Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says that in her first meeting with the new prime minister she gave him an earful on everything from wildfires to oil sales.
And she says she warned Mark Carney that if Ottawa doesn’t step up soon, national unity hangs in the balance.
She says she met with Carney in Edmonton at his request.
Smith has been a longtime critic of federal Liberal government policies, saying they have illegally encroached on Alberta’s resource rights and strangled its wellspring oil and gas industry.
She says she told Carney whoever wins the upcoming federal election needs to change or kill a range of policies that are illegally undermining the driver of Alberta’s economy.
“We had a very frank discussion in which I made it clear that Albertans will no longer tolerate the way we’ve been treated by the federal Liberals over the past 10 years,” Smith said in a news release.
She said if these problems aren’t fixed in six months, they will lead to what she calls “an unprecedented national unity crisis.”
The premier also accused Ottawa of mismanaging Jasper and Banff national parks — and she believes that led to the devastating wildfire in Jasper in July.
“With the federal election about to be called, I encourage all Albertans to get involved in what is likely one of the most pivotal and important elections in our nation’s history,” Smith said.
