Danielle Smith, Not Donald Trump, is the Existential Threat to Canada

Canada, not the US, is the real beacon of democracy for the world. We mustn't let Smith's delusional authoritarian libertarianism ruin our moment

Canada is the most decentralized federation in the world. Provinces enjoy extraordinary authority within the Constitution. Where there is overlap, the courts long ago ruled that Ottawa and the provinces should cooperate to advance the public good. Hence, the Canadian doctrine of cooperative federalism. Tension between provincial, regional, and national interests is a feature, not a bug, of the system. The Confederation only works when premiers are committed to negotiation and compromise.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith rejects both principles. She argues for a “sovereign Alberta within a united Canada.” Her first act as Premier was ushering in the Sovereignty Act. Ever since, she has relentlessly attacked the Government of Canada and the very idea of Canada.

Which leads us to last night’s public address.

The Sovereignty Mirage

Smith’s formulation is clever. It soothes moderate ears while signalling something much harder to her base. A sovereign Alberta. Within a united Canada. The words are arranged to reassure. The intent is not.

Strip away the rhetorical gauze and what remains is an ideology I have described before as authoritarian libertarianism: maximum freedom for those on the political fringes who cheer her, and shrinking freedoms for those she disfavors. Freedom for anti-vaxxers and convoy romantics. Constraint for teachers, trans kids, and anyone who challenges executive authority. It is an approach to governance that treats the state not as a neutral guarantor of rights, but as an instrument to reward friends and discipline opponents.

We have seen the pattern.

The Alberta Sovereignty Act, framed as a shield against Ottawa, became a sword pointed at federal law. Using the Notwithstanding Clause to end a teachers’ strike signalled a willingness to suspend Charter protections when politically inconvenient. The government’s attack on transgender youth was justified as parental rights while narrowing the lived rights of vulnerable children.

Last night’s speech extended the same logic to immigration and the Constitution. Smith promised a referendum to “strengthen Alberta’s constitutional and fiscal position within a united Canada.” She framed it as democratic renewal. She presented herself as a tribune of the people.

“I trust the judgment of Albertans,” she declared.

Trust is not the issue. The structure of the questions is.

On immigration, she proposed that only citizens, permanent residents, and those with “an Alberta-approved immigration status” would be eligible for provincially funded programs. She asked whether non-permanent residents should wait 12 months before accessing social supports. She floated “a reasonable fee or premium” for non-permanent residents to use health care and education.

On the surface, these are administrative tweaks. In substance, they would create a stratified society in which legal residents live under a diminished civic status. A two-tier citizenship regime without calling it that.

This is an attack on Canada, not cooperative federalism, nor protecting Alberta from “federal over-reach.”

Anti-Canadian Principles

The principles animating the address are at odds with the core idea of Canada.

Canada is not defined by uniformity. Provinces interpret national values in their own ways. Quebec defends language. British Columbia leads on climate. Ontario experiments with industrial strategy. Alberta has long championed free enterprise and resource development. The diversity is real. The commitments underneath are shared.

Multiculturalism. Tolerance. Equality before the law. A belief that newcomers become Canadians not by lineage but by participation. A conviction that rights are not contingent on popularity.

Smith’s speech cut against that grain.

She blamed federal immigration policy for “flooding our classrooms, emergency rooms and social support systems with far too many people, far too quickly.” She described Ottawa as having “throttled our most important job creating industries” while opening the borders. She framed equalization as a scheme where “Alberta taxpayers can no longer be asked to continue to subsidize the entire country.”

There is a legitimate debate to be had about immigration levels. There is a legitimate debate to be had about fiscal transfers. In a federation, those debates are constant.

What makes this moment different is the moral framing.

Immigrants are cast less as future Albertans than as burdens. Federal redistribution is cast less as nation-building than as exploitation. The language is grievance, not partnership. The tone is separation without saying the word.

When a premier presents newcomers as a fiscal threat and the federation as a drain, she is not merely arguing policy. She is redefining belonging.

And that is anti-Canadian.

The Radicalizing Base

Most Albertans are ardent Canadians. They are proud of their province and proud of their country. They have no desire to become an independent republic or the 51st state. They cherish the Maple Leaf and cheer for Team Canada. They work in energy, agriculture, tech, and small business while assuming, almost unconsciously, that the country holds together.

Smith knows this.

Her referendum does not ask directly about separation. It asks about court appointments, Senate abolition, opting out of federal programs without losing funding, and reversing the doctrine of federal paramountcy so provincial laws would prevail in areas of shared jurisdiction. These are not kitchen-table issues. They are elite constitutional levers.

They are also red meat for a base that is becoming more radical.

The parallels with American politics are uncomfortable but unavoidable. Smith has expressed admiration for Donald Trump and for libertarian-leaning U.S. governors such as Ron DeSantis. The rhetorical patterns are familiar: anti-elite, anti-court, anti-federal, anti-immigrant. The claim that institutions are illegitimate unless they align with the will of “the people” as defined by the governing party.

She is not Trump. She is not a criminal. She is not stupid. But she is borrowing from a playbook that has degraded democratic norms elsewhere.

The danger is not immediate secession, but slow corrosion.

Undermining Canada’s Competitive Advantage

At Davos, Prime Minister Mark Carney argued that Canada’s values are a source of competitive advantage in a fragmenting world. Stability. Rule of law. Tolerance. Predictability. These are not abstract virtues. They are economic assets.

As global supply chains reconfigure and new trade relationships are negotiated, partners look for reliability. They look for jurisdictions where contracts are honoured, minorities are protected, and political disputes are resolved within constitutional bounds.

