Smith says she now realizes there are simply too many people coming to Alberta too quickly
Premier Danielle Smith insists she gets it.
She sure as hell knows Albertans get it. They’ve been telling her.
You don’t go on prime-time TV unless you know there is something that needs saying and something that needs doing.
The newshounds this day will headline the fact the Smith government is now committing to spend almost $9 billion over three years on new schools and modernizations of existing schools.
Big bucks indeed.
But that story is part of an even bigger picture.
Smith says she now realizes there are simply too many people coming to Alberta too quickly.
We are being overrun. We can’t handle the volume.
In her TV address Smith slams Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his come-one, come-all open borders immigration.
Smith wants the number of people coming into the country cut to a more reasonable level.
Read that sentence and you know what some folks will accuse Smith of being.
A racist.
“Not at all,” says the premier, in an interview with Postmedia.
She asks the questions.
How much can our economy absorb and create jobs for people?
What about affordable housing? Places for kids in classrooms?
How much can the health-care system take?
Smith says there is a certain amount of growth you expect.
The problem is “when it gets out of balance.
“When you can’t build homes fast enough. When you can’t build schools fast enough. When you can’t access health facilities and recruit doctors fast enough.
“When you see pressure on home prices. When you hear people are living in either shelters or campgrounds.
“That’s a bleeping red light. There’s a problem. There’s an imbalance. There’s too many people coming too fast for us to keep up. I feel all those things now.”
Smith says Alberta has done its part.
More than 200,000 came to the province last year, including 70,000 evacuees from Ukraine.
Smith says Alberta was welcoming to the Ukrainians fleeing the war but then Smith turns her attention to asylum seekers not from war-torn lands.
“Many of them have their refugee claims refused when it finally comes down to it. I think our system is being abused.”
The premier adds Canada sees 10 times the number of asylum seekers coming through airports compared to the past.
“They’ve gone too far. They’ve just gone haywire over the last two years,” says Smith, of the Trudeau government.
“Enough is enough. Let’s get back to a sane level of welcoming newcomers.
“We’re clearly at a point now where we’re under stress. We can’t sustain 200,000 people a year every single year. We’ve got to have some time to catch up.
“It doesn’t help newcomers if they arrive and they don’t have a job or they can’t get access to social programs or they can’t get their kids in school or they can’t get a house.”
Smith wants to see a big reduction in the number of people coming into the country, back to the numbers when Stephen Harper was prime minister.
Smith was all about more and more and more people. A bigger and bigger Alberta.
The premier had a dream, a million souls in Red Deer.
Methinks a lot of folks in Red Deer don’t want a million people there.
Smith says there was a time people were actually leaving Alberta.
She recalls CBC writing stories about nobody wanting to come to Alberta.
The premier says after the COVID restrictions “we knew we needed to get people to help us with job creation and growth and it worked.”
That was then, this is now.
Smith now speaks of “massively overcrowded schools” and newcomers living in campgrounds and higher unemployment in Calgary and Edmonton.
“That’s an indication to me we’re saturated. We must have a more reasonable pace of growth.”
A final question.
In her TV address Smith says newcomers are welcome “who possess our shared values.”
What are the shared values?
Smith points to freedom, family, community, faith, free speech, free enterprise.
“I don’t think anyone would come to Alberta unless they shared those values. That’s why they’re choosing us.”
But what would be an example of some sorts not sharing the values Smith is talking about?
She draws her line.
“When you come to Alberta you leave the hatreds, the conflicts and the troubles from your home country,” says the premier.
“I think that’s what we expect. I think that’s why people come here.”