Smith, Wright Hold Town Hall With Supporters and Protesters

Chamber of Commerce president Aaron Fleming, left, with Medicine Hat MLAs Premier Danielle Smith and Justin Wright at a town hall held at Higdon Hall on Saturday.

It likely won’t come as a surprise to any Albertan who’s ridden the rollercoaster of provincial finances tied to the price of a barrel of crude, but Medicine Hat MLA Premier Danielle Smith laid bare the issue Saturday during a constituency town hall.

But Smith reiterated a new wrinkle into the woes impacting provincial coffers introduced during her address to Alberta earlier this week.

“Our province is facing a large deficit,” Smith told the audience of approximately 150 constituents who filled about half the 300 seats available at Higdon Hall. “This is very much the result of a perfect storm of low energy prices. . .and then at the same time we had 600,000 new people move to Alberta in the last four years because some of the policies the federal government had in place.”

The latter comment has touched off controversy following Smith’s provincial address announcing referendum questions surrounding international migration to the province.

Smith and the provincial government continued to pitch the “Alberta is Calling” campaign in 2024 to attract more people to the province amid the highest annual net migration totals in more than 50 years.  Some of the numbers utilized by Smith have also been called into question with net migration into Alberta over the past nearly five years amounting to less than 540,000, according to Statistics Canada data. And, Smith herself, announced publicly she’d like to see Alberta’s population double by 2050 during an interview on the Shane Newman Podcast in 2024.

Saturday’s town hall, co-hosted by fellow Medicine Hat MLA Justin Wright, didn’t get fully off the ground before local senior Ellen Perdue-Tieman interrupted the event and vented her indignation at Premier Smith.

Ellen Perdue-Tieman who was escorted out of the Medicine Hat MLA town hall on Saturday.

Aaron Fleming, moderator and president of the local chamber of commerce, commented, “you clearly were hard of hearing because I asked that you maintain proper decorum,” as Perdue-Tieman, who visibly had hearing aids, was escorted out by plainclothes law enforcement.

The 90-minute town hall saw several, pre-selected questions put to Smith and Wright prior to hearing from a number from the floor.

The first question addressed the elephant in the room regarding Alberta independence, asking both local MLAs whether they were separatists.

“I’m not a separatist,” stated Smith. “But I will not denounce anybody who has lost hope in Canada.”

Wright was less clear cut in his response.

While he said Alberta Independence is a decision for constituents across the province to make, an attendee yelled from the crowd for him to answer the question.

“I believe Canada can work if we have the ability to work together and tear down the walls,” said Wright.

On the issue of tighter firearm regulations, Smith made it clear the province will make it incredibly difficult for the federal government to enforce expanded prohibited gun laws.

Following up on a comment from Wright highlighting that provincial legislation will require those seizing newly prohibited firearms will need to be licenced, Smith commented that process won’t be made easy.

“It’s going to be very hard,” said Smith of acquiring the licence, adding the process will “require lots and lots and lots of training. It might take years before anyone is able to get one.”

In response to a question about healthcare, Smith commented the issue of patients who would be better served in continuing care residences continues to be a concern.

“We’ve been giving, every year, more and more money to continuing care so they could build more continuing care beds and then they didn’t do it,” said Smith, adding this has led to patients staying in hospital for “hundreds and hundreds of days.”

This has caused “patient flow” issues, said Smith, with the problem only discovered following the government drilling into how AHS is being run.

“A hospital should be for acute needs. If you’re there for more than 30 days, then you are boarding and we need to move you on. We need to find a place where you’re more comfortable,” she said.

Smith also stated childcare subsidies for households making $180,000 or more will likely be coming under some income testing scrutiny.

“The wealthier among us have to be able to pay for more of their own services so we have the ability to target the support for those who need the hand up,” she said.

Both Smith and Wright will be back at the legislature next week as it  reconvenes on Tuesday with Budget 2026 set to be released on Feb. 26.