Randy Boissonnault discusses Jasper recovery, Canada-US relations and Indigenous claims

Randy Boissonnault, minister of employment, workforce development and official languages, speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about Jasper recovery, Canada-U.S. relations and Indigenous ancestry claims.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: You're the federal government's lead on the Jasper recovery grant program. How far should that actually be expected to go in in helping those businesses rebound?

Randy Boissonnault: There's $3.5 million, it’s going to go to about 320 businesses in the Jasper townsite, but also in the park, and half a million dollars that's going to go to Jasper tourism.

Let's deal with that second piece. First, we need people to come back to Jasper, full stop. So any of your viewers that are wondering whether they should or shouldn't come to Jasper, the answer is, please come. (Restaurateur) Mike Day literally said, ‘Please come to Jasper and ski five times a week and buy your skis here and stay in the lodges and eat in our restaurants.’

Because the entire economy of Jasper is built on visitors, 2.4 million visitors a year, and if even a small percentage of that get nervous or don't want to go, it's going to have a material effect.

This $5,000 to $10,000 per business, the mayor said it, it's going to be the difference between some businesses staying open and closing, because it's a bridge between where they are now and what they need for when that winter season starts.

We're also looking at a very good summer season and Parks Canada has made sure that the offering is there. Whistler's campsite will be ready this summer, we're going to have winter activities ready, the Jasper Park Lodge is putting on the dark sky preserve again.

So we need companies, we need people, we need families, to come back to Jasper. Almost $4 million that we put on the table yesterday is to help Jasper businesses be ready for people coming back.

MH: Broader strokes on recovery. We recently had Jason Nixon, Alberta's minister of seniors, community and social services, and that was about the provincial government's roll out of interim housing development, putting in $112 million.

Are you coming to the table on discussing that and potentially cutting those costs down the middle, sharing that with the Alberta government?

RB: So the way it works is, there's the Disaster Financial Agreement Act that's in place, and we're waiting for the provincial government to make an ask under the agreement. If the province wants, they can even ask for an upfront payment.

So we're working through that with me, with Minister Nixon, with Minister Ellis, with Minister Loewen, and we're ready to do our part through the agreement.

I toured a whole bunch of sites where we want to see that temporary housing. The main message is density. There's only so much land that we have and there needs to be at least 600 new units created.

So what the province is doing is a good start, but we're going to need to see more. We're going to need to see the ability to use the land as strategically as possible, and that means medium to high density so that Jasperites can be in their interim housing, have their homes rebuilt, and then have that housing available for the temporary foreign workforce that surges every summer.

This is an opportunity for us to do something really important for Jasper for the long-term, and I want to make sure we do that together with the province and with the municipality and with Parks Canada.

MH: It was just over a year ago that Chrystia Freeland asked the Chief Actuary for a figure on Alberta's share of the Canada Pension Plan, where does that stand?

RB: I think the chief actuary is finalizing those numbers. I'll find out. Ask me the next time I'm here, and I'll see if I can get a more precise timeline for you.

But it's an important number to have settled that conversation. You know where I stand on this. I think that the CPP, with its returns on investment of 20 per cent a year, the fact that it's a national program, the fact that Albertans are very well served by the Canada Pension Plan.

The biggest issue that I've had since being a minister, since 2021, was protect our pension plan. People, probably even people that didn't even vote for me, we're like, ‘Hands off our pension plan, Premier Smith, we want to stay in the CPP.’

I've never seen such an issue that is so responsive from people. Seniors, but also, I met a young guy who's in his twenties and said, ‘I know when my retirement date is, make sure that I stay in the CPP.’

MH: Donald Trump is returning to the White House and there's plenty of apprehension in this province around the uncertainty surrounding his campaign promise of a blanket tariff.

The message from Ottawa is that Canada will be absolutely fine. What gives your government that level of confidence?

RB: If you roll the tape back and go to the first time we had to work with a U.S. administration led by Donald Trump, we did some big things together. We actually renegotiated the Canada-US-Mexico Free Trade Agreement, and it was his signature that is on that deal.

We had some issues over tariffs, we got through them, but we did big things together as administrations.

I have the jobs file, and how important jobs were for him in his campaign and in his administration's tone and tenor, take a look at the crude that we send to the Gulf Coast from Alberta. That is 7,000 jobs in the U.S. that are really important.

I also think that when it comes to energy security, that that is going to be a very special conversation that we're going to have with them and should the administration decide to put tariffs on oil and gas products, it would simply drive the product, the price of fuel, up in that country.

What I do know is that we've had good relationships with President Trump before, and we're very confident that's going to continue moving forward because it's billions of dollars of trade a day, it's hundreds of thousands of jobs, and we have great relationships with governors, U.S. business associations, and with people in the Trump administration.

MH: It's in the headlines today about you no longer sitting on your party's Indigenous caucus and reportedly shifting how you identify. So how do you clear the error on the degree of scrutiny building here?

RB: Well, let me just share with your viewers that I was adopted into an Indigenous family, a loving family. I have not claimed Indigenous status myself.

MH: You were on the Indigenous caucus, were you not?

RB: So the Indigenous caucus is open to allies, and so in my first mandate, from 2015 to 2019, I sat on the Indigenous Caucus as Member of Parliament for Edmonton Centre, because we have a lot of Indigenous constituents and a lot of Indigenous Albertans, and I wanted to represent them in the Indigenous Caucus.

The chair of the Indigenous caucus, Jaime Battiste, has been very clear that Indigenous caucus is open and has always been open to Indigenous allies, and that's why I sat there.

Since I've been a minister, I haven't had the ability to attend Indigenous caucus regularly, but I deeply apologize, and I'm very sorry for, any way that I've referred to myself that wasn't as clear as I could have been.

I'm actually learning about my own history in real time, and the way that I referred to myself was the way I learned about it growing up. So as I'm understanding my family's history and my own identity better, I will be very clear in the future. I'll be on this journey with Canadians, and I'll share with people as it unfolds.