U.S.-Canada Energy Relations with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith

This transcript is from a CSIS podcast published on March 12, 2025. Listen to the podcast here.

Danielle Smith: I think Albertans want to be Canadian, they don't want to be American, and they can value our friendship with our American partners, but they don't want to be the 51st state. We would like to get back to talking about how do we find our common cause, get more oil to market and build on that partnership.

Quill Robinson: Welcome to Power Map, the CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program podcast where we explore the forces reshaping the global energy system. I'm Quill Robinson.

Joseph Majkut: And I'm Joseph Majkut.

Quill Robinson: Joseph. This week we spoke with Danielle Smith. Danielle Smith is the premier of Alberta and the leader of the governing United Conservative Party Before entering politics, premier Smith worked extensively in media and in business and most recently she was the president of the Alberta Enterprise Group. Joseph, I'm curious, what were your takeaways from our conversation with Danielle?

Joseph Majkut: I've had a couple. One having a background as a think tanker and a media personality makes you a spectacular communicator and one of the most interesting pieces of our conversation with her was when we talked about in a moment where governments are facing a lot of turbulence, in particular the U.S - Canada relationship, the ability to communicate with constituents is like a superpower for those in government because there's just big disruptions happening and if you can't communicate what those things to your constituents, you're going to lose elections. I thought that was a really key insight from her. I mean obviously the topical stuff was profoundly interesting recording the day before tariffs were supposed to set in between the U.S. and Canada hearing about her plans for climate change, but just from the top, I thought that was one of the things that I took away.

Quill Robinson: Yeah, the communications point struck me as well, and I can't help but think that it's not just important for communicating with constituents, but there's a reason that Premier Smith has spent so much time on Fox News over the last several months. She has an audience in the United States. She has an audience in President Trump, and I can't help but think that a lot of these issues may be litigated in the public square and on the airwaves, whereas detailed trade deals may have been worked out behind closed doors in the past. So it's certainly an interesting sign of the times. I think Joseph, one of the thing that I'm still thinking about is we hear American energy independence or energy independence was thrown around a lot in the first Trump administration when we've sort of turned to energy dominance, what's in a word? I actually think there is something important here, particularly in the U.S. and Canada relationship, that North America as a unit may have significance when it comes to having a strong energy hand more so than just the U.S. alone itself, particularly when it comes to the heavy sour crude that Alberta in particular produces.

Joseph Majkut: Yeah, it's a good point. I mean that was one area where I'm always a little suspicious. People trying to shoehorn their thing into like a President Trump thing, and so the extent to which American energy dominance can relate to extend to North American energy dominance, I think we have to see that doesn't really answer the critiques as well founded as you believe they may be that President Trump is raising with these new trade measures, but of course as we came to learn 24 hours after we recorded or maybe 48 hours after we recorded those tariffs were again delayed. What was your impression of the conversation when it came to U.S. - Canada energy trade? There's the technical bits, there's the market aspects, and then there's the politics of it. What was your read from the conversation?

Quill Robinson: 4 million barrels per day is a lot of oil and it's particularly significant. Our colleague, Clay, has covered this a lot. The heavy sour crude that we import and is refined in those Midwest refineries is not something that's just fungible in terms of U.S. production. It does play into this broader conversation. I mean, I think what President Trump is trying to do right now is shake things up and sort of restructure the nature of the trade relationship, but at least from my perspective, from everything that I understand, this energy relationship that we have with Canada is absolutely vital and I think as much as North America can operate as a unit with lots of natural resources, we will be stronger. And I think certainly Premier Smith and many Canadians feel pretty miffed right now with this back and forth.

Joseph Majkut: Oh, I mean that is definitely true. You see American products being pulled off shelves, Canadian tourists are foregoing trips to the United States.

Quill Robinson: A zillion dollars of American liquor apparently pulled out off Ottawa shelves.

