Alberta Premier Danielle Smith focused on united Canada amid stated U.S. support for independence

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Premier Danielle Smith said she is focused on building a new relationship with the rest of Canada even as Alberta separatists continue to gather signatures for a citizen-led referendum — and despite remarks from a U.S. government official indicating support for the province joining its southern neighbour.

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In her first public remarks since the start of the month, Smith told the Saturday audience of her Corus call-in radio show that Canada has been and will continue to be a “great partner” for the United States on all fronts.

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“That’s the position I take when I speak with U.S. officials. It’s the position I take when I talk with the U.S. ambassador, it’s, ‘let’s maintain the Canada, U.S., Mexico trade agreement as it is, and then let’s work on getting resolution on the areas where there is dispute,’” she said.

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“When I talk to people who are frustrated with the way we’ve been treated for the past 10 years, they don’t say, ‘therefore, I want to be an American state.’ That is not what I am hearing. They want a new relationship with Canada, and that’s what I’m doing.”

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Smith made the comments when asked to react to comments from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who told an American alt-right media personality that Alberta was “a wealth of natural resources.”

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“I think we should let them come down into the U.S., and Alberta is a natural partner for the U.S. They have great resources. The Albertans are very independent people.”

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The campaign in support of a citizen initiative petition seeking a referendum on Alberta remaining in Canada has been gathering signatures this month ahead of its May 2 deadline, when it is required to have 177,732 to meet that bar.

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Leaders of Alberta’s push for separatism, most prominently lawyer Jeffrey Rath, have claimed to have travelled to Washington to meet U.S. government officials with an eye on securing political and financial support for an independent Alberta, though the State Department has not confirmed those details despite multiple requests from Postmedia over several months.

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In an interview last month, initiative proponent Mitch Sylvestre described the possibility of Alberta joining the United States as “something neither side wants.”

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“We don’t want to go from the Canada Revenue Agency to the IRS. There’s no point in that.”

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On Saturday, Smith said she did not want to pre-judge the outcome of those efforts.

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“You need to have a pressure release valve on issues that people care about, and this is something that clearly a motivated group of people care about,” she said.

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“They’ve got 120 days to see if they can get the number of signatures to put it to a vote, and then we’ll decide as a legislature what to do with those once that process is complete.”