Danielle Smith says not trying to bury Alberta Next report

Premier Danielle Smith speaks to the media at the Legislature in Edmonton, on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Amber Bracken

Alberta premier Danielle Smith says just because a report from Alberta Next was released late on a Friday afternoon on the cusp of Christmas holidays doesn’t mean her government would rather not talk about it.

The report on Smith’s hand-picked panel re-examining the province’s relationship with Ottawa said it’s time to ditch the RCMP and hold a provincewide referendum on quitting the Canada Pension Plan.

The Alberta Next panel, in a report with findings and recommendations, said creating a provincial pension plan was the most hotly-debated topic among citizens and one that needs to proceed to a vote.

“Replacing the CPP with an (Alberta plan) is the most financially meaningful initiative Albertans have the right to pursue on our own to enhance our sovereignty and financial independence within a united Canada,” says the report from the panel, which was headed up by Smith.

The panel said such a vote should only be held after residents receive more information on the pros and cons of the province going it alone.

It also said a vote would be contingent on an Alberta pension plan matching or improving the payouts and premiums of the federal system.

‘I don’t want to bury it’

The report was issued Friday afternoon without a news conference, and Smith was not made available for an interview.

Saturday morning on her radio program Your Province.Your Premier, Smith was asked by host Wayne Nelson about accusations that she buried it in a late Friday news dump.

“Well, here we are talking about it,” Smith said. “I don’t want to bury it.

“I mean, I think the debate has happened,” she added. “We had 22,000 people issue comments, with 800,000 people watching the various panels online.

“We went to 10 different communities, had 5,000 people participate in person, and many others who participated in the survey. So I would say it’s a very high level of engagement.”

“People (have been) waiting for it, and now they see what it is that the panel is recommending, we will come back (in 2026) as a caucus and cabinet looking at the recommendations and seeing which ones will proceed on and which ones might go to a referendum of the people.”

In June, 2025, the province released the results of a survey asking Albertans whether they wanted a provincial pension plan.

Results showed 63 per cent of respondents were opposed to the Alberta Pension Plan (APP).

Saturday morning, Smith said some of the issues highlighted by Alberta Next predate her participation in provincial politics and are part of a longer timeline of a contentious relationship between Alberta and Ottawa.

“These big conversations about our evolving relationship with Ottawa have been very much in the backdrop for probably 30 years,” she said. “That’s how long I’ve been following this.

“And there have been various consultations that have shown increasing support for us to develop more aspects of what’s called responsible government,” she said. “The bigger you get, the more money you have, the more population you have, the more things you should do on your own.

“I think we can look at them as two different things, where one is sort of establishing a new relationship with Ottawa, and yet we still, on an annual basis, issue our budget, deal with affordability measures.

“We have to take care of health care, education, (and) vulnerable programs,” she added.

‘Millions of taxpayer dollars on a sham consultation: Nenshi

Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi labelled the Alberta Next project a stage-managed distraction from government failures on health care and education.

He said Smith didn’t campaign on any of the issues prioritized in the report, which he noted was released on the Friday before Christmas.

“The government has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on a sham consultation, where they actively silenced anyone who dared to disagree with them,” Nenshi said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“(They) are now pretending that that was the voice of Albertans to justify spending millions of dollars more on referenda on things that Albertans don’t want.”

Nenshi said the CPP issue is a stalking horse to create a government controlled piggy bank.

“They want to create a large asset fund that is under the control of the government to invest in things the government wants to invest in,” he said.

Rural police presence

The report comes after months of public town halls across the province and survey feedback.

It also recommends continuing work to create an Alberta police force to replace the RCMP when the latest contract with the national force ends in 2032.

Smith’s government has long questioned whether the province is getting value for money on the Mountie contract, while saying a provincial force can bolster accountability.

The panel acknowledged a provincial force was also a polarizing topic in debates but said it heard concerns about police staffing levels, particularly in smaller communities, with hundreds of contracted policing positions going unfilled.

“Some, like Cypress County, have been paying the RCMP with zero officers provided,” says the report.

The panel also called for referendums on more provincial control over immigration and on specific constitutional questions, such as abolishing the “unelected Senate.”

Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams said the results of the report were likely not what Smith was looking for.

“Releasing it on a Friday afternoon before the holiday - certainly looks like she wanted it under the radar,” Williams said. “The results on police and pensions, even with the skewed question process, were not what the government was looking for.”

With files from CTV’s Angela Amato, and The Canadian Press