Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced last week that the province will hold a referendum in October, with five of the questions concerning immigration.Todd Korol/The Canadian Press
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith gave a televised address to her province last week that carried two important messages.
One, there is a tough provincial budget on the way that will be bleeding in red ink. Two, immigrants – and Justin Trudeau – are partially to blame.
A reasonable person might read that last sentence and snort at its improbability. Surely, the people of Alberta aren’t that dumb. The Premier’s favourite whipping boy – the former prime minister – is long gone. And yet, she is attempting to blame him for the perilous state of the province’s finances?
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To hear Ms. Smith tell it in her 13-minute address, thanks to Mr. Trudeau’s reign, Alberta has been overrun with immigrants and asylum seekers who have been a major drain on provincial resources. Which is truly an odd thing to be hearing from a Premier who only two years ago was pleading for more immigrants under the provincial nominee program. Ottawa had given the province 9,750 spots for 2024; Ms. Smith wanted double that number, and 10,000 Ukrainians on top of that.
It was around this time that the same Ms. Smith was musing publicly about wanting Alberta’s population to grow to 10 million – or double its current size.
In April, 2024, Ms. Smith posted a video to X of her exclaiming that the province had attracted more than 200,000 newcomers the previous year. She said Alberta beckoned with vast opportunities and she hoped “we can attract more people to this province.”
But according to provincial figures, net migration to Alberta – both interprovincial and international – peaked around July, 2023, at 58,650 total. It’s been on a downward trajectory since. Between January and September of last year, Alberta welcomed only 19,093 international immigrants. (Ms. Smith said last week Alberta could handle about 50,000 newcomers a year.)
In the past 10 years, Alberta’s population grew at about an average of 1.93 per cent, according to University of Alberta economist Andrew Leach. The 10 years prior to that the average was 2.21 per cent. You get the idea: the population growth rate in Alberta is running at a pretty consistent rate.
Yet, when the Premier was asked at a news conference how much new immigrants are costing the government each year, she didn’t know.
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But, of course, there is more to this story. Scapegoating immigrants is primarily about satiating the base of her United Conservative Party and an ultra-right MAGA contingent within it that is anti-immigrant and pro-separatist.
And if you don’t think there is an ominous, odious parallel between some of the dangerous, nativist rhetoric we routinely hear out of U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House and the Smith government, consider this recent post on X from Bruce McAllister, the executive director of the Premier’s Calgary office. “Why import from nations with failed systems when our Judeo-Christian heritage and principles have worked so well here?”
It recalls Mr. Trump famously saying the U.S. should stop allowing immigrants from “shithole” countries.
In her address, the Premier unveiled nine questions that will be put to referendum in October, five of which have to do with immigration. Some of the concepts she is testing out include making immigrants reside in the province for a year before qualifying for any social supports and having them pay a “user fee” to access services – a levy some instantly compared to the infamous Chinese Head Tax of 1885.
Referendums like the one Ms. Smith plans to conduct are ultimately just a distraction. They come with no authority to institute the changes Ms. Smith is seeking, for instance, over the Canadian Senate or the selection of federal judges in Alberta. They are, at best, something she can wave around in front of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s face during negotiating sessions for more provincial power.
But if phony plebiscites like the one she has announced make Albertans feel better – make would-be separatists reconsider their desire to leave Canada – then go for it, I guess. But these psy-op exercises do nothing to solve the real economic issues the province faces.
Alberta governments continue to run deficits in large part because they don’t tax their people in the same manner the rest of the country does. They have no sales tax, for instance. This policy alone costs the treasury billions each year.
But instead of opting for a remedy to truly fix her fiscal problems, Ms. Smith has chosen a different path. She’s decided to blame immigrants for the province’s financial woes and wants to make their lives just a little bit harder if she can. This is a choice – and an obscenely cruel and perfidious one, at that.
Editor’s note: Due to an error introduced in editing, a previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Danielle Smith is seeking changes regarding the selection of provincial judges in Alberta. Ms. Smith is seeking to appoint federal judges provincially.