Joseph Majkut: But the interconnection you mentioned on energy is highly important because just as the United States is dependent on those imports of Canadian sour crude, so too are Canadian exporters dependent on the U.S. market, as we learned in that conversation, there aren't other places for that oil to go. The physical infrastructure to take it to other markets just does not exist. Now, perhaps if tariffs are imposed, Canada will pursue market diversification, build pipelines. We talked a little bit about how the politics of pipelines might be changing in Canada under this, but even then you sense some difficulties. There are only a few growing markets for those kinds of oil products around the world. A lot of producers are targeting them. I think we have to wait and see what's going to happen in terms of the energy strategy that Canada pursues going forward.

Quill Robinson: Absolutely. Well Joseph, this was a really interesting conversation with Premier Smith. Let's dive in.

Premier Danielle Smith, thank you so much for joining Power Map. Good to have you.

Danielle Smith: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Quill Robinson: So I want to start by asking you what has surprised you most about being premier? You took office several years ago. What has surprised you about the job?

Danielle Smith: There's lots. I mean, I think the greatest surprise was how cordial and collegial our Council of the Federation is. That's the regular meeting that we have of all the premiers, the 10 provinces and the three territories. And what's so surprising about it is that we have conservatives, progressive conservatives, liberals, new democrats, independent members, and somehow out of every meeting we end up with a communicate talking about the things that we agree upon. So that has really just encouraged my confidence in that kind of consensus leadership, but also just demonstrated that even though we have political differences, you can always find some areas of common ground. So that's been my biggest surprise and actually it's been very gratifying, especially as we're going through with this new tariff threat to know that we do have a lot of common cause between the premiers.

Quill Robinson: And so before we dive into the tariffs and all the other policy things that we're looking forward to discussing with you today, I want to ask you, you've had kind of an interesting career. You've been in media, you've been an advocate for Alberta's business community, how your time in and out of politics has affected how you communicate with your constituents.

Danielle Smith: It's funny, I go in cycles, so I was in think tank world. That's where I got started at a think tank called the Fraser Institute, which is our most prominent think tank in Canada.

Quill Robinson: I discovered an interesting paper back from your earlier career where you're writing on environmental issues.

Danielle Smith: It's true indicators from Canada in the U.S. so I've been a free market environmentalist for as long as I can remember, but then got into advocacy through the Canadian Property Rights Research Institute, then got into politics with the school board and then got into media with the Calgary Herald, and that's kind of a cycle that I continue to do, whether it's a business advocacy or media, print, television, radio, and then back into politics. I was in politics 10 years ago or so as opposition leader and then made my comeback again. But to me what it's done is it's allowed me to build on the thing I really care about, which is good public policy. There's an absolute role for government in being able to provide a social safety net in building out the infrastructure and creating an environment to create jobs. But then they can't be too intrusive. You can't stand in the way of individual enterprise and the ability of people to take care of themselves, their families, their communities, start a business. And so that has always been something I've studied from when I went through my economics degree and each different job I have has allowed me to further my understanding of some of the policy proposals I would have to try to achieve that balance.

Joseph Majkut: Madam Premier, what has changed for politicians with the new media environment, with new demands on government? In the U.S. we're experiencing a tempest where the governing posture is just very different. The way politicians communicate is changing rapidly. Is that something that is U.S. only or is that happening for you as well?

Danielle Smith: Well, I can tell you, I've just had this conversation recently with someone because if you look at our list of longest serving premiers in Alberta, and it'll be probably consistent across our country, we don't have term limits. So our longest serving premier Earnest Manning was in power for 25 years, and our second longest serving was 14 years. The third longest serving was Ralph Klein at 14 years. And all of those were pre-social media and we have not seen any kind of longevity out of governments essentially since maybe it's been since Twitter or maybe it's been since every word you capture or every image or video where you misstep can be amplified multiple times. It is created a lot of turnover that you're lucky if you can get to a full term, let alone two, let alone what Doug Ford just pulled off in Ontario three terms. And I think that that is because of the magnifying glass that we are all under. That there might have been, maybe it was just because it wasn't covered because you didn't know what you didn't know about some of the difficulties or personality issues of a premier. Now it's everywhere. And so I think that that has shortened the timeframe that a politician has to be able to keep a mandate so that they can get work done and it means that everything is sped up. So not only is the news cycle sped up, but the decision-making need for politicians have sped up. If you want to get your agenda implemented, you got to move lightning fast because it just might not last a term or two.

