Why Was Premier Smith’s Husband in a Secret Megaproject Meeting?

The governments of former Alberta premier Jason Kenney and now Premier Danielle Smith have been vigorously lobbied to support a private company’s high-stakes gamble on a rail line from Calgary to Banff.

With potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of public money at stake, internal government documents obtained by The Tyee raise a question.

Why did Smith personally arrange for her husband to be granted extraordinary access to confidential internal government discussions about the proposed project?

The internal documents, obtained through freedom of information, show Smith’s husband, David Moretta, attended an hour-long confidential government meeting at McDougall Centre, the provincial government’s Calgary office, on Sept. 26, 2023.

The government redacted any information that would show who else attended the meeting and what was discussed.

The documents also showed that Liricon Capital, and its business partner, Plenary Americas, provided a letter to Smith in advance of the Sept. 26 meeting. It’s not known if Moretta was given access to that letter.

In an emailed statement, Smith’s press secretary, Sam Blackett, acknowledged Moretta had attended the meeting. But Blackett didn’t address how the premier determined it was appropriate for her husband, a private citizen with no formal expertise about rail projects, to attend a confidential government meeting.

Smith and her husband “share a long-standing enthusiasm for rail as an efficient form of transportation for goods and people,” the statement said, and they often discuss ways to expand passenger rail service in the province.

“As the premier values his opinion on the issue, he was invited to attend a meeting at the premier’s request so she could hear his opinion about what he heard.

“Mr. Moretta has absolutely no connection to Liricon and has not lobbied on behalf of any entity (rail related or otherwise) at any time.”

In a town hall meeting earlier this month Smith stated, “My husband works for minimum wage operating a training restaurant in High River. That is what my husband does for a living.”

Liricon’s $2.6 billion proposal

The internal documents also show that Smith’s senior staff, including chief of staff Marshall Smith, executive director Rob Anderson and executive assistant Jeremy Hexham met several times with Adam Waterous, who along with his wife Jan, own Liricon.

Waterous is an investment banker turned oil tycoon. He and his wife also own the Mount Norquay ski resort in Banff and they hold a long-term lease on the historic Banff railway station. In addition to the rail line, they want to develop the railway station and built a gondola directly from it to their Mount Norquay ski resort.

Liricon has proposed building a $2.6 billion rail link between Calgary International Airport, downtown Calgary and the Banff train station. To be feasible, the plan would require hundreds of millions of dollars in mostly federal funding.

The Waterouses declined an interview request. In an emailed statement, Adam said neither he nor his wife attended the Sept. 26, 2023 meeting and he said he had no concerns that Moretta had.

“To the best of my wife Jan’s and my recollection, we have never met, spoken with, or laid eyes on Mr. Moretta. Mr. Moretta has no connection in any way to Liricon.”

In late April, the Smith government announced it had set aside $9 million in the budget to help fund a passenger rail master plan for the province, that included a fast train between Calgary and Edmonton.

Smith and Moretta were later photographed in the observatory car of a restored steam train with Alberta Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen.

Meetings cloaked in secrecy

Mount Royal political scientist Lori Williams said allowing someone to attend a confidential government meeting simply because they are the spouse of the premier raises all sorts of issues.

“It is one thing to potentially discuss general ideas with one’s partner, but it is quite another to involve them in government decision making,” Williams said.

“He is not an elected official, he is not accountable, he has not been vetted and he doesn’t have any apparent expertise in this field,” Williams said.

“This is a situation where the government is saying, ‘You cannot FOIP this information, it is not available to ordinary Albertans, it is confidential government information,’” she said.

“And yet, this person has access to confidential government information and that raises questions of fairness.”

Moretta is Smith’s second husband. They met when she was a talk show host and he was a producer. They married in 2006 and later operated a diner in an old rail car in High River, about 70 kilometres south of Calgary. The business was listed for sale in June 2023.

The documents obtained by The Tyee show Adam Waterous met for lunch with Anderson, Marshall Smith and Hexham at the Calgary Petroleum Club on Jan. 11, 2023.

Anderson also met privately with Waterous at McDougall Centre on Oct. 11, 2023. Dreeshen attended remotely.

Waterous provided the agenda and briefing notes, which were redacted from the documents provided to The Tyee.

Williams said these sorts of private meetings thwart transparency and accountability, and they raise questions about equal access to government officials.

“In politics, we talk about not just doing things properly, but appearing to do things properly,” she said.

“And if things are happening in a way that appear to evade documentation, or people are told that information isn’t available because it wasn’t a government meeting, it raises both questions of fairness and propriety.”

“We want to make sure that there is a fair and impartial process that takes place before decisions are made,” she said. “And if it looks like some people have privileged access or influence, questions arise about whether or not improprieties occurred. It is problematic for a government if those questions repeatedly get raised.”

Citing an earlier ruling by Alberta’s ethics commissioner, Williams said this latest revelation about Smith using her position as premier to grant personal access to potentially confidential government information again raises questions about Smith’s ethical judgment.

In May 2023, Alberta ethics commissioner Marguerite Trussler found Smith had contravened the provincial Conflicts of Interest Act when she contacted then-justice minister Tyler Shandro about criminal charges against Calgary street preacher Artur Pawlowski.

“In the whole scheme of things, it is a threat to democracy to interfere in the administration of justice,” Trussler said in her report.

Trussler’s contract was not renewed in May 2024. She was replaced by Shawn McLeod, who had sought the UCP nomination in Edmonton-Riverview for the 2019 election but withdrew before the nomination vote.

Smith is facing a leadership review in November and while she is actively seeking to placate the powerful far-right wing of the UCP, Williams said Smith should also be concerned about how more moderate conservatives, both inside and outside the party, view her.

“She also has to appeal to ordinary Alberta voters,” she said, “and some already have questions. These are people who take ethics and the appearance of propriety seriously, and this will add to the list of questions they have about this premier, and it could make things more difficult in the next election.”

If you have any information for this story, or information for another story, please contact Charles Rusnell in confidence via email.