Danielle Smith to talk immigration in her address to Albertans Thursday

Premier Danielle Smith says Alberta’s growing population — and the immigration that is largely driving that growth — will be a key part of her address to the province Thursday. 

Scheduled for 6:45 p.m. MT, her address comes one week before the UCP government tables its budget, which Smith has already forewarned will paint a grim financial picture. 

Smith said Wednesday the province is facing combined pressures from decreased revenues as oil prices trend lower and increased costs of covering services for a rapidly growing population. 

“This clearly needs to change. This is not sustainable. So I’ll have more to say about that in the address, and then we’ll begin the conversation with Albertans about what needs to happen next,” she said at an unrelated news conference. 

In a post on X, Smith’s chief of staff Rob Anderson reshared statistics related to immigration to Canada, and teased that Albertans should tune in to the premier’s address.

“This absolute insanity needs to stop. It will,” Anderson said in his post. 

Smith’s executive director Bruce McAllister also weighed in on X.

“The people orchestrating this reckless, unsustainable mass immigration into Canada fill me with profound disgust,” McAllister wrote.

“Why import from nations with failed systems when our Judeo-Christian heritage and principles have worked so well here?”

CBC News will livestream Smith’s address to the province Thursday.

Population perceptions

Alberta’s population has boomed in recent years, with more than five million people now calling the province home, according to Statistics Canada. 

In 2022, under then-premier Jason Kenney, the province launched the “Alberta is Calling” campaign to entice Canadians from other provinces to move here. It seems many heeded the call — Alberta has been the top destination for interprovincial migration for three years.

In polls conducted for CBC News by Janet Brown Opinion Research in the fall, the majority of respondents in both Calgary and Edmonton said they thought their city is growing too fast.

Smith said the province’s growth and the resulting pressure on social services, housing and the job market was the number one issue that came up during her Alberta Next Panel tour last year.

She pointed to federal immigration changes, such as those to the temporary foreign worker program and limits on international students, as evidence Ottawa also recognizes an issue with immigration. 

The premier said she wants to see Alberta have more control over the type of immigrants coming to the province, similar to Quebec as set out in its 1991 accord with Canada.

And Smith said there is one requisite she would like to see for newcomers to the province. 

“I would like to see a newcomer have a job when they arrive because anyone who arrives in Alberta with a good-paying job just has so many greater prospects for success,” said Smith.

Managing expectations

Political scientist Lori Williams says Smith has done these types of addresses to the province before, and sees Thursday’s speech as a way to manage expectations before the budget.

“She’s a good political communicator, and she is going to want to send the message that she is aware of the concerns that Albertans have, and that she’s doing something tangible to respond to those concerns,” said Williams, an associate professor at Mount Royal University.

But Williams said it’s unclear if advocacy on immigration will be enough to address the anxieties many Albertans have around affordability.

Plus, Smith is also balancing the grievances from the portion of the province pushing for a referendum on separation.

“Danielle Smith is going to try to focus on trying to control the influx into Alberta and she’s going to try to do that by using that time-honoured technique of Alberta premiers of making demands of Ottawa,” said Williams.