Alberta’s rural heartland will continue to inform the UCP agenda in 2025, Premier Danielle Smith said in a yearend interview aimed at audiences beyond Calgary and Edmonton.
Health care, public safety and housing for seniors are among the issues that small-town, small-city and countryside Alberta can expect continued progress on, she told The Macleod Gazette.
Edited for flow and clarity, the full year-end interview with the premier follows.
Macleod Gazette: Good day, Madam Premier. It’s nice to connect with you.
You and your party have completed a busy year, with about two dozen UCP bills making it to the floor of the legislative assembly and being passed into law. So as you look back on 2024, how would you describe the approach you’ve taken in advancing your agenda and serving Albertans?
Premier Smith: Yes, it is nice to connect. And yes, it has been a busy year.
We went into the election talking about key issues that my caucus had identified, like affordability, jobs and the economy, and making sure we have enough people to fill the growing demand for new workers. We had to deal with the significant and growing issues of public safety and mental health, and we also had to reform the health-care system and stand up to Ottawa.
So those have been my guiding principles for my first two years on the job.
MG: Starting with affordability, jobs and the economy, what have you and your government accomplished?
Premier Smith: We’ve introduced major affordability initiatives. Over the past three years, some $6.5 billion has been spent on helping people with everything from electricity prices through to a fuel tax reprieve through to subsidized childcare, low-income transit passes, food bank grants and discounts for seniors.
It's just remarkable to see the number of people who have come here and who keep coming because there are so many great jobs. Yes, there’s a higher level of unemployment because when people arrive and they're looking for work; there's always a lag time. But the economy keeps building and keeps creating incredible numbers of new opportunities.
Our construction sector is booming, up 35 per cent year-over-year, including an increase in home construction. We keep hearing multi-billion-dollar announcements, like those from the Industrial Heartland area, all the way to De Havilland and their development of water bombers in Calgary.
So we're pleased about what's happening there.
MG: Albertans are still experiencing that lag and other economic challenges. What do you see coming to fruition in 2025 that will help catch things up to the positives in the economy?
Premier Smith: We constantly have new projects that are being updated and announced. And one of our most effective ways of getting to the finish line on those is with our Investment and Growth Fund. We like that program, especially, because it has allowed us to announce things in rural Alberta and elsewhere.
We're getting concerned that there's only so many houses that can be built and so many jobs that can be created, and that we're getting overwhelmed by the number of newcomers over the last three years. That’s why we've gone to our federal counterpart to allow us to have more control, so that we can identify economic migrants who fit into the jobs that we need and so we can get a handle on the overall number of people coming into the country through various streams. Because it's overwhelming not just us but all the provinces.
We’re worried that we're out of balance and that it's going to start impacting Albertans.
We want to continue to be a destination point for economic migrants because that's a mutually beneficial relationship. If we can have a pathway for someone to become a citizen and fill a job gap, that's perfect.
But we’re very concerned that the numbers of international students, temporary foreign workers and asylum seekers are just too much for the country to handle. And we've been telling the federal government that.
MG: Let’s shift to that part of your agenda, then: Alberta’s relationship with Ottawa.
Premier Smith: Standing up to Ottawa: I could talk about that all day long.
We’re pushing them out of our lane so that we align on a 2050 target for carbon reductions, but we don't want them to do anything that will impair investment in electricity or oil and gas production, or any of the other things that we feel that they shouldn't be doing.
So we're going to continue those fights as well.
MG: There’s been movement in Ottawa in the shift of the Clean Electricity Regulations net-zero target year to 2050 from 2035, matching Alberta. Why don’t you support the federal government on that?
Premier Smith: The Constitution describes federal powers and provincial powers. If I were to say, I'm going to start my own Alberta currency in 2035, and then they came back and said you can't do that, that's unconstitutional. And I said OK, I'll wait until 2050 to set up my own currency.
That isn't the right answer. We're not allowed to set up our own currency. It's in the Constitution, that's a federal power.
That's what we're trying to argue. You stay in your lane and we'll stay in ours. And so it doesn't matter that they are aligning with where we intend to get to anyway by 2050. What matters is we're the ones who get to decide what that pathway looks like, not them.
