Alberta's Premier Now Says Canada Is Working Better Than It Ever Has
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith once accused Ottawa of being fixated on "punishing" the energy sector. Now, CBC reports, she says Canada is working better than it ever has — and the broadcaster's follow-up questions are the interesting ones: what changed, and will it stick?
This is a shift in register rather than a documented shift in policy, which leaves both readings live. A premier softening her language may be clearing ground for a deal. She may also be repositioning ahead of a fight she expects to have anyway. The compliment costs nothing; what it buys is the thing to watch.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
Smith's earlier description of Ottawa as fixated on "punishing" the energy sector is the baseline against which the change reads.
A warmer sentence is cheap. Durability gets answered by budgets and approvals, not adjectives.
Tone isn't nothing, though. A premier who stops calling Ottawa punitive makes any eventual deal easier to sell to her own voters.