Premier ‘drawing a line’ with new legislation

Posted on October 30, 2025 by Sunny South News

By Cal Braid
Southern Alberta Newspapers
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

On Oct. 23, Premier Danielle Smith held a news conference to announce her government’s intention to pass Bill 1, the International Agreements Act.

 “Our government is focused on delivering the clear mandate that Albertans gave us in 2023 to stand up for this province, protect our freedoms and chart our own path forward,” she began.

 “The constitution is clear. Provinces have authority over matters within their jurisdiction, and that authority cannot be signed away by Ottawa. That’s why we are taking the next step to defend Alberta’s constitutional rights through Bill 1, the International Agreements Act.”

 Smith said that previous legislation protected provincial jurisdiction in matters related to trade and investment. The new act sets out to protect all areas of provincial jurisdiction from international agreements that Ottawa tries to sign off on.

 The Q&A period after Smith’s announcement went off-topic as the premier fielded numerous questions about the Province’s handling of the teacher’s strike, but media ferreted out some interesting responses related to Bill 1.

 Smith responded to a question about Alberta mirroring Quebec’s approach to international relations, which includes housing ‘mini-embassies’ abroad that are separate from Canada’s, negotiating its own international treaties on the world stage, and having a seat at the UNESCO table.

 The premier said Alberta will consider doing the same, and that she was inspired by some of the things Quebec has done. She said that in the weeks ahead, Alberta will set up “a couple of” international offices that co-locate within existing embassies.

 The most interesting moment came when Smith was queried about the practical value of Bill 1. A reporter told Smith that the deputy minister had failed to come up with a single example of a time when Alberta had been aggrieved by an international agreement that it was unable to separate itself from. If there were no such examples, then perhaps the bill was pointless.

 In response, Smith said that there were 250,000 international agreements registered with the UN, “so I might have to do a bit more of a granular look before I would be prepared to say that.”

 She said she was frustrated after attending the COP28 conference in which the federal environment minister wouldn’t divulge what the Canadian negotiating position was going into the conference, “even though all of the discussions at the table had to do with the development of our oil and gas resources. So that one is very, very much on my mind.”

 But she was pressed further on the value of the legislation, other than it being performative or posturing.

 “We’re drawing a line. We’re saying that they cannot make decisions in our areas of jurisdiction at an international table without including us…we just want to set the precedent that there may be many places where we agree and in fact, on international trade agreements where we have existing legislation,” she answered.

 “This just expands it to include all agreements that the federal government might enter into that impact our jurisdiction.”

 She said Alberta is in favour of reaching a 2050 target on carbon neutrality, but is not on board with time frames that have been arbitrarily arrived at.

 “Those are not something that we have agreed to, and it’s why we’re challenging the nine bad laws. So I would say that those (are) an example,” she said “The past three years our government has been fighting those nine bad laws to restore the investment climate, those are the first ones that come to mind.”

 The message was clear: Smith wants no part of federal agreements that Alberta can’t extricate itself from.