{"id":696167,"date":"2026-05-27T02:14:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T02:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/696167\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T02:14:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T02:14:20","slug":"premiers-of-alberta-manitoba-spar-over-need-to-consult-with-first-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/696167\/","title":{"rendered":"Premiers of Alberta, Manitoba spar over need to consult with First Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the premiers of Canada\u2019s western provinces and territories attempted, for the most part, to portray a public image of cooperation and understanding during their meeting in Alberta\u2019s Kananaskis Country this week, there was one major area of disagreement that emerged during their end-of-the-meeting press conference.<\/p>\n

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When asked about governments\u2019 duty to consult with First Nations<\/a> on issues that could affect treaty rights, the response by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was challenged as \u201cnot correct\u201d by Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew.<\/p>\n

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In Alberta, a recent citizen\u2019s petition calling for a referendum on Alberta\u2019s independence<\/a> was struck down at the courts over the failure of the province and the proponent, Take Back Alberta, to consult with First Nations \u2014 a ruling that drew the ire of Smith, who has vowed to appeal.<\/a><\/p>\n

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During Tuesday\u2019s press conference, Smith repeated her criticism, saying, \u201cI think the court erred in judgment, and I think it\u2019s also anti-democratic, the decision that they made.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ll make the arguments in court about what the limits to consult ought to be, and we\u2019ll see how that conversation goes,\u201d added Smith.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s a couple of rounds that we have to go through, obviously, to (the) Court of Appeal, probably also to the Supreme Court of Canada. But we want to make sure that we have a very clear understanding of what the duty to consult really means and what it doesn\u2019t mean, and I think at the moment there\u2019s a lack of clarity on that,\u201d Smith added.<\/p>\n

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Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, who is a member of the Ojibways of Onigaming First Nation in northwestern Ontario<\/a>, quickly responded, saying, \u201cI think we know that that is not correct \u2014 a lot of what you just said there, Premier Smith.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt is not up to the petition gatherers to fulfill the duty to consul. It is up to you as the Alberta government to fulfill a duty to consult,\u201d Kinew continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this case, when there is clearly going to be an impact on well-established existing hunting and fishing rights by putting up an international border, if some would have their way, I would agree with the judge\u2019s ruling that that is going to infringe on rights \u2014 and so there is a duty to consult.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Calling it \u201cnot necessarily a disagreement,\u201d Kinew said section 35 of the Canadian Constitution \u2014 which recognizes and affirms Aboriginal and treaty rights in Canada<\/a> \u2014 is a fact and must be respected \u201cthe same as the rest of the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

In what appeared to be an attempt to extend an olive branch to Smith, Kinew said, \u201cNow is the time to work together,\u201d and challenged Smith to \u201chold off on this referendum talk for a year or two and see if we get these pipelines under construction,\u201d referring to Smith\u2019s desire for a new pipeline to the west coast .<\/p>\n

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Smith responded to Kinew\u2019s comments by again defending her government\u2019s intention to appeal the earlier court\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this is why we have the courts, because you can have politicians disagree and that\u2019s why you take it through the court, you take you through the appeals and you go to the supreme court and ultimately, though I respect to the difference of opinion that Premier Kinew has raised, I think we\u2019ll we\u2019ll wait to see how our our court of appeals process goes and see what the courts have to say in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the premiers of Canada\u2019s western provinces and territories attempted, for the most part, to portray a public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[25158,49,48,32924,115411,44,41685,714,235663],"class_list":["post-696167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta-separatism","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-first-nations","tag-indigenous-rights","tag-news","tag-perspectives","tag-politics","tag-treaty-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}