EDMONTON – Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced restrictions Wednesday on booze, gambling machines and government purchasing to fight back against sweeping U.S. tariffs.
She said there won’t be any change to oil and gas shipped south.
And she echoed comments from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump are the vanguard of a plan to crater Canada’s economy in a takeover bid.
“Trump’s continued talk of using economic force to facilitate the annexation of our country has broken trust between our two nations in a profound way,” Smith told a news conference in Medicine Hat.
She announced Alberta will no longer buy American alcohol and video lottery terminals or sign contracts with American companies. Alberta’s liquor stores are privately owned but still must order stock through the provincial government.
The move comes a day after Trump slapped 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian goods and 10 per cent levies on energy, saying he wants Canada to take action on cross-border drug traffic.
Other premiers have already announced bans on U.S. liquor along with other proposed penalties.
Smith reiterated that while oil and gas from Alberta is critical to the U.S. economy, she won’t play what she called that “trump card” by adding levies to oil and gas exports or cutting off the province’s supply heading south.
She said doing so would only rebound on Canadian consumers, because the U.S. would respond in kind and Ontario and Quebec rely on cross-border oil shipments.
“Cutting off energy entirely would make Canada the bad guy for Americans, and we don’t want that. We want the Americans to blame their struggles on the actual source of their problems – that being the Trump tariffs,” said Smith.
“Until our U.S. friends come back to reality, we will focus on efforts and financial means to export one of the largest oil and gas deposits in the world elsewhere,” said Smith.
Also, said Smith, her government along with all its agencies, school boards, Crown corporations and municipalities, will now only buy goods and services from local suppliers in Alberta, Canada or other jurisdictions that honour Canada’s trade agreements.
The province is also launching an advertising campaign, and pledged to help grocers and other retailers label Canadian products in stores.
Smith warned that if the trade dispute lingers for months or more, it will mean job losses, higher inflation and larger budget deficits for her government.
“The road ahead is very bumpy,” Smith said. “But let me also say that there is not a shred of doubt in my mind that we will prevail.”
Ivonne Martinez, president of the Alberta Liquor Store Association, said the impact of cutting off American products will vary from store to store but believes retailers will be able to adjust.
“There’s 36,000 products available, so there’s not going to be a lack of replacements of these products,” Martinez said.
Martinez and Blair Berdusco, the executive director of the Alberta Small Brewers Association, both said they’ve already seen consumers make a concerted effort to buy Canadian-made products.
Still, Berdusco said retaliatory tariffs from Ottawa are expected to increase costs for materials like aluminum cans.
Critics, including the Alberta NDP, called for Smith to deliver details about how her United Conservative government plans to help workers who might lose their jobs in the trade war.
The government has earmarked $4 billion for the coming fiscal year — double that of last year — for its contingency fund, in part to deal with the potential fallout from a tariff war.
“People in the beef industry are scared. People across agriculture industries are scared. People who work in the oilpatch are asking me: ‘What does this mean to me?’” NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said.
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said Smith’s new measures are positive but also called for specifics on the contingency fund.
“Waiting until people have lost their livelihoods is not a plan,” Gondek told reporters.
She also noted that 95 per cent of the city’s procurement contracts are already with Canadian companies.
The province pegs the value of all energy exports to the U.S. in 2024 at $133 billion. About $292 million in U.S. liquor products was sold in Alberta in 2023-24.
— With files from Matthew Scace in Calgary and Jack Farrell in Edmonton
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 5, 2025.
