Danielle Smith Easily Sets CBC News Reporter STRAIGHT!

The nine questions you are putting to the people of Alberta, none of those is about leaving Canada.It's about the greater assertion of provincial autonomy in areas of federal jurisdiction.There may be political controversy around those.There's no illegality around those.There's no legal controversy around those.It's a separatist question.

has all of those things, right?So I don't know if yours need guard railing and how that campaign will be productive, but this yes, no vote on staying in Canada is already fraught with controversy before it's even certified.

Well, first, I'd say that we're putting forward questions on areas of provincial jurisdiction and shared jurisdiction and asking Albertans if they want us to assert more authority in those areas.And that, to me, is the third pathway.The Remain folks, their pitch is Canada, for all its flaws, It's not going to be fixed, but we should support Canada anyway.The independents have said... that Canada can't be fixed, we want a divorce.I'm saying maybe we need couples counselling, maybe we need to get together, figure out where we have differences, and then work together to try to resolve those problems.And that's what the autonomy questions are about, is if we can identify some different way of dealing with those different issues, whether it's immigration, whether it's the federal government spending in our areas of jurisdiction, or whether it's the unelected, unaccountable Senate, then I think that gives us a pathway for us to identify some things we can work with federal government on.

And I hope that the Prime Minister is willing to work with us to meet us part way.I think he's already demonstrated with the fact that we've engaged in this MOU process, that he does recognize that Alberta has legitimate grievances.He wants to solve them.And I think that's my obligation to work on that.And I think he sees it as his obligation.

Look, and I want to get to that in a second, because there's certainly some positive signals coming out of your conversations with the Prime Minister.But on this referendum, a lot of the issues leading up to this are areas that are in your jurisdiction, right?I mean, you changed the threshold signatures to a lower level.Do you change the laws under which elections Alberta can investigate something?Raise the threshold on that issue.You've stepped in and kind of quashed one legal challenge to the referendum, intervened on another.

When you look at what is happening here, I mean, what responsibility do you and your government have for creating the conditions that have led to this most recent controversy?

Well, I certainly, I know, and anyone who engages in politics know, that giving a list to a third party is punishable by a year in jail and a $100 ,000 fine.And so anybody who engaged in that, and the investigation will show if they did, need to need to be accountable.So I would say that we have to separate the very real grievances that Albertans have from the bad actions of perhaps a few individuals.And so I don't want to interfere with the RCMP investigation, the elections Albert investigation or the privacy investigation, want those to play out.But we can't ignore the fact that there's at least a million or more of my fellow Alberta citizens who are deeply frustrated and have given up on Canada.And that's what I have to work on addressing.

But Elections Alberta says it couldn't act when it first heard about this because of the threshold that was put into law by your government last year that they didn't have the right because of the bar being raised.

The bar was you have to have grounds to investigate or reasonable grounds to investigate.I'm told by my officials that that was not a bar and it clearly isn't because they're investigating right now.They found reasonable grounds and they have issued orders against 568 individuals within the space of a week.So I think that's, that's pretty clear that they have the tools that they need to do the investigation.

Look, these are citizen led initiatives, but when you look at the, you know, when I look at it from here in my perch in Ottawa and I will take, I will concede the remoteness of someone who's from the other end of the country, you've got caucus members who have allegedly signed the referendum, uh, separatism referendum documents.You have one MLA, uh, from red or South, I believe it was publicly urged people to sign it.And you know, we've seen some polling that, has 55 % of UCP supporters in favor of separatism.Are you leading a separatist party?

No, I'm leading a party that believes that we need to have Alberta sovereignty within a United Canada.That's what was my first bill.And it means something.It means what does the constitution say?And how do we live up to that?And so that's what we, that's the process that I've engaged in with the federal government is identifying those pressure points and then trying to turn around the bad 10 years.

We had 10 years of a federal government under Justin Trudeau who was targeting our province, targeting our energy sector, sector, trying to shut it down, targeting our way of life, targeting our values.And people were frustrated when they saw that that looked like it was going to continue.I think the prime minister had to do some work to say that he was moving in a different direction.He's made a lot of strides to demonstrate that that is the case.We have a few more things to do and I hope when we sign the MOU, that will give people more confidence.

That's your view as the leader of the party.Do you think the membership of your party is majority stay in Canada or do you think they're majority separatists?

When I look at the polling, I see that it's up to about 35 % or more that say that they would vote for independence.That's of all Albertans.That's a very high number of people.Polaro had a poll that it's 55 % with the use The numbers I've seen is about 35 % of all Albertans and you can't just ignore that.If you ignore that, then you're not listening to the real grievances of Albertans.So I'm going to take it seriously.

