pay the cost of Canadian businesses hit by the latest U.S. tariffs. The cost of any such strategy, by the way, will soon be used by Conservatives like Ms. Smith to argue Canada can no longer afford to be Canadian.
“Do we really want an outcome where the Toronto Pearson airport no longer has aviation fuel so that people can’t fly? Do we really want people to be in their homes working from home because there is no diesel or gasoline to get them to work? Do we really want an affordability crisis in Eastern Canada?”
Oh, and don’t forget, she went on, if we do anything but roll over, the Americans will soon be pumping Venezuelan crude back up the pipeline to the Midwest’s heavy oil refineries and the mighty Athabasca Oil Sands will be abandoned forever.
This seems like an odd prediction for someone who normally says the market for Alberta oil will never stop growing, but there you go. And never mind that it’ll take at least a decade to get the Venezuelan tar sands plants back on stream. But to be fair, she did renew her call for another pipeline to the West Coast – presumably to be paid for by all Canadians.
Bizarrely but characteristically, the premier also rambled on for a spell about shipping Alberta crude by ocean tanker to the Irving refinery in St. John, N.B. How? From Prince Rupert via the Panama Canal, a part of the world she is said to be familiar with? It is a wonderment!
Ms. Smith also vowed that her government would form a business advisory committee made up of some of the usual suspects, and open another “concierge” service for worried business owners, both of which will allow the government to look busy while not actually doing very much.
Well, there’s something to be said for the idea that “jaw-jaw is better than war-war,” but usually that thought, whether it came out of the mouth of Winston Churchill or Harold MacMillan, comes with a very heavy “but” right after it. Not in Ms. Smith’s Pollyanna view of the American political scene, though, apparently.
For his part, Mr. Kenney told The Canadian Press on Tuesday, that while a full 50-per-cent tariff on Canadian oil in response to Mr. Trump’s bullying would probably not be a good idea, “you don’t deal with an aggressive attack on your economy by starting with listing all the things you will not do in reprisal by limiting your options, by weakening your position.”
This is obviously true, and Mr. Kenney may be willing to speak this particular truth because he still holds out some hope of someday becoming prime minister.
Mr. Kenney is also now taking on a more public role, including playing Oscar Madison in an Alberta political remake of The Odd Couple, which will star former NDP premier Rachel Notley in the role of Felix Unger .
That is to say, the two former premiers will co-chair a campaign by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce to persuade Albertans to vote on October 19 to remain in Canada.
Her actions notwithstanding, Premier Smith claimed in her news conference to be on the same side. What could possibly go wrong?
