Check Yourself, Smith.

Danielle Smith says the treason allegation is disgraceful. The record says otherwise.

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On Wednesday afternoon, Premier Danielle Smith stood at a press conference and was asked about the Assembly of Treaty Chiefs — Treaty 6, 7, and 8, unanimous, united — calling for an RCMP and Auditor General investigation into her and the UCP for potential treason under Section 46 of the Criminal Code of Canada. Her answer: the chiefs need to “check themselves.” That this kind of language is “disgraceful” and has “no place in a democracy.”

Okay, Premier. Let’s talk about disgraceful.

Disgraceful is your track record on Indigenous people and human rights in this province.

I’ve spent years reporting on Fort Chipewyan — a community 250 kilometres downstream from the oil sands, where Mikisew Cree First Nation’s own study found 149 cancer cases between 1993 and 2022, where cancer rates run at least 25 percent above the provincial average, where Chief Billy-Joe Tuccaro estimates cancer has touched six out of every ten households. Children. With rare cancers. While you keep pushing pipeline deals south of the border and west to the coast, carrying oil out of Treaty 8 territory, prioritizing industry and economic prosperity — dressed up by Ottawa as “the national interest.” I’m an award-winning Indigenous journalist who has reported on this crisis for outlets around the world. I sent your government thirteen direct questions about it. They went silent. That is disgraceful.

Disgraceful is ignoring two courts.

In December, Justice Feasby ruled that turning provincial borders into international ones would violate the Numbered Treaties and called First Nations founding partners in Alberta’s creation. In May, Justice Leonard ruled your government already breached its duty to consult First Nations on this referendum. You called that “anti-democratic.” You’re appealing it. And you’re running the referendum anyway, this October, in defiance of both rulings. That is disgraceful.

Disgraceful is standing up today and implying you’ve been collaborative, that your government and ministers have reached out.

I’ve spoken to several of the chiefs behind this resolution. They have told me, directly, that they haven’t heard from you in weeks. Months. Nothing on this entire mess you’ve created with separatism. So when you say there’s a collaborative relationship — that’s false. And telling the public something false in a press conference is disgraceful.

Disgraceful is threatening to arrest chiefs for defending rights your own courts have upheld.

You stood at a podium and pointed straight at the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act — a law built to crush Indigenous-led blockades — and said you’d enforce it. Up to $25,000 a day and six months in jail. Against people protecting treaty rights two separate judges have already told you are real. That is disgraceful.

Disgraceful is what you’ve done to the relationship with the sovereign First Nations of this province.

It is broken. Not strained — broken. Treaty 8 Grand Chief Trevor Mercredi already told you dismissing this as “overwrought” doesn’t answer the constitutional questions you’ve been asked. Treaty 6 Grand Chief Joey Pete told you flat out that you and your government need to remember who you work for.

So let’s call a spade a spade, Danielle Smith. This is what’s actually going on here. The chiefs see it. We all see it. I watch this closely, and I’m telling you the truth: you are the one who needs to check yourself.

There is a war happening in this province right now, and you helped light the fuse — a war with the sovereign Treaty Nations of Alberta, the same nations whose Treaties predate this province by decades, the same nations the RCMP’s own predecessor swore to protect.

So buckle up, Smith. The fight you started isn’t ending with a press conference.

Brandi Morin is an award-winning Cree/Iroquois/French journalist from Treaty 6 territory in Alberta, Canada. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, Al Jazeera English, The Guardian, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the BBC and more. She is the author of the national bestselling memoir Our Voice of Fire and the founder of Indigenous Insider on Substack.

Sources:

AOTC press release, June 17, 2026;

Smith press conference remarks, June 17, 2026 (Global News, Canadian Press); Mikisew Cree First Nation cancer study findings;

Court of King’s Bench rulings, December 2025 and May 13, 2026.