Alberta to hold wide-ranging referendum in October, Danielle Smith says [immigration]

As many have pointed out, the Alberta government and Premier never questioned the increases under the Trudeau government and generally advocated for higher numbers particularly for the Provincial Nominee Program. Appears more a deflection technique and perhaps part of a flood the zone to reduce attention to the ill-advised referendum on Alberta separation. May be popular with the UCP base but Alberta has been one of the more welcoming provinces for immigrants:

…Ms. Smith, on Thursday evening, described her immigration proposals as “a significant departure from the status quo” requiring consent from a majority of Albertans.

It’s not yet clear whether the immigration referendum questions would be binding.

The sweeping proposals would dramatically alter how, and if, services are delivered to certain immigrants in Alberta. One question asks if voters support mandating that only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and those with an “Alberta approved immigration status” should be eligible for provincially funded programs, including health and education. 

Another asks if residents support charging “a reasonable fee or premium” for health care and education to people with non-permanent immigration status living in Alberta.

“The fact is, Alberta taxpayers can no longer be asked to continue to subsidize the entire country through equalization and federal transfers, permit the federal government to flood our borders with new arrivals, and then give free access to our most-generous-in-the-country social programs to anyone who moves here,” Ms. Smith said. 

The proposals mark a significant shift in thinking for the Premier who, as recently as two years ago, said her government was preparing to more than double Alberta’s population to 10 million by 2050.

Droves of people have moved to Alberta over the past five years, from inside and outside Canada. 

Alberta’s population hit five million in 2025, up 14 per cent compared with the province’s headcount of 4.4 million in 2020, according to data compiled by the Alberta government, based on federal statistics.

Net migration climbed sharply between early 2021, when it was essentially flat, to peak at around 58,649 in the third quarter of 2023. Since then, Alberta’s net migration has been on a slide. The province absorbed 37,625 migrants in the first three quarters of 2025, down 73 per cent compared with the 140,490 people who came to Alberta in the same timeframe in 2024. 

Just 197 international migrants landed in the province in the third quarter of 2025, a drop of 99 per cent compared with 32,046 in the same quarter in 2024. 

The significant growth was partly abetted by the province’s highly successful Alberta is Calling advertising campaign, which used billboards and transit ads across Canada, tax credits and promises of a lower cost of living in an effort to entice people to move there.

The Premier described the potential program cuts to immigrants as her “short-term plan” as the province works to grow its Heritage Savings Trust Fund to $250-billion by 2050, with the goal of limiting Alberta’s reliance on resource revenues.

Ms. Smith justified the proposed immigration changes as a way to deal with Alberta’s grim economic picture without drastic cuts to social services for all citizens. In November’s fiscal update, Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner projected a $6.4-billion deficit….

Source: Alberta to hold wide-ranging referendum in October, Danielle Smith says

Snyder: How Alberta fell out of love with mass immigration

No serious explanation how it did so but useful list of just how large and multi-faceted reversal:

A few short years ago, before she had proposed a new set of referendum questions on Thursday aimed at curbing rapid population growth, Premier Danielle Smith was actively courting newcomers to the province. Indeed, with the private sector facing a shortage of skilled workers, the premier could hardly bring in enough people to satisfy her appetite.

Smith’s latest referendum push, then, seems like a dramatic shift in policy. Instead, the premier told reporters on Friday, her change in tone is the result of a stark mismatch between Alberta’s efforts to recruit skilled workers and changes to Canada’s immigration system made under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

“We were doing a very targeted ask to get skilled workers here,” Smith said on Friday. “But as I said, we had no idea that Justin Trudeau was taking all limits off all those (immigration) programs, because they didn’t ask us, they didn’t tell us. They just did it.”…

Source: “How Alberta fell out of love with mass immigration”