Joseph Majkut: Is that making our world more democratic or less in a small d sense?

Danielle Smith: It's creating I think a lot of difficulty for regular people because we're all getting whipsawed. I mean, if you look at four and a half years ago, look at eight years ago we were excited because the U.S. administration under Donald Trump wanted to build the Keystone XL Pipeline. Major project for our province would've connected the largest supply of heavy oil with the largest heavy oil refining capacity in the U.S. everybody got underway and then bam, five minutes after Biden got elected and he reversed that permit, and now here we are, bam, once again with the U.S. president talking about can we reenergize that project. When you have, and that's just one example, but when you think of all of the tens of thousands of people impacted by that kind of reversal, it's terrible for business investment. It's terrible for the shareholders who are relying on dividend income. It's terrible for the workers who are excited and then out of work. That to me is the real challenge that we have is that that kind of instability. It's just not good for regular people. And so I don't know if we're going to be able to resolve that, but that is one of the consequences.

Joseph Majkut: It does feel like a whipsaw. I mean, we talked to folks in the private industry, we talked to policymakers like yourself abroad and the U.S. policy stance on energy and climate issues changes so rapidly that it's hard for anybody to make long-term investments or build trusting relationships, both of which we're going to have a chance to talk with you about today. Maybe we can start with your description of the role of energy in the Albertan economy as a baseline for discussing many of the changes that we see coming in the next day, in the next months, the next years.

Danielle Smith: I think the thing, there's a couple things to understand about our geography. First of all, it's massive and we have a bit of a natural kind of dividing line in how we look at energy somewhere around Manitoba. So when you go Manitoba and east, you are talking more about nuclear and hydroelectric power, and so they're able to have non-emissions sources of energy to a much greater extent. Then when you come across the shield and now you're into the western sedimentary basin, and it just made more sense for us on this side of the country to develop our substantial coal resources and oil resources, oil sands (which is a heavier oil) natural gas. And then again, you get into British Columbia and you're back to being able to get your electricity on hydropower. But I think it's also created a bit of a misunderstanding on the part of consumers about where their energy comes from. So yeah, you can get green electricity in some of our provinces, but most of them still rely on some kind of fossil fuel based heating fuel, whether it's heating oil or whether it's natural gas or whether it's coal. And they also rely on oil which produces diesel and gasoline and aviation fuel. There really aren't very good replacements for those. So what has happened unfortunately is that in Alberta, because we are the owner of the lion's share of the resource, not only in our country but also on our continent, politicians have to understand how the energy market works.

The other thing I would say about our country is that the resources are owned by the crown on behalf of the people. In our particular type of decentralized constitutional democracy, that means that the province is the principle owner of the oil and gas resources on behalf of the people. So about 85% of the resources are owned by us, so we have to work with the industry to develop it on our behalf and work with the industry to get it to market on our behalf. So we've all had to become very expert in this, but I would say that that leads to a lot of misunderstanding because while we understand the implications very well and we understand the value of this product, I think a lot of other politicians in other provinces, and I think that they take it for granted and now we're really having to confront that as we talk about how to build it out, create energy dominance, and be able to supply more to our partners around the world.

Quill Robinson: I think many Americans have a sense that the U.S. - Canada relationship is very important. We share the largest land border in the world. There's a lot of trade that happens between our two economies. What about the U.S. - Alberta relationship in particular? What are the important points that our audience should know about that relationship?

