In a wide-ranging and at times combative interview on The Hannaford Show airing tonight at 8 p.m., Alberta Premier Danielle Smith vigorously defends her government’s health-care restructuring and declares victory on federal energy files. .And, notwithstanding discouraging developments affecting the likelihood of another oil pipeline to the British Columbia coast, Smith is still a believer."I wouldn’t have signed the MOU with Prime Minister Carney if I didn’t believe we’ll get there.”.Smith conducted 12 media year-end interviews today. I was number eleven and despite my comparing the UCP government's situation to the miseries of the 20-below weather outside the McDougall Centre where we filmed the intro, she was having none of it.Take health care. Yesterday, Smith committed $400 million to expand continuing care spaces as part of Alberta’s Assisted Living Framework. Great, but that was promised three years ago. What took so long?.UCP commits billions to expanding assisted living.But Smith tells me her government has slashed the number of long-term-care patients clogging acute hospital beds from nearly 2,000 to under 1,000 in just two years.Good, but what took so long? In one of those moments of revelation that confirm every suspicion of complacent bureaucracy that we cynics entertain, Smith tells of discovering the former Alberta Health Services (AHS) monopoly “literally didn’t know” how many continuing-care beds were sitting empty in their system.“We had to hire a call centre to find out how many care beds we were paying for that were vacant,” Smith said. “Meanwhile, there were people needing them. There were seven patients who had been in hospital a thousand days or more, collectively for 18 years. And there were other issues; some facilities refused smokers..But now, the premier confirmed the government is on track to add roughly 3,000 new continuing-care beds by 2030, with 800 coming from renovations, 1,500 already under construction to become available in 2026, and the rest thereafter. She stressed a new “continuum of care” model that keeps seniors at home longer with wrap-around supports, before moving to kinship care, assisted living, or full-care nursing homes.At my age, I'm watching.But what about breaking up the AHS? "It's now done." But so what? How does that help? What's changed, says Smith, is that under a form of voucher system, funding will follow the patient, and facilities will be paid by results..Especially with elective surgeries.“We looked at Ontario’s Humber River Hospital,” she said. “They gave surgeons two operating suites in the same eight-hour block and jumped from four to fourteen procedures. That’s the efficiency we’re going to reward.”It's not a new idea. Busy dentists do it all the time."One of the reasons we know this will work is when we look at our charter surgical facilities. There's 50 of them. We pay them based on the surgeries they do and as a result, they've gone from doing 40,000 surgeries when we first started to 65,000 surgeries."Classroom chaos... Would streaming help? Driven by surging English-language-learner numbers, now 96,000 in a system of 750,000 students, Smith acknowledged the strain. But, she says dedicated language resources, modelled on the rapid integration of Ukrainian refugee children, will be rolled out in 2026.But back to energy. The visit with Mr. Carney may or may not yield a pipeline but Smith is celebrating the federal scrapping of the oil-and-gas emissions cap and clean-electricity regulations, two files she said she had “fought for three years with national ad campaigns.” She credited the policy reversal with already spurring new pipeline expansion talks by Enbridge, Trans Mountain, and South Bow (formerly TC Energy’s liquids business.).But the pipeline... While a direct Alberta-to-BC-coast pipeline remains Smith's preferred option, she refused to set a deadline and pointed to multiple fallback routes: expanded Mainline capacity, South Bow’s proposed 650,000 bpd line, Trans Mountain twinning, oil-by-rail to Atlantic Canada, and even the option of shipping via Churchill, Manitoba.“If we get 400,000 barrels on Mainline, 650,000 from South Bow, 360,000 from Trans Mountain expansion, rail to Sydney, and Churchill; I’ll call that success,” she said. “The BC route will just take a little longer, but I wouldn’t have signed the MOU with Prime Minister Carney if I didn’t believe we’ll get there.”.Smith also noted growing frustration in British Columbia after a court struck down Premier David Eby’s attempts to impose UNDRIP consent requirements on all provincial legislation, suggesting even NDP governments are beginning to chafe at judicial overreach.But, what about a tax cut? Smith landed on the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s “Nice List” for using the notwithstanding clause to save Albertans an estimated $2 billion. I pitch the idea that she should stay on the nice list with a good old Alberta tax cut.Should have saved my breath.Smith: “No. We’re staring at a $7.5 billion deficit because oil is stuck below $60. Every dollar below $74 costs us $750 million. We’re fixing decades of neglect, one measured, incentivized step at a time. We have to stay disciplined.”The Hannaford Show airs tonight at 8 p.m. MT on Western Standard platforms.
