EDMONTON – Premier Danielle Smith and Official Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi traded shots on Wednesday over her trip to Saudi Arabia in 2025, in which she flew on a private plane courtesy of the Saudi government. During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Smith admitted that during her October 2025 trip to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, in which she attended an energy and artificial intelligence conference, she also travelled on a private plane, courtesy of Saudi Arabia's energy minister..On Wednesday, Nenshi accused her of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of "gifts" from the Saudi government, while her UCP caucus stayed in Alberta and defended the Back-to-School Act. Smith defended her trip by saying that the private plane was necessary for her group to travel through the Arib desert to the three sites in a timely fashion, and that it is common practice for leadership to charter planes for foreign dignitaries, even the Alberta NDP did during its term in office."Mr. Speaker, this is the kind of thing that we do with International and Intergovernmental Relations, and we're going to keep on doing it," said Smith. Nenshi does not believe her reasoning is a proper justification for the actions, though. "The premier claims that this was a matter of social protocol," said Nenshi. "Now listen, Mr. Speaker, she may not have a lot of international experience. I do.""I worked internationally, including in the Middle East. And here's the thing about social protocol: You're allowed to say no. You can actually say, 'that's not appropriate, that's not right.'".Smith, however, claims the trip should come as no surprise, that she is fully transparent regarding her travels, and that the elements of this one were approved by Alberta's Ethics Commissioner before it happened. "Everyone knew that I was in Saudi Arabia, as well as in the United Arab Emirates," said Smith. "I was attending two conferences in the United Arab Emirates at APEC, as well as an artificial intelligence conference. And then in Saudi Arabia, we were invited, at the invitation of His Royal Highness Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud, the energy minister, to tour Aramco sites." Nenshi challenged Smith to show proof of the Ethics Commissioner's approval on Tuesday; she has yet to do so. "Listen, the Premier has the largest cabinet in history," Nenshi said. "She spends three times as much as Alison Redford on her office.""But despite having all these people around her, are we to believe that not one person said, 'Hey, Premier, you can't accept hundreds of thousands of dollars from a foreign government.'""And if no one said that, can we believe that someone did say that, and the premier ignored the advice, because she's that entitled."
