Alberta Premier Danielle Smith described her meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as positive overall.
Earlier this week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith met with multiple Premiers and the Prime Minster to discuss numerous topics, the main ones being health care and energy.
"The Premiers were somewhat disappointed with the amount of new funding announced for health care. However, Alberta will use its new dollars to accelerate the health reforms that we've already commenced to decrease emergency room wait times, decrease ambulance response times, decrease surgery backlogs, as well as to recruit more frontline workers, especially in primary care," Premier Smith said.
The federal government's proposed health funding agreement would see funding of $196 billion to provinces over 10 years in exchange for agreements to upgrade healthcare data collecting and digital medical records significantly were discussed during the meeting with premiers.
"My meeting with the Prime Minister was positive, overall. I made it very clear that his government must halt the introduction of its proposed 'just transition' legislation, its emissions reduction cap, and its ban on electricity from natural gas"
According to Smith, she would like to see the federal government immediately come to the table to work collaboratively with Alberta on a joint plan to attract energy investment and workers into Alberta's emerging energy sectors, while simultaneously reducing Canada's Alberta's net emissions.
"I did make it crystal clear to the Prime Minister during our meeting that Alberta's expectations for what must and must not be included in any future federal legislation."
Smith would also like to see formal consultation and collaboration with Alberta before the federal government announces or implements legislation targets or any policies that materially impact Alberta's energy sector.
"Let me be brutally honest: the Prime Minister has not yet shown himself to be a friend of Alberta. There is a litany of federal policies that he has imposed that have been exceptionally harmful to our economy and to our investment climate and have cost Albertans 10s of 1000s of jobs and tens of billions of investments and projects but this issue is far bigger than me or this Prime Minister. I know that and I hope that he knows that too."
There are trillions of dollars in revenues, hundreds of billions of dollars in investment and millions of jobs riding on Alberta and Ottawa working together instead of in conflict, explained Smith.
"The Prime Minister is being criticized across the country and from within his own party as being unnecessarily divisive and unable to improve national unity or economic growth. Well, here's a golden opportunity, come to the table and work collaboratively with Alberta on probably the most important economic issue facing this country in the generation."
According to Smith, she is opening the door to work together, but if the Prime Minster was to slam the door closed. Alberta will be relentless in our opposition, and we will use every tool at our disposal to protect Albertans their jobs and their future.