We’re glad that they're not intending to put punitive new actions in prematurely, but it’s still not their jurisdiction. So we’re going to keep fighting them on that.
MG: Public safety is among the priorities you’ve mentioned. That’s a huge issue in rural Alberta, especially as it relates to high crime rates and policing shortages.
Premier Smith: We’ve empowered our sheriffs and continued to roll out new teams, and we've got a couple more teams to come to deal with the border and with fentanyl and with shutting down drug houses.
We’ve heard loud and clear from rural Alberta that they need more hands on deck, and we've been delivering on that.
The same with our mental health and addiction work. We know that you aren't going to solve this problem just by addressing the supply side. You've got to address demand. We've got to make sure fewer people are getting addicted and staying in addiction.
So we've got a strategy we've been rolling out in rural Alberta, with our corrections facilities that have therapeutic living units, and our recovery communities in Red Deer, Lethbridge and Gunne. We've got several more coming, including on First Nations, that will create 1,000 new beds dedicated to treatment for mental health and addiction.
MG: Is it the government’s goal to replace the RCMP in Alberta?
Premier Smith: That’s going to be very much up to the RCMP. The RCMP have not lived up to their obligation to us. We have contracted for 1,911 officers, and at any given time, we're down by 400. We can't let rural Alberta go without policing.
If the RCMP can’t find the personnel to fill those seats, we're going to. We’re going recruit sheriffs, train them up to the level where they can be deployed as police officers, and we're going to do the job.
And we've done that with our Fugitive Apprehension Sheriffs Support Team and with our Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods unit. SCAN has investigated more than 9,500 properties in 126 communities that have been issued safety orders.
We've got north and south surveillance teams in place to support communities, and now there are these border and fentanyl teams we want to put in place.
We want rural Albertans to feel safe. That's the number one goal.
And perhaps if the RCMP is able to meet their obligation to us, then we'll see more officers from them. But we can't wait. We have to make sure that we're filling that gap, and that's what we're doing.
MG: Tell us more about the border initiative.
Premier Smith: It’s going to be very important. We're dispatching 51 sheriffs to the border with sniffer dogs and commercial vehicle inspection teams and drones. We’ll establish a two-kilometre-wide zone to catch people going both in and out, because we know there's a problem with gun smuggling, human trafficking, fentanyl smuggling. We also want to make sure that we're not causing problems from here with any organized crime or gang activity crossing the border.
We’ve been very pleased, by the way, to get feedback already from landowners along the border offering their help.
MG: Policing relates directly to the government’s relationship with the two associations representing municipalities in Alberta — Rural Municipalities of Alberta and Alberta Municipalities. A common complaint from them in 2024 has been that the province does not consult with them enough when it comes to legislation directly affecting their member municipalities. How do you respond to that?
Premier Smith: We were very unhappy when the federal government came in and inked side deals with a couple of municipalities on housing.
We've got a big problem with housing affordability. What we perceived is that the federal government was picking winners and losers, and when you've got a province with 320 municipalities, and only four or five contracts are signed, that makes a lot of losers.
So we looked at what they were doing in Quebec. The reason Quebec announced a $900 million partnership with the federal government is that they have a law that says you can't do a workaround. If you want to have dollars flow through, you have to go through us, and that’s so the province can use its partnerships with municipalities to make sure that communities are treated fairly.
How was a small community supposed to have any leverage in trying to put their issues on the radar screen of the federal government? That's part of the reason why so many are left out.
We treat our municipalities fairly. We have a local government fiscal framework, and we made sure every single municipality was no worse off under the new formula than under the old one.
We also have processes in place to hear different pressures and be able to do different grants. The feds don't have that, so they should be working with us to use the network that we have to ensure the dollars get to where they're needed.
MG: How about Bill 20, the Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act?
Premier Smith: People should get used to the fact that this is probably one that's going to have to be amended almost every session. There are just issues that keep coming up. We collect issues that different municipalities raise with us that need a regulatory change and then we implement them.
Next time, we’ll probably do a technical briefing when the bill comes out, so that the municipalities know what the changes are and why we've made them, and so that there’s nothing misconstrued about what it is that we're trying to do. Almost everything we've put in there has been in relation to a problem that we've had to solve or that municipalities have had to solve.
