Alberta may establish Alberta-Ukraine Business Council, Premier says

NP-UN Western Bureau

Alberta may soon establish an Alberta-Ukraine Business Council, says Premier Danielle Smith.

Responding to a question from Ukrainian Echo correspondent Lidia Wasylyn regarding concrete plans for involving Alberta business, and particularly the energy sector in the rebuilding of Ukraine, during a Multicultural Media Roundtable, December 9, Smith replied that she recently met with the Ukrainian community at a roundtable organized by Parliamentary Secretary Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk where a “very loud and clear” message came out that there are businesses in Alberta that would like to have the opportunity to help rebuild Ukraine.

What also came out of that roundtable was the need for the government to create an Alberta-Ukraine Business Council. Alberta has previously set up such councils with the United Arab Emirates and India, said Smith.

“What this one would do is connect the business community with those who want to do business in Ukraine to help with the rebuilding. We already have several MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding) with Ukraine, one on energy and then two with individual sub-regions. And so, I think it's just making sure that our businesses are going over when it's safe to do so.”

She mentioned that the government will be hosting the Global Petroleum Show in, Calgary, in 2026 and she’s asked Armstrong-Homeniuk if she can use that as an opportunity to bring the business community together.

“We've been focused on helping to support the diaspora community, but now, as the discussion is shifting to rebuilding, we think that there are energy industry infrastructure, and power infrastructure companies that would have a lot of opportunity to provide their expertise. So, the answer is yes.”

Connect FM Ukrainian Program Producer Yulianna Voloshyna followed up on a question she had raised at an earlier roundtable, namely the creation of a special program to help Ukrainian evacuees get permanent residency.

Smith said Alberta’s collaboration with the federal government on this file has been disappointing. “In Quebec, they choose almost all of the provincial nominees…in Alberta, they cut us down.

At one point Alberta had almost 10,000 nominee positions, but this was cut down to about 4,800, and “now we're back up to 6,400, which is not sufficient.”

“We have anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 people applying to be in Alberta who have good jobs and good opportunities and support from their community,” she said

“We think that there's a bit of a mismatch in the federal priorities versus the needs of our communities here, and that's part of the reason why, when we were consulting about what to do about that, we believe we'll have to take more control over our immigration program, much like Quebec in order to ensure that we're offering positions to those who are best able to succeed in the Alberta economy. So there'll be more to announce on that, but we feel that Albertans now understand the nature of our frustration, and that we'll have to take some more action on that to be a lot more like Quebec,” added Smith.

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