The Prime Minister is taking it seriously and it's our job to take action to bring those numbers down.That's what we're going to work on over the coming months.

Okay, so on the taking it seriously and working with the Prime Minister, you said today that you were discouraged when you came here for your meeting with Mark Kearney, but left feeling more confident than ever and the signals that we've been hearing throughout the day since you met with him is that things moved a heck of a lot closer to final completion on the MOU.Are you basically done right now?Do you think you have a deal in hand?

Not quite yet.We identified at least the few areas whereour teams couldn't get to an agreement and where he and I had to come together to just indicate what the direction is and I think that he and I had a meeting of the minds and we'll see if the teams can put that in writing and get us to a point where we have something to announce.But I don't want to prejudge that because we didn't get to the April 1st deadline.I think we both understand the urgency of this.We're seeing that the industry is losing confidence.

We're seeing people are expressing doubt that this pipeline is going to get built.And part of the reason for that is that we missed the deadline.So I did enter into the meeting with him saying, we really do need to try to get this wrapped up and get it wrapped up in days, not weeks.

Look, I know officials after a meeting of principals will have to take the broad direction and work it into language that is mutually acceptable.So a lot can go wrong in that process or other speed bumps can come up.But I may correct in my assessment that between you and the Prime Minister after today, there is no big disagreement left to settle.It's just how do we translate it into tax?

I'd say we had a meeting of the minds.I think that what we've seen is that we've got a lot of areas of agreement.I think that the prime minister realizes the incredible opportunity of getting our energy to Asian markets.I think that's reinforced every time he does an international trip that our trading partners around the world want to diversify their energy supply.I think we've also seen with the most recent budget that part of the reason there's extra dollars to spend is because of the the amount of additional tax dollars that are going to be generated from Alberta and from the energy sector in particular.And so when we do well, the entire country does well.

And so I would say that we've had a number of things that have happened over the last year or so that is just affirmed that we have to change gears from where we were going.

But is this now at a stage where it can be done in days?

I hope so.I hope so.But we'll see.When we get the sign on the dotted line and the ink, we'll let you know.

Okay, so it really is that close.I wonder then, if you resolve a lot of your outstanding differences, or maybe not getting 100 % of what you want either way, but finding a path forward with the federal government, where does the uncertainty around this referendum and the idea of the future of Alberta as a part of Canada affect things?Because how does someone build a pipeline to the Pacific coast if they don't know if Alberta and British Columbia are going to be in the same country?

Well that's why we need to resolve it.That's why I set a date for a referendum for the nine questions that I want to put to Alberta so that we have direction on how we can improve our autonomy within Canada and why we have a parliamentary committee that's currently looking at the remain question and why we're waiting for the validation of the signatures.Because I don't think that any of us want this question lingering for months or years.I think that knowing that if we're going to have the vote, that it will be on October the 19th, it's going to be a robust debate over the coming months.I'm going to have my work cut out for me to make sure that I bring more and more Albertans onto my side.But I think it's, I think people will know in October and that will pave the way for us to, I hope, build a pipeline to the West Coast.

So your side is to stay in Canada with and improves terms.You will vote to stay in Canada, obviously, if this goes to a referendum in October.

Yeah, I believe in Canada.I believe that Canada needs to be fixed.I believe that it hasn't been working as well for Albertans in the last 10 years as it should have been.And I believe that other provinces feel the same, that we all have an Ottawa problem based on how things have been conducted over the last 10 years.But I do see a genuine willingness on the part of the Prime Minister to address that.He's talked about it.

He's talked about cooperative federalism.And this is cooperative federalism in action.It means we recognize there are areas that cross over, and then we try to find some ways that we can both get a win out of it.

So look, just as a final question, We don't know yet what's going to happen with the legal process and the certification process, but when and if one of the various questions, you know, asking the question on the future of education.in Canada is put on a ballot for October 19th, do you launch a formal campaign where you campaign in Alberta to convince people to vote to stay in the country?

I've been on that campaign from the moment I signed the MOU with the Prime Minister, because this debate about Alberta's place in Canada started really I mean, it started decades ago, but I think it really rose to a fever pitch after the general election last year.And so I knew, and when I met with the prime minister, I told him, we've got to resolve this.We've got to find a pathway forward.And so I've been working on that for the last number of months.I'm going to keep working on that.I haven't convinced all Albertans yet, but I think if they see this indication that you cooperative federalism means something, that it can work, and we go from words on paper to action, I think that'll be a really powerful message.

So that's what I'll be working for, and I'll be doing a lot of traveling around Alberta this summer.

Premier Daniel Smith, always appreciate the time.Thanks for coming in.