David Staples: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith sends peace offering to Justin Trudeau (2023)

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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has suddenly and dramatically moved off her scorched earth stance against the Trudeau Liberals’ Just Transition plan to radically change the Canadian economy in the name of slashing carbon emissions.

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In a new letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Smith invites Trudeau to meet in February with the goal of negotiating a joint agreement this spring.

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“Prime minister, we can and must work together,” Smith states. “Operating in political silos, as adversaries on this issue, is getting us nowhere, and I believe all Canadians are tired of seeing it. Canada should be the world’s greatest energy superpower. It can be, if we come together collaboratively in pursuit of that objective.”

Smith suggests that Trudeau’s Just Transition program be renamed the Sustainable Jobs Act.

“Prime minister, we are at a crossroads in Alberta’s relationship with the federal government. We can continue with the endless court challenges, legislation to protect jurisdictional rights and inflammatory media coverage over our disagreements, or, as is my strong preference, Alberta and Ottawa can work in partnership on a plan … Let’s turn the page starting with a meeting between us next month.”

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This letter is addressed to Trudeau but, as I see it, it is really meant for Canadians outside of Smith’s UCP base. It’s Smith’s attempt to shake things up and get more Canadians on her side in this critical national debate on energy and the economy.

In making such a pitch, Smith is backing away from her own tribal war cry for Alberta to go its own way on the energy and the economy no matter what other Canadians think. She risks upsetting that base.

But her shift in tone comes at an interesting moment.

Smith’s political rival, Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley, already crafted such a message last week in her own response to Trudeau’s Just Transition, making clear that all Canadians should get behind Alberta. Notley came up with an excellent brand for the province, calling Alberta “the world’s most progressive energy producer.”

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She also roasted Smith for failing to work with Ottawa.

I don’t know if Notley’s strong messaging had any impact on Smith. I received a copy of her letter, but the premier did not get back to me on why she is shifting gears.

As I see it, Smith’s new messaging is far more along the lines of what we would have seen from our greatest Albertan, Peter Lougheed, who always argued that a strong Alberta made for a stronger Canada.

Lougheed wanted both. But does Smith? Other Canadians were starting to doubt her commitment to the country, to say the least.

She and her conservative base might well see themselves as strong, free, industrious and possessing all the right ideas to build prosperity around the world, while also effectively cutting carbon emissions. But the constant drum beat from other parts of the country is that Albertans are selfish, acting like poor-me victims, and unwilling to take seriously the issue of climate change.

Smith proposes she and Trudeau should focus on things like substantially decreasing Canada’s and Alberta’s net emissions and accelerating private and public investment in projects and infrastructure that utilize and develop carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS), advanced bitumen products, geothermal technology, petrochemicals, hydrogen, lithium, helium, zero-emissions vehicles and nuclear technologies.

I suspect Trudeau will agree to most items on that list.

But Smith also asked Trudeau to, “Significantly, and through the lens of global emissions reduction, increase the export of LNG and other responsibly developed conventional oil and natural gas resources to Europe, Asia and the United States.”

That’s going to be more of a hard sell to Trudeau. He seems welded at the hip to his energy scarcity policies that play up unreliable sources of energy such as wind and solar, while downplaying proven sources of abundant energy such as LNG and nuclear, not to mention oil.

But, again, this letter is only in part to Trudeau. Its true recipient is all Canadians.

A far higher percentage of us are questioning the progressive left’s energy scarcity policies that limit LNG and nuclear, that favour dictator oil and gas over Canadian and American oil and gas, and that drive up inflation because scarce and costly energy makes everything more expensive, from gas to groceries.

However Trudeau addresses this letter, many reasonable Canadians will approve of Smith’s new stance.

They are tired of partisan wrangling.

They’re fearful of inflation and job loss.

They want energy security.

They want sound environmental policies, not ones that will impoverish us.

Smith is now speaking their language.

dstaples@postmedia.com