Danielle Smith: Many Albertans came here because of a U.S. settlement coming up north. I mean, one of our great pioneers who helped us create the cattle business is John Ware, an African-American who came up and really brought the business to Canada. One of our greatest festivals, the Calgary Stampede, had its roots in American performers who came up here to develop it. We have had American companies who've invested in helping us develop our resource. We have a very large Latter-Day Saints community that intermarries and has family with Utah's. Alberta has the largest expatriate American population of any jurisdiction in Canada. So I think those are the reasons why there has always been a lot more ties with the United States, but I have to say, I mean it's fraying. I think Albertans want to be Canadian. They don't want to be American. They can value our friendship with our American partners, but they don't want to be the 51st state or some part of a 51st state. We would like to get back to talking about how do we find our common cause, get more oil to market and build on that partnership.

Joseph Majkut: Let's run right at that. So we're recording on the 3rd of March, President Trump has put in plans in place to raise tariffs on Canadian imports, 25% across the board, 10% on energy products starting tomorrow. Now, when he said about doing that a month ago, they paused the implementation of those tariffs until tomorrow. I think we will still waiting and seeing when this comes out, we'll probably know what happened. This could be potentially quite disruptive to the energy trade. For the U.S. consumer, this could increase prices in particular gasoline prices in the Midwest. This creates a lot of uncertainty for the companies that trade oil back and forth. What does it look like on the Canadian side of the border?

Danielle Smith: Certainly less harmful at 10% than 25%. Let me go to 25% first. There are a number of U.S. refineries, including in key swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania that are 100% reliant on U.S. heavy oil, and there isn't a very good alternative for that and many of them are marginal. So if you end up increasing the cost by 25%, that could be the difference between them being able to survive or not. And you start talking about refinery shutting down, now you're talking about gasoline shortages and that has its own problems associated with it. So that was why I think the American Petroleum Institute, the refiners as well as the cross-border pipeline companies were able to effectively argue that if we're looking at energy resources, if you're going to tariff it at all, and we hope that they don't, it's got to be a lower rate. So 10% painful, yes, but manageable is what I'm hearing that the producers take a little bit of a hit on that maybe there's a widening differential on the Western Canada Select, maybe the refiners take a little bit so it doesn't impact the consumers, and you can make that same argument for critical minerals. You can make that same argument for electricity. As I understand it, the U.S. definition of energy resources in the emergency declaration included all of those things. So I think that that's a recognition that raw materials shouldn't be tariffed at all. I mean, I know that President McKinley is one that the U.S. president keeps on pointing to, but my understanding is McKinley realized you don't tax raw materials because raw materials are your base that go into creating value added products. And so you want those at a cost effective price. You can create good American jobs and good American products that quite frankly, Canada then ends up buying back more than anyone else in the world. We buy more from America than any other country, even though we're only one 10th the size of America. So those are the arguments that I make is that I think that there has been a recognition at least on this front, that it would be far more painful to the United States consumer than any benefit that would come from it. Now it's just up to us to make that same argument on all of our other raw materials, whether it's timber or whether it's food, whether it's intermediate products like our manufactured goods that go back and forth across the border many times including auto parts. And I think we're slowly but surely having some of those American voices make that case for us. But I think, I don't want to underplay it. A 25% tariff on all of those products almost would be immediately devastating. It would impact investment. You'd end up with a number of projects that would get canceled or suspended, maybe canceled altogether. Job losses would occur as a result of it, and that's why we've been working so hard to try to avoid it altogether.

Quill Robinson: So we've established that the U.S. - Canada energy relationship is very important. 84% of oil, crude oil in Canada is produced in Alberta. Canada is also the fourth largest producer of crude oil in the world. You mentioned the Keystone XL experience. Did you learn any lessons about hedging against U.S. policy from that experience? How are you applying those lessons with the ups and downs in U.S. policy? How do you approach this as premier of Alberta?

