Jason Stephan, MLA for Red Deer-South, speaks at his own community town hall event on April 2, 2025 at the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame. (rdnewsNOW/Ashley Lavallee-Koenig)

By Ashley Lavallee-Koenig

cost of trip worth it, says mla stephan

Red Deer-South MLA supports Premier Smith’s approach to tariffs

Apr 3, 2025 | 12:48 PM

The majority of Canadian goods have avoided a slam of U.S. tariffs following President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” on April 2, a boon Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she’s been advocating for, for months.

Energy, minerals, agricultural products, potash and many more exports remain unaffected, however, previously announced tariffs on Canadian automobiles, steel and aluminum are still in effect.

Smith, praising her own approach south of the border as “most effective,” released a statement following Trump’s announcement, saying Canada’s focus should now shift to removing or reducing these remaining tariffs.

“I again call on all involved in our national advocacy efforts to focus on diplomacy and persuasion while avoiding unnecessary escalation. Clearly, this strategy has been the most effective to this point,” she said.

“It is my sincere hope that we, as Canadians, can abandon the disastrous policies that have made Canada vulnerable to and overly dependent on the United States, fast-track national resource corridors, get out of the way of provincial resource development and turn our country into an independent economic juggernaut and energy superpower.”

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This sentiment was echoed by Jason Stephan, MLA for Red Deer-South, at a community town hall event Wednesday evening.

“Our premier, Danielle Smith, has developed many good relationships with many of our senators in the U.S. by talking about how we want to have a win-win relationship, and I appreciate her advocacy, which has had a positive impact,” said Stephan to a crowd of about 100.

He also credited Smith for her recent controversial trip to Florida, where she featured in a fireside chat with far-right American podcaster Ben Shapiro at a fundraising event for a private institution called PragerU.

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“Ben Shapiro is one of the most influential conservatives in the entire United States. He has millions of individuals who follow him who are supporters of the current U.S. president,” said Stephan, adding that the Premier only accepted the invitation for the sake of relationship building.

Alberta exports billions of dollars worth of petroleum products to the U.S. on an annual basis; Stephan said the value of those exports that were at stake was much greater than the cost of attending the event, which he estimates would have been a few thousand dollars.

The costs of the trip have not yet been uploaded to Alberta’s travel and expense disclosure page.

“I’m fiscally conservative, I don’t like waste of taxpayer dollars; [but] this was a good use of taxpayer dollars,” he stated.

Stephan added, advocating for a win-win solution is our best option given the vulnerable position our province sits in, with the U.S. as our primary customer.

“Over the past 10 years, our government has made us more vulnerable to this trade war, and in particular in terms of Alberta,” he commented. “We are a wonderful supplier, but we’re vulnerable because we only really have one customer, and that is unfortunately because we have a lack of pipeline capacity to provide oil to other jurisdictions.”

Looking nationally, Stephan also referenced a graph published by economist Trevor Tombe, comparing Real GDP per Capita Growth from Q1 of 2015 to Q3 of 2024 across the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member nations.

The OECD places Canada in second-last place, with 1.4 per cent growth over the last 10 years, compared to 18.2 per cent in the U.S.

Stephan said this shows Canada is “standing still” when it comes to economic growth, so a win-win solution is the way to go: “We want to try to work together to grow the pot, rather than fighting over how it’s divided.”

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