This story is being published in collaboration with The Tyee, an award-winning independent media outlet based in BC. 

Danielle Smith and her team met with members of the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation not long after the 2024 U.S. election, the Alberta premier said at a conference last month.

Smith was speaking at the recent Canada Strong and Free conference in Calgary when she described meeting with the group that spearheaded Project 2025, the plan to rapidly overhaul the U.S. government under U.S. President Donald Trump. Smith said she met with the think tank to represent the interests of Alberta and Canada and to better understand Trump and his policies.

“We met with the Heritage Foundation when Donald Trump first got elected because we knew that the Heritage Foundation was one of many different groups that are influential on him,” said Smith. “We wanted to understand what kind of policies he was advocating and to see if we could frame our interests and talking points in terms of the U.S. president’s interests.”

The Heritage Foundation is a highly influential conservative think tank that advocates for free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, and traditional American values. Its Republican influence dates back to 1981, when about two-thirds of the group’s policy recommendations were adopted by the Reagan Administration.

The think tank is widely known for authoring Project 2025, the plan to “dismantle the administrative state” by closing government offices, overturning regulations, and replacing thousands of public sector employees with Trump allies. Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, but its agenda, including climate policy rollbacks and gutting the Environmental Protection Agency, has forged ahead since his re-election.

A recent DeSmog report found that 70 percent of Trump’s cabinet and more than 50 high level officials have ties to the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025. They include vice president JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and the recently departed head of DOGE Elon Musk.

Trump’s Canadian ally

This isn’t the first meeting Smith has had with allies of the American president. Earlier this year she went to Florida to speak with the conservative influencer Ben Shapiro at a fundraising event for conservative media organization PragerU. The pair discussed electing “solid allies” to Trump in Canada.

In an interview with Breitbart News in March she appeared to be supportive of Trump and said that federal conservative leader Pierre Poilievre would be a better ally to the Americans. “Pierre would bring would be very much in sync with, I think…the new direction in America,” she told them. “And I think we’d have a really great relationship for the period of time they’re both in,” seeming to refer to Trump.

Smith’s comments in Florida and her meeting with the Heritage Foundation came at a time when tariffs severely strained Canada-U.S. relations and when Trump often joked about annexing Canada.

The Heritage Foundation was recently in the news when its president Kevin D. Roberts was invited to speak to Canadian Prime Minister Marc Carney’s cabinet at the beginning of September. An invitation that one former Liberal advisor called “mind boggling.” 

Roberts later declined the invitation, saying that he was in Washington. A statement from the prime minister’s office later read “our team will continue further engagement and discussions with him and other leading U.S. policy figures soon.”

‘Trump’s not going to be influenced by me’

Neither Danielle Smith’s office nor the Heritage Foundation responded to requests to elaborate on what was discussed in the meeting.

But at the Canada Strong and Free conference Smith claimed such meetings are normal and often organized by the Alberta Washington Office currently run by former UCP MLA and Speaker Nathan Cooper. She added that her team would be meeting with Democrats had they been in office.

Smith said she learned that Trump is influenced by his donors and supporters during the Heritage Foundation meeting, and that she aimed to figure out who they were so she could better frame her talking points to the Americans.

“Trump’s not going to be influenced by me,” she said. “The way you talk to him are in terms of mutual interest, and most importantly, American interests. And there’s a lot of American interest in maintaining their economic ties with Canada.”

Smith was just one of several speakers at the conference organized by the Canada Strong and Free Network, formerly the Manning Centre, held last month in Calgary. Others speakers included Conrad Black, journalist Tristin Hopper and lawyer Keith Wilson who has become a leading figure in the Alberta separatist movement.