LETHBRIDGE – Premier Danielle Smith’s Alberta Next panel is in Lethbridge tonight as she continues to take the public’s temperature on the province’s relationship with Ottawa.
The panel’s town halls are aimed at addressing grievances Smith says are allowing separatist sentiments to fester and the results are to inform which questions would be put to a referendum next year.
The panel was recently in Medicine Hat, in Smith’s home riding, where the crowd gave overwhelming approval to the panel’s six proposals.
Those include taking greater control of immigration by withholding social services from some immigrants and exiting the Canada Pension Plan to create a provincially run plan.
Smith and the panel have also received fierce pushback for some of its proposals, with protesters showing up at events in Edmonton and Red Deer.
The two provincial ridings in Lethbridge currently split across party lines, with the NDP representing Lethbridge-West and Smith’s United Conservative Party in Lethbridge-East.
The panel is next set to stop Monday in Airdrie, a suburb north of Calgary, and is to travel later this month for its final two town halls in Grande Prairie and Calgary.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2025.
