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Alberta

Premier Smith hammers Liberal government for ‘slightly’ reducing immigration

Published

6 months ago

5 minute read

As so often happens these days the headlines from major news outlets all look like they were written by the same people.  All the major news outlets repeated the government talking point that immigration would be reduced significantly.  In his news release, Immigration Minister Marc Miller spoke of “controlled targets” and even “marginal” declines in Canada’s population. Minister Miller made it sound like the feds are pulling way back on the number of immigrants being allowed into the country.

A few hours later, Premier Danielle Smith explained how Alberta sees things.  According to Premier Smith, immigrants will still be pouring into the country at near record levels.  Smith says this new immigration plan will offer almost no relief whatsoever to provinces buckling under the pressure of so many newcomers.

Premier Smith is right.  When you take out all the adjectives and the self back-patting, the 2025 – 2027 Immigration Levels Plan shows the number of new immigrants will still hover near record levels.

From the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan.

The levels plan includes controlled targets for temporary residents, specifically international students and foreign workers, as well as for permanent residents.

We are:

  • reducing from 500,000 permanent residents to 395,000 in 2025
  • reducing from 500,000 permanent residents to 380,000 in 2026
  • setting a target of 365,000 permanent residents in 2027

Quick facts:

  • Canada’s population has grown in recent years, reaching 41 million in April 2024. Immigration accounted for almost 98% of this growth in 2023, 60% of which can be attributed to temporary residents.
  • Francophone immigration will represent
    • 8.5% in 2025
    • 9.5% in 2026
    • 10% in 2027

The Levels Plan also supports efforts to reduce temporary resident volumes to 5% of Canada’s population by the end of 2026.  Canada’s temporary population will decrease over the next few years as significantly more temporary residents will transition to being permanent residents or leave Canada compared to new ones arriving. Specifically, compared to each previous year, we will see Canada’s temporary population decline by

  • 445,901 in 2025
  • 445,662 in 2026
  • a modest increase of 17,439 in 2027

It’s interesting how the feds explain the situation with “temporary residents”.  This group includes foreign students and temporary workers.  Most Canadians would probably be shocked to know just how many people are “temporarily” here.

Minister Miller says this population will decline by 445,901 people in 2025.  What he leaves out is that this still allows for just over 2,000,000 foreign students and temporary workers! (5% of 41,000,000 Canadians is 2,050,000)

It’s also very interesting that in the explanation for how the feds plan to cut the number of temporary residents down from about 2.6 million to just over 2 million, is by recognizing that many of the temporary residents will transition to being permanent residents.  It’s not clear how that will reduce the number of people in the country.  I guess we’ll have to see how that all turns out.

Meanwhile Alberta Premier Danelle Smith and Minister of Immigration and Multiculturalism Muhammad Yaseen issued this joint statement on today’s federal government immigration announcement:

“Alberta has a long history of welcoming newcomers, and we plan to maintain that reputation.

“However, the federal government’s reckless and irresponsible open-border immigration policies, permitting almost 2 million newcomers to enter Canada last year alone, have led to unsustainable financial pressures on all provinces.

“With the cost of food, energy, housing and everything else in this country increasing, and with tens of thousands of new people moving to Alberta monthly, our hospitals and schools are at or above capacity.

“As a province, we need a reprieve from this explosive population growth so we can catch up with these pressures. So do all provinces.

“The federal government’s plan to cut a mere 105,000 new permanent residents will not solve these pressures when they are bringing in almost 2 million additional people annually.

“We call on the government to cut the number of newcomers to Canada from almost 2 million to well under 500,000 annually until further notice.

“Ottawa’s priority should be on reducing the number of temporary foreign workers, international students and asylum seekers—not on reducing provincially selected economic migrants.”

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After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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Alberta

Premier Danielle Smith hints Alberta may begin ‘path’ toward greater autonomy after Mark Carney’s win

Published on April 30, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Alberta’s premier said her government will be holding a special caucus meeting on Friday to discuss Alberta’s independence.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith hinted her province could soon consider taking serious steps toward greater autonomy from Canada in light of Mark Carney and the Liberal Party winning yesterday’s federal election.

In a statement posted to her social media channels today, Smith, who is head of Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party, warned that “In the weeks and months ahead, Albertans will have an opportunity to discuss our province’s future, assess various options for strengthening and protecting our province against future hostile acts from Ottawa, and to ultimately choose a path forward.”

“As Premier, I will facilitate and lead this discussion and process with the sincere hope of securing a prosperous future for our province within a united Canada that respects our province’s constitutional rights, facilitates rather than blocks the development and export of our abundant resources, and treats us as a valued and respected partner within confederation,” she noted.

