Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says the ongoing trade war between Canada and the U.S. signals a need to accelerate timelines on major national projects and business relief. At a Wednesday press conference in northern Alberta, Smith doubled down on her aversion to retaliatory energy tariffs against the U.S. Ottawa is expected to hit the U.S. with dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs on Sept. 8 in response to President Donald Trump’s 50-per-cent levies on roughly $28 billion worth of Canadian products. Smith called Trump’s move “tragic, unjustified, and wholly unnecessary.” Those tariffs are expected to affect about $1.5 billion of Alberta exports to the south. Oil and gas and beef cattle — Alberta’s biggest industries — are so far unaffected. “Rather than making threats and promises we know we cannot keep, Canada should focus on what we can control and do,” Smith said. That includes “de-escalating and doubling down on diplomacy.” She said she appreciated the federal government’s business relief initiatives as Canadians prepare for potentially bumpy economic times and said Alberta would consider the same. Alberta Finance Minister Jason Nixon and Jobs Minister Joseph Schow will co-chair a cabinet committee beginning Thursday to discuss how best to support small and medium businesses. The province will also launch an online portal allowing businesses to share feedback on tariff-related challenges to “ensure they are receiving the supports they need.” There was no word on when that portal would launch. Smith is further assembling a business advisory committee that will meet next week ahead of talks with Prime Minister Mark Carney about exporting more oil and gas to eastern Canada. The Alberta government will continue to push for an accelerated west coast pipeline project timeline, she added. “Time is our friend; we must give our people and our businesses the resources they need to survive, and give the American people and their leaders the time they need to reverse these terrible policies after the November midterms,” she said. Smith had previously released statements on the breakdown of negotiations between the two parties, expressing the need for both governments to get back to the table as soon as possible. Alberta already took counter-tariffs on Canada’s oil and gas exports off the table earlier this week, a move criticized by former premier Jason Kenney. On Wednesday, she further denounced a proposed tariff on oil, gas and potash as U.S. retaliation would mean tariffs on their own midwest oil and gas exports that would spell economic disaster for Ontario and Quebec. “We would lose the United States as a customer entirely, if not forever,” she said, which would result in hundreds of thousands of job losses across Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. Data centres and alcohol: No U.S. alienation in Alberta yet As for alcohol, a sore point in U.S.-Canada negotiations, Smith called on each province to implement a standardized pricing system for all Canadian liquor products. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced earlier Wednesday that the province would implement a 50-per-cent tariff on U.S. alcohol products starting Sept. 8. Alberta and Saskatchewan are the only two provinces currently selling U.S. alcohol. Smith says she’s “holding out hope” that the U.S. would ultimately reverse tariffs, but will “certainly take any ideas that we’re seeing other provinces do to our trade committee.” Northern Alberta is set to become home to American company Meta’s first AI data centre in Canada. But Smith hopes negotiations pick back up well before hard decisions need to be made. In the meantime, Canada needs “to get down to real work, less talk and more action to support businesses, investment and employment,” Smith said. She pointed to tax reform measures, accelerated capital cost allowance and breaking down interprovincial trade barriers. “Further, we must continue to strengthen international relationships with trading partners to open new markets for Canadian products. We should never allow any country to tell us who we can and cannot trade with.”
