Ontario Premier Doug Ford appeared to take shots at Alberta Premier Danielle Smith this week as her province considers separating from the rest of Canada.
“This is a time to unite the country, not people saying, ‘Oh, I’m leaving the country,’” Ford said in an off-script remark on Tuesday at an event promoting skilled trades in Etobicoke.
Ford did not mention Smith directly by name, instead he took the opportunity to call for greater cooperation. “United we stand, divided we fall, and we have to be a united Canada, together to fight President Trump’s tariffs,” he added.
When asked about his comment, Smith said she has a great friendship with Ford but she doesn’t “tell him how he should run his province.”
“I would hope that he doesn’t tell me how I should run mine,” she added.
During a livestream on Monday, Smith clarified that her UCP government has no intention of holding a referendum on Alberta separation, but said that she would consider it as a ballot question in 2026, if Albertans gathered enough signatures on a petition.
The premier says she wants a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada, but added that the frustrated voices in the federal election are not fringe extremists and must be listened to.
“For Albertans, these attacks on our province from our own federal government have become unbearable,” Smith said.
She claims the federal government’s policies over the last decade have cost the province $500 billion in investments.
“Canada has fallen to dead last in economic growth among industrialized nations,” she says. “The world looks to us like we’ve lost our minds.”
“We have the most abundant and accessible natural resources of any country on earth, and yet we landlock them, sell what we do produce to a single customer to the south of us, while enabling polluting dictatorships to eat our lunch.”
In the lead-up to the federal election, nearly one-third of Albertans (30 per cent) told a pollster they would want to separate from Canada if the Liberals were elected again. Meanwhile, an online petition in support of Alberta separation that started in 2019 has over 224,000 signatures as of Tuesday.
FORD TAKES JABS AT TRUMP
Ford also quipped once again about U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods, saying, “this guy drives me nuts.”
“The economic uncertainty he’s created on both sides of the border is already having a direct impact on our province and our workers,” Ford explained. “Many problems are because of the chaos coming from south of the border.”
Ford says he has spoken to many U.S. governors, including Republicans, who, behind closed-doors, “totally disagree about attacking their closest friends and allies.”
“They’re terrified of their leader, that’s pretty crazy,” he added.
Ford noted a recent poll which measured Trump’s 100-day job approval rating to be the lowest of any president in the last 80 years, at 39 per cent.
“I can’t wait for the midterms, then we’ll fix his little red wagon,” Ford added.
– With files from CityNews’ Alejandro Melgar and Michael Ranger.