Danielle Smith: It's really disappointing that that occurred because you've got a 15 billion lawsuit from Trans Canada, 1.8 billion loss from our provincial government, and we also have a lawsuit that's going on, and I think that that's part of the caution that everyone has had when hearing the President acknowledged that it was unfair. We appreciate that. But the fact of the matter is if we dilly dally and waste any time in talking about new projects and then there's the potential for another change of government, whether it's a year and a half from now because Congress changes or three and a half years from now because the president changes, there's not very many private sector companies that would be willing to take on that risk. So that's what I think everybody is here sitting back and looking at is can there be permitting reform in order to get these projects well advanced and underway so that they can withstand a change in the White House? And you can't even begin that conversation with 25% tariffs hanging overhead. We're just all wasting time, sadly, and I think it would be far better for us to address the legitimate border issues as we have, address the legitimate trade irritants as we would like to through a renegotiated CUSMA. I think that the fact that we continue to be talking about things that aren't going to happen 51st state and the devastation of 25% tariffs, you can't even begin to have a conversation, a constructive conversation in the middle of a tariff war. So I'm saddened at the potential for a missed opportunity. I really wish that we would be able to work collaboratively on these things that we know we both would benefit from, but I think you'd be very unlikely to find a private sector Canadian proponent step forward while there's still this current uncertainty.

Joseph Majkut: Yeah, I agree. That seems almost impossible. It's too much to ask of any investor. We do benefit from working in a think tank. We can sometimes step out of the fray and say, what should the conversation look like? You mentioned energy dominance is something that both the U.S. and Canada can strive for. Say we get over the bumps in the road that we're experiencing right now. How do you see those two agendas working together?

Danielle Smith: Well, I have a deck ready and raring to go for when we do get over this short-term bump, which has a multitude of different potential projects on it and adding more every day. So there's a few things I'd say is that with Canada being able to backfill for the United States so that their consumers are taken care of, that allows the Americans to export more of their WTI oil so that they can meet their international national security objectives, whether that's working with India so that India doesn't have to buy from shadow fleets that carry Russian oil or whether it's crowding out so that nobody is reliant on Iranian oil. There's a very good reason why the Americans should want us to be able to provide that secure discounted supply to their consumers because then they can have the best of both worlds. They get theirs, able to go out into the world and use their energy for strategic purposes, but then also make sure that their own people are not harmed by that.

That's one part of it. But the other part of it is that we've had some success despite the fact that we've had a federal government that has been at times openly hostile to the oil and gas industry. Canceling somewhere in the order of $175 billion worth of projects. They did manage to still squeak through the construction of a couple. So we have the Trans Mountain pipeline that goes to the coast, which ultimately might be able to be expanded to be at 1.3 million barrels plus, especially if there's some spur lines that can happen there. We do have Coastal Gas Link, which is about to start with LNG Canada. So we have a gas line for LNG on the coast, and we have a number of other projects that are being proposed and in partnership with First Nations. So the Americans don't have that because they have a real problem in being able to get pipelines built through Washington, Oregon, and California, and I don't think that's going to change, and so whether it's Canada or whether it's Mexico, being able to offer that shorter pathway to be able to support our Asian partners, that also is another way that even though we could build more pipelines, I don't look at it as being competitive. I look at it as being complimentary. Let's find a way to be able to support South Korea and Japan and our other Asian partners without having to go through the South China Sea. So those are the kind of things that we think we have to offer. The other side too is that whether we can build to the north with the Grays Bay, Nunavut Northwest Territories is one option. Whether we can build to Churchill, which is in our Hudson Bay area, whether we can go to James Bay, which is a bit of a spur line coming up from Ontario, or whether there's a renewed interest in Quebec developing its substantial natural gas resources so it can export off the east coast. All of that would help our partners in Europe being able to crowd out some of that. And that's again, the shortest distance is if we can go that way. So I think that one way or the other, whether we continue to have a complicated relationship with the U.S. that delays us being able to talk about any of the substantial increases we would be able to build to the U.S. because I've got three or four projects that are waiting and raring to go, whether it's that or whether it's Canada being more self-sufficient and finding new markets on our own. I still think that assists in North American energy dominance. I don't think that it is, I think it's very much in sync with the U.S. aspirations. I just think we can do some things that the Americans haven't been able to do so far.