Many individuals in Edmonton and Calgary have asked for political parties, so we're doing a pilot project on that to see if there really is enthusiasm for political parties in Calgary and Edmonton. The two largest cities are the test case, because they already have a lot of money from unions and corporations that are setting up what are basically PACs [political action committees], and so that's kind of like a hidden form of political party. We want that to be more transparent.
On a couple of occasions, we’ve had to change municipal bylaws, and again it’s Calgary and Edmonton.
In Calgary, we had to change the way that they were charging their local access via electricity, because, quite frankly, it was unfair to consumers. And then in Edmonton, when they wanted to continue public health orders, after we'd gotten rid of them, we had to strike down their bylaws.
So it's not often that we want to use that, but it's cumbersome to have to go through and set up a law by a different minister. We wanted to give the Minister of Municipal Affairs more authority to identify those problems, if they emerge, and have a different process to deal with them.
MG: What’s your perspective on health care issues in Alberta, especially rural Alberta, and what is your government doing to address them?
Premier Smith: We've got a major rural strategy that has us spending $311 million upgrading our existing operating rooms so that they can be high performance and get more surgeries done in local communities. We’re also doing this through charter surgical centres. We've got knees and hips now happening in Rocky Mountain House, and we'll be having more in central Alberta and southern Alberta as we finalize contracts.
The nurse practitioner initiative is all about giving people another health-care option. So we've got nurse practitioners incentivized to set up shop in rural Alberta and work evenings and weekends, and 60 or more have signed up.
Our pharmacy strategy gives more ability for pharmacists to practise in a broader scope. So we've got a network of pharmacies that are building out all over the province to make sure they can provide those services, including prescriptions and some primary care.
And then the major reform we're doing of Alberta Health Services will involve a rural strategy. We want, for example, to get more surgeries done in more facilities closer to home.
MG: Has the restructuring of Alberta Health Services gone as smoothly as you would have liked?
Premier Smith: I'm very happy, actually, with where we find ourselves. We're entering 2025 with real clarity.
We've got Primary Care Alberta, which is going to be responsible for doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists and other frontline professionals to get everyone attached to a family doctor. That was really important work to do.
We've got Recovery Alberta, which is going to take the lead on building out 1,000 beds for mental health and addiction, as I mentioned earlier, to make sure we have another and better place for people who are suffering from those two ailments to be able to get recovered and hopefully live normal lives outside of the hospital.
We made the decision to create Assisted Living Alberta, under Minister Jason Nixon, so that we can partner with communities and with municipalities, the nonprofit sector and the for-profit sector, on building what we think is going to need to be 12,000 new beds for seniors. So I'm very pleased that we've got that.
And with acute care, we finally have Alberta Health Services as a service provider, focusing on the hospitals that they run, Covenant Health focusing on the hospitals they run, and the charter surgical centres I mentioned before.
We've got a new approach to making sure we've got EMS drop-off, so we've got our well-trained paramedics able to be out treating patients.
I feel like the structure is finally what it always needed to be, to be able to make the changes that we need to make. And so I think it's going to be amazing the progress that we'll make in 2025 and beyond.
MG: And would that include attracting more doctors and oncologists, for example, and other professionals to make health care more accessible in Alberta?
[Editor’s note: The interview took place before the province’s announcement of a new model for compensating doctors.]
Premier Smith: The opening of the cancer centre in Calgary, I think, was a huge catalyst. Being able to offer a research environment for oncologists is going to be such an advantage, at the preeminent, most modern facility in the country.
It takes time, from when construction is completed to when you're able to fully staff up and have the equipment ready to go. But we're there now, so I'm excited about that.
Also, in partnership with the premiers across the country, we've all realized that we've got these issues of labour shortages in different areas, and that we've got to have a better understanding of how many of each type of specialty we need to graduate and where we are going to do that work. There'll be a report back on that in the spring.
We’ve already begun building out additional training for nurses in rural Alberta, and initial additional training for doctors in rural Alberta with new programs in Grande Prairie and Lethbridge. The idea is that if you train them in place, they'll probably stay in place. And so we’ll see a lot more of that: training locally to be able to meet local needs.
