{"id":489237,"date":"2026-02-21T05:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T05:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/489237\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T05:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T05:20:12","slug":"alberta-premier-defends-controversial-referendum-questions-on-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/489237\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta Premier defends controversial referendum questions on immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is defending a suite of fall referendum questions aimed at immigration reform, saying \u201cnot every newcomer is a net contributor\u201d to provincial coffers.<\/p>\n

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Smith announced in a TV address on Thursday evening that her United Conservative Party government is putting nine questions to a provincewide referendum on Oct. 19.<\/p>\n

They include proposals to restrict health care, education and other social services from some immigrants and to open up constitutional negotiations on abolishing the Senate and giving provinces the power to appoint Superior Court judges.<\/p>\n

However, the most controversial questions focus on immigration and they were also the topic of many of the questions at a Friday morning news conference hosted by Smith.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAlberta Premier Danielle Smith announced her referendum plans in a province-wide television address on Thursday evening.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSource: Government of Alberta\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

While immigration policy in Canada is \u2060primarily the responsibility of Ottawa, not the provinces, one of Smith\u2019s referendum questions makes reference to \u201can Alberta-approved immigration status.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Asked what that means, Smith took aim at a familiar foe, former prime minister Justin Trudeau, criticizing his government for accepting too many immigrants without \u201cin-demand skills\u201d calling his government\u2019s immigration policies \u201cabsolutely unsustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alberta\u2019s population, which topped five million last year, according to Statistics Canada, added more than 600,000 people in the past \u2060five years<\/a> \u2014 something Smith said has been putting a strain on provincial resources.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThrowing the doors wide open to anyone and everyone across the globe has flooded our classrooms, emergency rooms and social support systems with far too many people, far too quickly,\u201d claimed Smith.<\/p>\n

Smith announced the referendum questions at a time her government is facing a deficit of at least $6.4 billion, partly because of falling world oil prices but also a funding shortfall she blames on Alberta\u2019s rapid population growth.<\/p>\n

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When pressed, Smith couldn\u2019t provide a dollar amount on how much those who aren\u2019t Canadian citizens or permanent residents are costing the public purse, but claimed other provinces already require employers and not the provincial government to cover health care costs.<\/p>\n

The opposition NDP responded to Smith\u2019s referendum questions, calling them a deceptive distraction from \u201ca UCP budget that will contain billions of dollars in deficits along with the campaign for Alberta\u2019s separation from Canada \u201cwhich she put on the agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The premier is blaming oil prices and immigration \u201cfor her own poor planning and financial mismanagement,\u201d said Deputy NDP Leader Raki Pancholi at a news conference in Edmonton on Friday, who added that Albertans will \u201csee right through this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Referencing previous calls from the premier for more immigration, Pancholi said, \u201cLess than two years ago, Danielle Smith herself asked Justin Trudeau to increase immigration levels because Alberta wanted more than what Ottawa was already allocating.\u00a0 In 2024, she stated publicly that she wanted to double Alberta\u2019s population to 10 million people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe did all this without a single thought or plan for how to create the jobs, build the houses, the schools, and hospitals that we already needed in this province,\u201d added Pancholi, who also challenged Smith to call a provincial election.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet Albertans judge her performance in the last six years under the UCP. It\u2019s all a massive distraction from the real things Albertans expect their government to deliver: health care, education, cost of living and good quality jobs,\u201d Pancholi added.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Deputy Leader of the Alberta NDP, Raki Pancholi, responded to Premier Smith\u2019s plans to hold a referendum in October by challenging her to call an election, saying she did not run on the issue in the last provincial election.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Asked about Smith blaming immigrants, in part, for the province\u2019s financial woes, Pancholi said, \u201cI\u2019m a public figure who has been in this role for about seven years now, and I can tell you that the level of racism and hate that has been expressed has risen undoubtedly in this province.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1:59
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPremier Danielle Smith staffer under fire for immigration comments\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Her concerns about the possible backlash against immigrants are shared by Sally Zhao, CEO of\u00a0 The Immigrant Education Society in Calgary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re worried about the already existing anti-immigration sentiment. So with this, will that become worse? We hope not,\u201d said Zhao.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the long-term impact, well, I think immigrants are filling up a lot of employment labor market gaps. For example, hospitality and other service industries. We\u2019re wondering, in the future, these industries rely on immigrants very heavily, \u2018Where are they going to find workers? And in the long term, are we making Alberta a more desirable place for people to come, or we are making Alberta a less desirable place to come?’\u201d added Zhao.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSally Zhao, CEO of\u00a0 The Immigrant Education Society in Calgary, said she\u2019s worried the debate over immigration will make an already anti-immigrant sentiment, even worse.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Gabriel Brunet, spokesman for Dominic LeBlanc, Canada\u2019s minister for \u200bintergovernmental affairs, responded to Smith\u2019s comments, saying the federal government had taken note of Smith\u2019s address and had also taken measures \u200bto bring \u201ccontrol\u201d back to the immigration system.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAlbertans will express their views on these issues and others raised by Premier Smith, as \u200cthey have on several constitutional questions in the past,\u201d Brunet said.<\/p>\n

\u2013with files from The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:04
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlberta referendum: Premier Smith says Oct. 19 vote will focus on immigration, fiscal position\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is defending a suite of fall referendum questions aimed at immigration reform, saying \u201cnot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[196692,196693,25159,49,48,44,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-489237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-alberta-immigration","9":"tag-alberta-premier-danielle-smith","10":"tag-alberta-referendum","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}