Alberta Premier Danielle Smith isn’t holding back on the federal government’s immigration policies, signalling her province plans to wrest more control over immigration and social services from Ottawa.
Smith launched the “Alberta Next Panel”, designed to hear from constituents on key issues they would like the United Conservative Party to fight the federal government on. Issues already on the table include provincial autonomy on immigration, policing, pensions, representation and taxes.
Watch the full interview here.
During an exclusive interview with Juno News’ Keann Bexte on Wednesday, Smith said the Liberal federal government “blew it” on Canada’s once well-accepted immigration system, saying mass immigration has led to widespread affordability issues.
“You’ve seen the result of it. The reason why housing prices have spiked, why food affordability has spiked, why affordability on every front has spiked is just because if you have too many people chasing too few jobs, too few homes and too little employment, you’re just going to end up causing problems,” Smith said. “The federal government blew it, and it’s such a tragedy.”
When Smith was first elected in 2022, she said the “Alberta is Calling” campaign—a plan to attract skilled workers from across Canada into the province—was “important.”
The province had been among the first to remove COVID-era restrictions and had experienced continuous out-migration, leading to the plan. However, the level of immigration brought on by federal policies was overwhelming.
“We were calling to those who were unemployed Canadians in other parts of the country to come to Alberta. What we didn’t anticipate was that the federal government was going to completely let off all controls of all streams of immigration at that time,” Smith told Juno News.
She noted that through the immigration programs bringing in temporary foreign workers, asylum seekers, international students, and others, Canada saw a population rise of about 1.8 million people in a year, rather than the expected one per cent increase of around 400,000, as has happened in years past.
She said since the province’s founding in 1905, Alberta has been one of the most welcoming places on the planet for immigration, but that Albertans are now finding immigration “went too far” as their country and quality of life changes around them.
“I think people want to continue having people who will come here to contribute to the economy and be able to grow this province, but it’s got to be at a reasonable level,” Smith said. “We’ve had over 500,000 people come here in the last five years, and you just can’t build homes fast enough, you can’t hire doctors fast enough, you can’t build schools fast enough. And so what we’re asking for is to have more autonomy and control over immigration.”
Smith noted that section 95 of the Constitution Act, 1867, explicitly gives more emphasis to provinces making their own laws on immigration and agriculture so long as that law isn’t “repugnant” to other federal laws. The Act states that the Parliament of Canada is only to legislate on the matter “from time to time.”
“We flipped it on its head. What has happened is that we’ve deferred to the federal government on both immigration and agriculture, and they’ve blown it. Now we have to try to find a way to take back more control,” she added.
She noted that the one province in Canada that didn’t see an “explosion” in house prices is Quebec, which is also the province with the most autonomy over its immigration.
The Alberta Next Panel plans to look at issues such as how to get more immigrants tied to the economic needs of the province, and how to ensure Albertan values are preserved while integrating newcomers into the community.
Smith floated the idea that social services could be capped for newcomers to ensure taxpayers are not being taken advantage of. She said newcomers to the province should already have a job and come to the province as taxpayers.
Smith said one priority is to ensure immigrants know that Alberta’s rich social services are there not as a way of life, but as part of a social contract, where each person works to the best of their ability.
“We provide a social safety net for those who fall through the cracks,” Smith said. “But I don’t think Albertans want to be taken advantage of.”
Share this post