Joseph Majkut: So either I'm hearing we're teamed up in energy dominance or perhaps competitors in energy dominance.

Danielle Smith: I think complimentary. I always hope complimentary because they are right now our principle customer and we want to maintain that. We certainly wouldn't want to do anything that was seen to be against their interests. I mean, it's one thing, I mean I have looked at it, is who is it that the Americans are wanting to supply and can we assist them in being able to provide that supply? I think that that's the spirit that we have to go into on this, and whether it goes to those partners by way of the United States, I think that would be good for Americans by way of the United States means they've got first dibs on buying it and using it if they need to, and then if there's excess, then it can also be exported. So I think there's some really good strategic interests about why they would want us to be able to backfill, but barring that, I think that we can align our export markets to where it is the Americans want to support and then we would be complimentary to that.

Quill Robinson: I'm curious about decarbonization. I know that you've been quite critical of Ottawa and Prime Minister Trudeau on a number of his different climate policies, but as we look a decade, two decades, three decades into the future, I'm curious what your vision is for Alberta in terms of decarbonization.

Danielle Smith: I can tell you, I remember going to a seminar, since you're in the think tank world, there was a summer Liberty seminar that used to take place in Ontario. I remember going one year and hearing a geology professor talk about just this miraculous product: oil and natural gas. And how when we began looking at how we could use it, we were looking for kerosene because we wanted a replacement for whale oil. And then there was all this sludge and muck left over and sure enough, bright entrepreneurs put their mind to it, and now there's over 6,000 products that come from a barrel of oil. I've actually seen somebody created a sheet that from floor to ceiling of all of the different products that come out of it. And why do I say that? I say that because I think that CO2 is just one other byproduct that the industry is going to learn how to monetize at some point because what they do, they take a waste product and they turn it into something useful.

It's a little more complicated to do, but I'm seeing some progress on that. So the first foray is carbon capture utilization and storage, right? So the utilization part, we've already been using CO2 for enhanced oil recovery. So they already found a use for CO2. The storage opportunities in Alberta are immense. We've got all of our forest space mapped out at 25 different basins that could capture CO2, and we already have at scale projects doing that with pipelines. So we've got about 15 megatons of CO2 that has already been stored. There's about 40 megatons of CO2 that has been stored in Saskatchewan. So that's probably the first effort. But we're now also seeing, because we have those hubs that different industrial operations are starting. So Dow Chemical is making somewhere in the order of about $12 billion investment along with Lindy in one of those hubs. So they can capture the CO2, store it and then be able to create hydrogen on the one hand, but then also be able to create net zero plastic. So they're going to be doing plastic beads that can then be exported and turned into useful products. Also under consideration right now, I've mentioned hydrogen, Air Products is another company capturing the CO2, burying it and creating hydrogen as a zero emissions fuel for hopefully transportation, but also talking about how it might be put into the natural gas stream so that we can reduce the emissions profile of our natural gas home heating. And then Heidelberg has been talking about how they might use that same infrastructure we have to create net zero cement. Which is extraordinary, to take the CO2 injected into the cement to make it stronger and more durable. But then you have a net zero cement on one of the second most traded commodity in the world, so now you can start decarbonizing construction. So that's how I look at it. And I should say one final thing is that we do have a direct air capture pilot facility in Central Alberta creating an avenue for different companies to figure out how they might be able to capture CO2 directly as a way of getting to that last mile. So I see a lot of enthusiasm in the entrepreneurial sector about how do we take this waste stream as a problem and do something useful with it, and that's the constructive conversation to have. Having absurd conversations about phasing out oil and gas completely, it's not constructive. It's impossible to do as we've now begun to see reality is setting in. But yeah, let's have a conversation about how we can phase out emissions and let's support our entrepreneurs in doing that.