MG: Let’s talk about you and your mandate as Premier. What does it mean to you to earn 91.5 per cent support from the UCP membership?
Well, let’s look at the contrast with what's happening in Ottawa with Justin Trudeau. Half the time we don’t know who's in charge or whether he's going to continue to be in charge. And we're on the cusp of the most important negotiation of our country's history with the incoming U.S. president, who wants to slap 25 per cent tariffs on us.
That's what happens when you don't have a mandate and you don't have your party firmly behind you.
I feel Alberta is going to be vitally important in trade negotiations, and I feel like my party has given me a mandate to be very strong in pressing Alberta's interests to make sure that we can avoid tariffs.
These things matter. If you don't have that kind of certainty, it undermines your bargaining position and undermines your negotiating position. And I'm just pleased that we're in a position of strength so that we can tackle these negotiations head on.
MG: NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi says there isn’t enough cooperation between the UCP and the NDP, despite the efforts of his party. He points to things like amendment motions for the All-Seasons Resorts Act that call for consultation with Indigenous and other communities before resorts are approved on Crown land. Without that, he says, the province is inviting successful legal challenges.
Premier Smith: At some point, I'm sure he'll get elected to the legislature, and then he'll understand how the legislature works.
I'll tell you what we don't do. We don't put items in bills that are redundant. Of course, we have to conduct Indigenous consultations. We have an entire department for that, and we do dozens if not hundreds of consultations per year.
There have been court rulings that you have a duty to consult, so that is already established in a very comprehensive framework that we have been using for many years.
I think he's grandstanding when he wants to try to insert things into bills, as if to imply that there isn't a robust process already in place.
And you know, once he decides to get into the legislature, I'm sure he'll understand how that works a little bit more. But it's very hard to have any kind of collaboration with a leader who refuses to take a seat.
MG: Anything else specific to rural Alberta that readers should expect in 2025?
Premier Smith: We're doing a consultation right now on the Water Act. We want to preserve first-in-time, first-in-right, but we have to figure out ways we can build new reservoirs. That will allow us to create more opportunity for more water rights, so we can have more development.
We want to make sure our waterways are protected from zebra mussels. We don't have the same problem that we're beginning to see in other states and provinces yet, but it would be devastating to our irrigation system if zebra mussels found their way into our waterways. So we’ll be improving our monitoring system, and there are some pretty aggressive initiatives south of the border that we want to keep an eye on.
We are also about to launch a broad-based review of rural hospitals. We want to know: how are they running? What are they doing? What do they need to do more of? What repairs need to be made? What equipment needs to be put into place? What kind of personnel do they need to make sure people can get care closer to home?
There’s building out our schools, through the $8.6 billion in spending over three years we’ve announced for accelerated construction. We’ve got a big demand all over the province, but some communities are hit more than others. Some are bursting at the seams. We’ll be hearing from school boards about what their priorities are, and hopefully we’ll be able to get those schools built faster.
MG: Anything else you want to talk about that isn't getting heard from your perspective?
Premier Smith: There are so many things. I mean, this is the reason why I wanted to represent a mixed riding.
Medicine Hat-Brooks has got a quite large, mid-sized city and a mid-sized town. And then it's got some smaller villages like Rosemary and Duchess, as well as some hamlets like Patricia and Tilley, and a lot of rural areas.
Representing a community that's mixed like this gives me a snapshot of what's going on in other rural communities. I hear about concerns about services at the local hospital. I hear about mental health resources that need to be coordinated through navigation centres. I hear concerns about getting more local seniors housing.
I hear about schools that need to be rebuilt or modernized. I hear about frustrations regarding certain roads and highways and bridges. I hear about campgrounds that need to be reopened.
There are a lot of local issues that I take care of, and that informs the framework for me, to know where there needs to be policy change, to know what needs to be elevated to the provincial legislature.
I'm very aware that a lot of issues take place in rural Alberta. That's why I'm just so pleased that we've got such a strong rural contingent of MLAs so that those voices are always at the table.
MG: Premier, thank you. I hope we can connect again soon.
Premier Smith: Yes, let's do this more regularly. Thanks and good-bye.