Smith’s agenda threatens that positioning.

Consider the push to have provinces appoint their own superior court judges. The judiciary is the guardian of the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. To fragment the appointments process along provincial lines would invite politicization and uneven standards. It would signal to investors and citizens alike that the rule of law is contingent.

Consider the proposal to give provincial laws priority over conflicting federal legislation. The doctrine of federal paramountcy exists precisely to prevent legal chaos. It ensures that when Ottawa and a province collide within shared jurisdiction, there is clarity. Remove that clarity and you introduce uncertainty.

Uncertainty is poison for trade.

Canada’s decentralized federation works because, despite disagreements, there is an underlying commitment to coherence. When premiers challenge federal environmental reviews or greenhouse gas regulations, they do so within a shared constitutional grammar. The arguments are fierce. The system holds.

Smith is testing the limits of that grammar.

And in doing so, she risks weakening the very federation that underwrites Alberta’s prosperity.

Alberta’s TMX Hypocrisy a Metaphor for Understanding Smith’s Address

In 2016 and 2017, during disputes between the City of Burnaby—later on, including the Government of British Columbia—and Kinder Morgan, the proponent of the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline, the federal regulator repeatedly invoked paramountcy in favour of the pipeline. Only Alberta benefitted from that pipeline. Since the start of service in mid-2024, TMX has added many billions of resource royalty revenue to Alberta government coffers.

To now demand an end to the doctrine of federal paramountcy after benefitting to such a great degree is rank hypocrisy.

But this is the essence of the authoritarian libertarian playbook: claim oppression, caterwaul endlessly about imaginary grievances, perpetually demand concessions, and by adroitly managing this chaos, somehow manage to achieve gains for Alberta that would be unthinkable in any other context.

Smith is emulating Trump. Canadians despise Trump. Therefore, they should not tolerate the anti-Canada machinations of a Trump clone.

Energy Fantasies and Confederation’s Future

Threaded through the address was an energy vision that strains credulity. Smith pledged to double Alberta’s oil and gas production to more than 8 million barrels a day by 2035. She spoke of adding 1.3 million barrels per day (up from 1 million b/d only a few months ago. Will the capacity inflation ever stop?) of pipeline capacity to the west coast, expanding southbound capacity, shipping crude east, unlocking deep-water ports.

“We will not permit Alberta’s and Canada’s most valuable resource deposit worth almost $10 trillion to remain in the ground,” she declared. Her confidence was absolute. The market realities are not.

Rapid electrification of transportation in China and across Asia is accelerating. Europe is also pushing hard. The International Energy Agency has forecast peak oil demand before 2030. Liquefied natural gas projects are coming online in waves from the United States, Qatar, and elsewhere, threatening a prolonged global glut into the 2040s.

Building multiple new oil and gas corridors across a saturated market is not a strategy, it is wishful thinking. A fantasy. A delusion. A fever dream.

The irony is sharp. Smith blames Ottawa for constraining Alberta’s growth while betting on a future that global demand trends increasingly question. She frames immigration as an existential fiscal threat while tying Alberta’s fortunes to volatile hydrocarbon markets that have already swung the provincial budget from surplus to a large deficit with a US$30 drop in oil prices.

This is incompetence.

Time to Wake Up to Smith’s Real Agenda: Dismantling Canada

Writing those words is difficult. Almost unthinkable. Canada is one of the longest-lived, most successful democracies in the world. Our successes are well-known to every Canadian and don’t need repeating here.

But this point needs to be made as forcefully as possible : Canada, not the United States, is the real beacon of democracy for the world.

Smith would tear apart that democracy.

Her address was ostensibly about immigration. It was framed as a defence of Alberta against federal overreach. It added to a familiar list of grievances: emissions regulation, environmental reviews, equalization, court appointments. But the throughline is deeper.

Her real adversary is Confederation itself. Not through formal separation. Through incremental hollowing.

A parasite does not kill its host immediately. It feeds, weakens, drains, and leaves behind a shell that still moves but no longer truly lives. A Canada in which provinces routinely defy federal law, fragment judicial appointments, restrict social rights by status, and treat national solidarity as theft would still be called Canada. It would still have a flag. It would still sing an anthem.

But it would be sorely diminished.

Appeasing will not moderate her trajectory. We have seen that lesson elsewhere. Concessions invite more demands. Each victory emboldens the next.

The time to defend cooperative federalism is before it unravels.

Canadians should debate immigration levels. They should debate equalization formulas. They should debate energy strategy. Those arguments are healthy. They are the lifeblood of a federation.

What they cannot afford is to shrug at a project that recasts rights as privileges and partnership as plunder.

Canada works because its leaders, even in conflict, ultimately choose compromise over rupture. Because they accept that tension and negotiating resolutions to that tension is structural. They recognize that strength lies in shared institutions, not perpetual brinkmanship.

Smith is gambling that grievance can substitute for governance.

The rest of the country should insist that she is wrong. Albertans should insist that she is wrong. And prepare, if necessary, to prove it.

The time is coming when Canadians across the country should take to the streets to protest what is going on in Alberta. And, it must be said, to stiffen the spines of their Members of Parliament, regardless of party. Canada is being threatened not just by Trump, but by the province that most resembles Texas.

That must stop. America has abdicated its role as the enlightened city on the hill. Canada is uniquely positioned to take up the torch. We cannot allow Danielle Smith and her minority of Trump-loving authoritarian libertarians to destroy Canada’s moment.