Joseph Majkut: Madam Premier, the arrival of President Trump for the second time, pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement seems to be a harbinger of something, of a reset when it comes to climate. ESG funds are collapsing. We still see a lot of investment in new energy solutions. We hear about the efforts as you've just described. Do you sense a reset coming on that will give us maybe a more pragmatic path, maybe a less politicized path, or are we doomed to be on the whipsaw of climate and energy policy out here in the west?

Danielle Smith: I think whipsaw, unfortunately. I mean, look at what we're experiencing in Canada right now. We're in the middle of a leadership contest because the current prime minister became so unpopular with his net zero cars, net zero homes, net zero power grid, emissions cap, methane cap tanker, bans. He became so unpopular, it was untenable for him to consider. And then the front runner is the guy who is the architect of all of those things. Mark Carney is the architect of net zero financing, punishing companies for their emissions profile, trying to debank them, trying to deinsure them. So I would say that, did the liberals learn their lesson? I don't think so. I think that even some of the interviews you've seen Mark Carney give, he talks about biding his time until this president has moved on, and then it will just pick up right where it left off. So if that's what we have to prepare for, then we need to be supporting all of the entrepreneurs who are continuing down that research pathway. But I can't at this moment say that there has been a reversal. I think there has been a reality check. I think that most of the world has now realized that with a large portion of the global population in energy poverty, that has to be resolved at the same time as we're dealing with emissions. And so now I'm seeing more realistic projections about what a future use of oil is going to be on a barrels per day basis. I hope that we can have that parallel conversation. How do we make sure that we're bringing people into energy wealth at the same time as dealing with emissions? It may be that it's less emphasized over the next four years, but having seen what can happen in the United States, my sense of the industry is that they're going to continue keeping some of those arms, some of that research up and running in the event it does turn around again in four years.

Quill Robinson: Premier Smith, I want to close with a question about your framework and how it's potentially evolved or changed over the years. We recognize that on energy and climate issues that our audience may not agree with all of our guests and that these are very contentious issues. But I just want to ask you, over your years working in politics, working in the environment energy space, has your framework for tackling these issues changed or evolved in any way?

Danielle Smith: I would say yes. One of my first jobs being with the Fraser Institute, I was an intern there at the tail end of my economics degree, and my project was looking at environmental indicators for Canada and the United States, and we had to at that time, so this is around '96, had to make the decision about were we going to focus on harmful pollutants or were we going to focus on CO2? Because it was just really beginning to gain some traction at that time. And we made the decision that we wanted to focus on solid waste production and landfill production and what the recycling rates were and what water effluent and water measures were for contaminants and what air quality indicators were and so on and so forth. There really was a bit of a differentiation between what are the things that are causing real pressing harm to human health in the environment and prioritizing those. And in the interim, I've watched as CO2 has just swallowed up all of the conversation around that. There's a lot of environmental issues we have to deal with. We've got to deal with toxic sites, we've got to deal with species protection and habitat protection. We've got to deal with reforestation. There's a lot of things we need to talk about, and I wish we could get back to a more balanced conversation. That being said, what I observed is that the business community was prepared to invest substantial dollars in trying to resolve this technical challenge. I mean, this is a chemical engineering challenge, and why would I, as a politician stand in the way of that? If they can look at this as a new revenue stream, solve an environmental problem at the same time as potentially monetizing it, then I think that we should be supportive of that. So I have taken the view that its technology is going to be the solution, and that's why we've got to make sure we don't do anything that interferes with the income stream of the very companies that are going to solve the emissions challenge for us. So I would say that that's probably where my paradigm has shifted a bit.

Joseph Majkut: Premier Smith, we are really grateful you joined us on Power Map today. Thank you for all of your efforts. We wish you the best. We hope Alberta remains strong and free.

Danielle Smith: That's our provincial slogan, Fortis a Libra. So yes.

Joseph Majkut: And I hope the next time you visit Washington, you'll come and show us that energy dominance deck here at CSIS.

Danielle Smith: You bet. I have it on me.

Quill Robinson: Thank you so much for listening to Power Map. Please make sure to subscribe and to review wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll see you next episode.

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