Danielle Smith meet-and-greet with Calgary Chinese community wins some hearts but not all

Danielle Smith dropped by the Edgemont Community Association  for a meet-and-greet Saturday with some member's of Calgary's Chinese community to answer questions and press the flesh, but a format change left Helen Yu feeling a little shortchanged.

Following a short speech, Smith took about three questions from audience members which were then filtered through a third party who translated Smith’s answers into Cantonese.

That didn’t suit Yu, who has lived in Calgary for 25 years.

“Two years ago, I remember we had a similar event east of Calgary,” Yu said. “In that event, there were (individual) sessions for us to have three questions for her.

“I love to see the premier connect directly with Albertans,” Yu said “Today, they did not have that session. The guy gave her the questions directly. I was disappointed.

“This is not good as a format.”

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith at a meet-and-greet in Calgary Saturday.

New Year celebrations

Event organizer Janet Hu, who works for the City of Calgary, was more effusive, praising the premier for travelling to Edgemont to help pre-celebrate Chinese New Year, which is closer to the end of January.

“We’re so lucky to have the provincial premier here to celebrate the new year,” Hu said. “Thank you so much.”

She said Edgemont was home to 4,600 Calgarians of Chinese descent, with nearby Hamptons home to around 3,000.

Hu said close to 100,000 people of Chinese descent live in Calgary.

Smith mostly spoke about efforts to improve border control in an effort to minimize tariffs that Donald Trump is threatening to impose on Canada, as well as her efforts to revamp the province’s health care system.

She said the new format might allow for Chinese medicinal practices to be incorporated into the health care system, which Hu endorsed.

“The (Chinese medical) tradition is over 3,000 years (old),” she said. “We really want to see Chinese doctors. (I would) like to see Chinese medicine in the health system.”

Affordability

Yu said she approved of Smith’s “wise and realistic” approach to dealing with Donald Trump, but what she wanted to talk about was why, she said, Albertans pay so much for electricity.

“Do you know Alberta’s electricity costs are the highest except for Northwest Territories and Nunavut? This is crazy,” Yu said, pointing to what she said was a wide gap between what electricity costs per kilowatt hour in Alberta as opposed to the least-expensive province, Quebec.

“If everybody else (in Canada), even under NDP governments, can be lower than us, this is wrong,” Yu said..

“And the premier mentioned that Alberta is the fifth most liveable place in North America.

"We can make it better," Yu said. “We can be better than that.”

Yu also claimed that from 2020 to 2023, the cost of living jumped 55 per cent.

“Who can afford it?” she asked. “We all talk about 'Make Alberta Better' – and on this particular issue, it doesn’t matter if you are conservative, liberal or NDP.

“So this is my question,” she said, “and I wasn’t allowed to raise my hand. I’m disappointed.”

While Smith didn't talk about electricity rates in her speech, she did reference Quebec -- as an example of the type of provincial relationship she'd like Alberta to have with the federal government .

"We want to be like Quebec, where the federal government helps to cost-share programs but (also) lets provinces deliver them their own way," she said.

With files from Tyler Barrow