Smith rolls out ‘buy Canadian’ plan in response to Trump tariffs

Article content

OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith introduced a raft of retaliatory measures in response to U.S. tariffs on Wednesday, but says she’s still not willing to put the province’s energy exports on the table.

Article content

Article content

“Albertans will decide our own destiny, free of coercion from any government,” said Smith at a press conference in Medicine Hat.

Smith said that, effective immediately, Alberta will direct provincial entities to stop procuring goods and services from companies based in the U.S. The province’s liquor stores and casinos will be barred from purchasing American alcohol and gaming machine and Alberta will assist grocers and retailers in labelling Canadian products, and ask them to voluntarily keep American goods off their shelves.

Article content

“We’ll all just have to drink a bit more B.C. wine and Alberta craft beer and spirits,” Smith joked to reporters. “And that’s just fine with us.”

Smith also announced that the province will be launching a major advertising campaign to help Albertans more easily find out where various products were made.

While Smith hit U.S. President Donald Trump with her harshest words yet, calling his tariff a “betrayal of deep and abiding friendship”, she continued to rule out any restrictions on oil and gas exports to the U.S.

Smith said that getting suckered into a tit-for-tat energy war would give Trump a chance to shift the media narrative on the unpopular tariffs.

“Cutting off energy entirely would make Canada the bad guy… and we don’t want that,” said Smith. “We want the Americans to blame their struggles on the actual source of their problems, that being the Trump tariffs.”

She added that a federally imposed export tax would be a violation of Canada’s 1977 pipeline treaty with the U.S.

Article content

Article content

Smith nevertheless called oil and gas the province’s “trump card” and said the president would fold when he stopped denying that he needed Alberta to realize his vision of American energy dominance.

“Whether the U.S. President wishes to admit it or not, the United States not only needs our oil and gas today,” said Smith. “They are also going to need it more and more with each passing year, once they notice their declining domestic reserves and production are fully insufficient to keep up with the energy demands… let alone having anything left over to export.”

While she admitted she felt betrayed by Trump’s actions, she defended her mantra of diplomacy with the erratic president, pointing to the reduced tariff on energy products.

“The fact that we saw a 10 per cent tariff rate instead of 25 per cent is a recognition that energy resources… are vital components of U.S. success.”

“That’s what we were arguing.”

She still admitted she was getting fed up with the administration’s shifting of the goalposts on issues like fentanyl.

Smith rejected U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s recent suggestion that the U.S. would need to see a reduction in autopsied deaths from fentanyl before dropping tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

Article content

“I can’t stop all the (fentanyl) deaths from happening in the United States, they’ve gotta do some of the work on that too,” said Smith.

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Article content