Alberta says the best person should get the job, period. On this week's Buffalo Roundtable, Sheila Gunn Reid, Lise Merle and their guests mostly agreed.

Sheila read a statement from Premier Danielle Smith announcing legislation to base public-sector hiring and promotion on merit. “Every Albertan deserves a fair shot,” Smith said, “and fairness means everyone competes on the same terms.” Mandatory training would be relevant to each employee's role, she said, instead of mandatory DEI sessions.

Mark Milke of the Aristotle Foundation called it “positive,” though “the details matter.” His group's first study, in 2023, was on DEI.

In practice, he said, it means going back to discriminating based on how people look. “You can't make up for past discrimination in most cases by using new discrimination,” he said.

Kirk Lubimov, speaking from the corporate world, applauded the bill, though he said it “could have really gone after it” harder. He called mandatory DEI training “a complete waste of money” and HR resources.

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Lise said the changes also interrupt DEI promotion. “For the last 20 years, if you wanted to succeed in a public institution, you had to do the DEI song and dance,” she said.

Rebel News' @CoryBMorgan asks Danielle Smith about claims that "merit is code for not hiring ethnic people or women." Smith: "every single person who has been hired can feel confident that they were the best person for the job, and that's what we want." pic.twitter.com/VgfB6JkSsy

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) October 27, 2026

Rebel News freelancer Cory Morgan asked Smith at the press conference about NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi, who he said had called merit “code for not hiring ethnic people or women.” Smith said merit-based hiring already applies in the Alberta Public Service and the bill extends it “to all of the institutions that we govern.” Anyone who feels discriminated against can still go to the Human Rights Commission, she added.

Mark said Nenshi's assumption is flawed. Discrimination based on how you look, who you are or your faith has been illegal in Canada since the 1950s, he said, citing Ontario's laws from 1951 and 1952.

.@CoryBMorgan asks if Alberta will release demographic data on public service hires. Smith: "I don't think that we track people based on race within our system... it would be an odd thing, I think, for us to track our employees on that basis." pic.twitter.com/bnbR118K6O

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) October 27, 2026

Morgan also asked whether the province would release demographic data on its hiring. Smith said she didn't think the government tracks employees by race.

“It would be an odd thing, I think, for us to track our employees on that basis,” she said. Sheila said some agencies under government purview do exactly that, and “that needs to end.”

Sheila also warned that holdovers from the NDP's 2015 to 2019 public-sector hiring could still be on the payroll, and said the bill will only work if its execution is watched closely.

Buffalo Roundtable streams live Wednesdays at 11 a.m. MT / 1 p.m. ET.