While Smith stopped short of saying that Alberta would consider triggering a referendum on independence from Canada, she did say her government will be holding a “special caucus meeting this Friday to discuss this matter further.”

“I will have more to say after that meeting is concluded,” she noted.

Smith’s warning comes at the same time some pre-election polls have shown Alberta’s independence from Canada sentiment at just over 30 percent.

Monday’s election saw Liberal leader Mark Carney beat out Conservative rival Pierre Poilievre, who also lost his seat. The Conservatives managed to pick up over 20 new seats, however, and Poilievre has vowed to stay on as party leader, for now.

In Alberta, almost all of the seats save two at press time went to conservatives.

Carney, like former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before him, said he is opposed to new pipeline projects that would allow Alberta oil and gas to be unleashed. Also, his green agenda, like Trudeau’s, is at odds with Alberta’s main economic driver, its oil and gas industry.

The Carney government has also pledged to mandate that all new cars and trucks by 2035 be electric, effectively banning the sale of new gasoline- or diesel-only powered vehicles after that year.

The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.

Smith: ‘I will not permit the status quo to continue’

In her statement, Smith noted that she invited Carney to “immediately commence working with our government to reset the relationship between Ottawa and Alberta with meaningful action rather than hollow rhetoric.”

She noted that a large majority of Albertans are “deeply frustrated that the same government that overtly attacked our provincial economy almost unabated for the past 10 years has been returned to government.”

Smith then promised that she would “not permit the status quo to continue.”

“Albertans are proud Canadians that want this nation to be strong, prosperous, and united, but we will no longer tolerate having our industries threatened and our resources landlocked by Ottawa,” she said.

Smith praised Poilievre for empowering “Albertans and our energy sector as a cornerstone of his campaign.”

Smith was against forced COVID jabs, and her United Conservative government has in recent months banned men from competing in women’s sports and passed a bill banning so-called “top and bottom” surgeries for minors as well as other extreme forms of transgender ideology.

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Alberta

Hours after Liberal election win, Alberta Prosperity Project drumming up interest in referendum

Published on April 29, 2025

By

News release from the Alberta Prosperity Project

Carney’s In. Now what?

You’ve been paying attention. You understand this is really bad. Worse than that, it’s dangerous. The country has somehow chosen several more years of a decade-long Trudeau Travesty…on steroids. Because this new Prime Minister has a three digit IQ, deep and questionable connections and a momentum to accelerate the further dis-integration of a nation we all once proudly belonged to. It’s untrue to say the country is dying. But it’s also not a stretch to say it’s on life support.

The era of Carney Carnage is here. While every province will experience it, there’s no secret he’s placed an extra big bulls-eye on Alberta.

It’s not personal, it’s financial.

His plan includes continuing to limit three of Alberta’s most prosperous sectors: energy, agriculture and, by extension, innovation. To acknowledge this requires we abandon our sense of romanticized national nostalgia. Nostalgia is a trap that prevents us from assessing the reality we exist in.

For instance, GDP is considered the financial heartbeat of a country. Over the past decade of Liberal Leadership, the national GDP has been an abysmal 1.1%. By relatable comparison, Mexico was 4%, the UK was 6%, Australia had 8% growth and the US was a whopping 19%.

That’s great information for an economist, but what does it mean to your pay cheque?

The everyday impact on the average Albertan —say, a teacher or mechanic— of 10 long years of 1% GDP means rent’s up at least 25%, a trip to the grocery store always stings, and driving an older car is the norm because an upgrade is out of reach. Does this sound like your reality?

We aren’t starving, but we’re not thriving, either.

Does this make sense for 4.5 million people living with the third most abundant energy deposits in the world? There’s an absurdity to the situation Albertans find themselves in. It’s akin to being chronically dehydrated while having a fresh water spring in the backyard.

The life you’ve invested for, the future you believed was ahead, isn’t happening.

If Alberta stays on this path.

So what can you, as an Albertan, do about it?

This Fall, we’ll be provided an opportunity. A life raft in the form of a referendum. It requires curiosity, imagination and courage to step into it, but the option will be there — a once in a lifetime shot at prosperity for you and your family: Alberta Sovereignty.

A successful bid means Albertans can finally paddle out of the perilous economic current that’s battered us for ten long years.

Alberta has the resources, talent and spirit of collaboration to create a prosperous future for our families and communities.
If you want your vote to finally mean something, if you feel you deserve more from your pay-cheque, grocery store visits and  need greater control over your family’s future, register your intent to sign YES to sovereignty now.

UPCOMING EVENTS: 

Click here to see all upcoming APP events.

WHAT CAN ALBERTANS DO?

Register Your Intent To Vote “YES”
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