EXCLUSIVE: Smith says ‘biggest regret’ was lack of Alberta Health Services oversight

Smith opened up to True North in an exclusive year-end interview, getting candid about her biggest missteps and the key goals she’s determined to achieve before her time in office is over.

Author: Isaac Lamoureux

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith opened up to True North in an exclusive year-end interview, getting candid about her biggest missteps and the key goals she’s determined to achieve before her time in office is over.

When asked how long she hopes to stay premier, Smith said she plans to remain in her position as long as Albertans want her to, saying she stays plugged into public sentiment through her town halls, weekly radio show, and other public forums.

While Smith said her job requires dozens of daily decisions, and the worst decision would be not acting at all, her biggest regret was allowing procurement decisions inside Alberta Health Services (AHS) to operate without adequate scrutiny.

“By leaving things in the hands solely of an agency that had no oversight, there are some things that went wrong,” she said. Smith added that her government plans to overhaul internal safeguards next year to prevent similar issues from arising.

“We’re going to have a far more robust procurement process,” she said, explaining the new approach will require stronger checks on conflicts of interest, value for money, and longer-term cost implications.

Beyond reflecting on past mistakes, Smith outlined several personal priorities she still hopes to accomplish, including one that has been on her mind for three decades.

After accomplishing her goal of implementing a bill of rights for just compensation when the government seizes a person’s property, which she pursued as a property rights advocate, Smith said other issues she discovered during her advocacy efforts still need to be addressed.

Her first long-term focus is addressing abandoned and inactive oil and gas well sites across the province.

“It’s been on my mind for thirty years,” Smith said of the unresolved wells and land cleanups. She added that her government is working on a “mature asset strategy” to ensure future well transfers include predictable closure funding and that existing sites are finally addressed.

Another unfinished goal Smith highlighted is the growth of Alberta’s Heritage Savings Trust Fund. She said the province should have saved all investment income when the fund was created, as reflected in her first column about the issue in the early 2000s. She believes that if that had been the case, the fund would be around $150 billion to $200 billion today, generating enough investment income to stabilize the budget and avoid deficits.

The fund has grown from about $16 billion when the United Conservative Party formed government to more than $30 billion today, but Smith said the province must continue strengthening it to help stabilize Alberta’s long-term fiscal position.

A third personal priority, Smith said, is permanently fixing the healthcare system, which is the biggest budget item and affects every Albertan.

“We’re all going to need it, and it has to be there for us when we need it, and it hasn’t been functioning properly,” said Smith. “It takes more and more money each year, preventing us from spending on other priorities, and it’s delivering worse and worse performance. And so we’re turning the corner on that. That’s another big check mark I want to have by the time I’m done.”

Smith’s full reflections on her biggest mistakes, long-term goals, and Alberta’s future can be viewed in True North’s full year-end interview, which will be released this week.

The full interview also covers several topics not included in this article, including Smith’s views on federal–provincial relations, separation sentiment, and her explanation for using the notwithstanding clause during the teachers’ strike.