Alberta Next panel announced with legislature members, academics and business leaders

The UCP hopes the "Alberta Next" panel can provide recommendations on potential referendum questions, including separation. Nahreman Issa reports.

Premier Danielle Smith says she’ll spend the summer touring the province with business leaders, backbenchers and an academic to find ways to protect Alberta from what she calls federal mistreatment and overreach.

The tour is part of what Smith has dubbed the “Alberta Next” panel. She announced Tuesday the details of its work and named its 15 members.

“This summer, along with rodeos and pancake breakfasts, our government will be doing something a little bit different,” Smith told a Calgary news conference.

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“We’ll be travelling the province, seeking input in no less significant topic than the future of Alberta itself.

“The time is right for this critical discussion.”

Smith hinted at the panel in March, saying it should poll Albertans on what the province should do after the federal election. She also put a list of demands to Prime Minister Mark Carney after he became Liberal leader.

Smith said Ottawa is to blame for decades of lost investment and resource revenue, and Alberta can’t be held back any longer.

The premier is to lead the 15-member panel, which includes three United Conservative Party legislature members: Brandon Lunty, Glenn van Dijken and the party’s newest MLA, Tara Sawyer, who won a byelection Monday.

Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz is on the panel with two oil and gas executives and Business Council of Alberta president Adam Legge.

Other members are retired judge Bruce McDonald, acupuncturist Dr. Akin Osakuade and University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe.

“It’s not so much the West wants in, as the West wants Ottawa out of its hair,” Smith said.

“Ottawa has been interfering in every aspect of our provincial jurisdiction in deeper and deeper ways for about a decade now, and we’ve had enough of it.”

Following 10 town halls, scheduled to begin next month and end in late September, Smith said the panel would recommend ideas and policy proposals to be put to Albertans in a referendum in 2026.

“Alberta is full of engaged citizens who care deeply about their province and its future,” Smith said. “And I truly believe that they will give us a wealth of ideas that will ensure our beloved province remains forever strong and free.”

Smith has previously said a referendum on Alberta separation could happen, though she reiterated Tuesday that she wouldn’t initiate one herself and the panel’s mandate is to improve the province’s position in Canada.

Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said the premier is wasting time and money by rehashing former premier Jason Kenney’s Fair Deal panel, which toured the province six years ago in search of ways Alberta could gain leverage over Ottawa.

“We’ve had this panel already just a couple years ago, but she loves nothing more than paying UCP insiders’ taxpayer money to do these ridiculous things so she can keep the fire burning,” Nenshi said.

“It will result in nothing that we haven’t already heard, except it will allow her to have something to keep fighting about.”

Kenney’s panel eventually published 25 recommendations, including those to create a provincial police force and an Alberta pension plan.

He adopted neither before Smith took the reins. Since then, Smith has set the legislative stage for a provincial police force while showing wavering interest in the pension plan proposal.

Smith said she has identified six issues put forward by the previous panel that she thinks Albertans might want to have a referendum on, but she didn’t provide details.

She said she doesn’t want to prejudge what ideas or proposals might be considered for a referendum. She encouraged Albertans to attend the town halls and fill out an online survey, which the province launched Tuesday.

“Your voice matters and our province’s future depends on it,” Smith said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 24, 2025.

— With files from Jack Farrell in Edmonton