Smith defends Florida trip on Saturday radio show, saying conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro opposes tariffs too

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith defended her most recent trip to Florida on her radio show Saturday morning, saying she was spreading the word that tariffs are as bad for U.S. consumers as for Canadians – and that a controversial U.S. podcaster happens to agree with her.

Smith attended a fundraiser for PragerU in Florida on Thursday, where she was interviewed by conservative American podcaster Ben Shapiro, who Smith said is as opposed to tariffs as Canadians, Mexicans and much of the rest of the world are.

“He was irritated that the Canadian media didn’t understand how opposed to tariffs he was,” she said. “He has been doing tweets, he has been mentioning it, in various podcasts -- and yesterday, he devoted his entire podcast to talking about how terrible tariffs were for American businesses and for Americans and for North America – and that is exactly what we wanted to accomplish.

“He has the second-largest listenership of any podcaster in the United States and his audience tends to be more Republican,” Smith added, “and so tends to be more of the influencers who are around the current administration and so when you get someone like Ben Shapiro talking about how Saskatchewan has 20 per cent of world’s uranium and why don’t we buy it from Saskatchewan? And that they supply 85 per cent of the potash to the United States so that their crops will grow – and when you hear him talking about how they have to get 60 per cent of their aluminum from Quebec, that is “Mission Accomplished” as far as I’m concerned.

“Those are the messages that I took down (to Florida), and in his podcast the next day, he said the same thing – and I think this is the way we move the dial," Smith said.

“(This is the way) we convince Americans, one-by-one, and the influencers around the President that tariffs are bad for both economies and we need to take a different approach – so I’m pleased by that," she said.

Under fire

The Alberta premier has come under fire for her decision to fly to Florida for the fundraising event at PragerU, a conservative content company that has been criticized for minimizing the harms of slavery and climate change.

In addition to his view on tariffs, Shapiro has expressed support for U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed annexation of Canada, and has been labelled by critics as a “right-wing extremist”

Earlier this month, Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi said it would be “despicable” for the premier to speak at the event.

“These are not the kind of people that Albertans want her associating with,” Nenshi said.

“She may feel comfortable in right-wing extremist places, but right now we need a grown-up government.”

Smith also clapped back against criticism of her Alberta taxpayer-funded trip to Florida by pointing out that Florida has become the political epicentre of the U.S. in recent months.

“Some of the centre of gravity of decision-making in the U.S. has shifted to Florida,” she said, “Fort Lauderdale in particular.”

“The Canadian government knows this too,” she added, “(be)cause as I got off the plane, I’m driving down the main highway, I saw a Canadian government billboard that said, ”Tariffs are a tax on American goods." On American consumers – and that is good advocacy. We need to see more of that and I knew that the Canadian government was doing that – so bravo."

Carney call

When asked by “Your Province, Your Premier” show host Wayne Nelson about Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Friday phone call with President Donald Trump, in which Carney said there would be a comprehensive reset of U.S.-Canadian trade deals following the April 28 federal election, Smith supported Carney’s comments.

“What I heard was a comprehensive renegotiation of free trade,” she said. “That’s what all of us want.”

With files from Brittany Eklund, Lisa Johnson and The Canadian Press