If 2025 was a stress test for Canada, then Danielle Smith was its most consequential variable.
From the year’s most viral political moments to arguably the most highly anticipated memorandum of understanding (MOU) ever signed, a photo album documenting the biggest hits of 2025 would undoubtedly feature the Alberta premier in an outsized number of pages.
No, she didn’t dump an entire bottle of Crown Royal in front of a news crew.
But she did shake hands with “the devil.”
Let’s pull up the picture to reminisce. But wait… Which one?
There’s Smith cozying up with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in January. Then there’s Smith grinning ear-to-ear next to Mark Carney, each clutching a copy of the MOU last month like two high-achieving students summoned to prove to the class that cooperation is possible.
Between the two bookend photo ops, she also spent hours seated next to B.C. Premier David Eby, through what felt like an endless rotation of first ministers’ press conferences.
Premier of Alberta Danielle Smith speaks to media following the First Minister’s Meeting in Saskatoon, Sask., Monday, June 2, 2025. Liam Richards/The Canadian Press.
Flood the zone
She was busier still in her home province.
Smith’s UCP government wrapped up the year having passed more than 30 pieces of legislation, touching on everything from water use to free speech. And she capped it off with one of the boldest and most ambitious health policy shifts in decades.
Along that winding legislative road, Smith invoked the notwithstanding clause four times—more than any Alberta premier in history, though only Ralph Klein ever tried.
Then there were the Alberta Next panels, a province-wide tour pairing Smith with experts to openly float popular and not-so-popular ideas alike, including withdrawing from the Canada Pension Plan—an idea her own government’s survey showed just 10 percent of Albertans had previously supported. Nevertheless, the panel’s final report now recommends putting that question to a referendum, along with proposals to replace the RCMP with a provincial police force, and seek greater control over immigration.
And we haven’t even gotten to the book ban fiasco, the flurry of backlash recall petitions, the duelling citizen initiatives over Alberta’s future in Confederation, or the revival of separatist organizing that stubbornly refused to remain on the fringe. (I am certain something’s missing on this list).
Steve Bannon once infamously described a Trumpian style of politics as “flooding the zone.” The idea is to overwhelm institutions, media, and opponents with so much activity that no single narrative can take hold.
Smith’s year often felt like a Canadian adaptation of that approach.
Why call Danielle Smith the “newsmaker of the year” despite all the controversy?
Why compare Danielle Smith to Doug Ford?
How central was the MOU with Mark Carney to this assessment?
Comments (8)
The contrast between the premiers of Alberta and Ontario could hardly be starker. Ms. Smith has emerged as a clear standard-bearer for the conservative movement in Canada, willing to make bold moves, prepared to try new approaches, and pragmatic enough to negotiate MOUs when it serves Alberta’s interests.
By contrast, Mr. Ford often seems to offer a carnival show with little substance, seriously damaging the conservative brand in the process. If your fiscal position is not meaningfully different from that of Trudeau or Eby, some hard questions need to be asked.
To be fair, the economic contexts of Alberta and Ontario are fundamentally different. Alberta is on the verge of unleashing its vast potential, while Ontario is increasingly watching its own decline—burdened by an economy dependent on transfers from the rest of Canada and on continued tariff-free access to U.S. markets. That reality gives Ford a much harder task.