John Lorinc: This is the real crisis of Canadian immigration

2026/02/24 Leave a comment

Valid concern although I think Alberta is more open to immigration than Premier Smith calculates:

…Just think about Alberta premier Danielle Smith’s address to the province last week, in which she mentioned immigration no fewer than 17 times, disparaging the “status quo” system, and claiming that current (and significantly reduced) immigration levels are “out of control” and “overwhelming our core social services.” Those are the words of someone making hay.

It is worth noting that Trump hasn’t yet targeted Canadian immigration and diversity policies in his obsessive campaign to subsume America’s closest ally in the name of hemispheric hegemony. Yet. But even a cursory scan of the cultural horizon — Bad Bunny’s Spanish lyrics, Trump’s determination to edit out Black Americans’ experiences in the name of national pride — would indicate we are as just likely to become targets of his white supremacy as Europe.

Culture warriors don’t care about policy or data, and if the Carney government doesn’t get that basic fact, it will lose the existential fight to rebuild public confidence in our migration system, whether or not we continue to tell ourselves that diversity is our strength.    

Source: Opinion | John Lorinc: This is the real crisis of Canadian immigration

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

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

2026/02/23 Leave a comment

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”

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Rob Breakenridge: A debate on immigration will be a welcome distraction for Smith

2025/12/22 Leave a comment

Playing with fire?

…There are two sides of this question to consider: the degree to which Alberta wishes to control immigration and the degree to which Alberta wishes to limit immigration.

In her post last week and in an interview with Postmedia’s Rick Bell, Smith went out of her way to float the idea of limiting newcomers’ access to various social supports, based either on immigration status or number of years spent in Alberta.

This may not be hardline enough for the ardent separatists whose manifestofantasizes about deportations in the tens of thousands in their new utopia. But it’s a pretty clear signal that the Alberta government wishes to discourage any further influx of newcomers to this province.

This would seem to be a more recent and strategic pivot from this premier. It wasn’t that long ago that Smith was musing about the possibility of more than doubling Alberta’s population and drafting a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau criticizing federal immigration limits. The “Alberta is Calling” campaign may have originated under the previous premier, but it continued under the current one.

The Alberta government wanted population growth, but they didn’t seem prepared for the possibility that they might get it. The focus on the immigration issue provides a convenient scapegoat for the government’s mismanagement of that rapid population growth.

Pointing fingers at Ottawa doesn’t preclude the need to address these growth pressures. New figures from Statistics Canada show that while Canada’s population actually shrunk in the third quarter, Alberta’s population continued to grow.

But this is a volatile issue at the best of times. The political pressures that have thrust this issue to the forefront for the Alberta government, and their motivations for elevating this to a top priority — alongside a separation vote, no less — create the potential for a divisive and unhelpful debate.

Source: Rob Breakenridge: A debate on immigration will be a welcome distraction for Smith

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Alberta tables bill to add citizenship mark, health-care numbers to driver’s licences

2025/11/19 Leave a comment

The post 9/11 enhanced drivers licences issued by some provinces included citizenship but were all discontinued by 2019. NEXUS has largely replaced the need. Alberta’s inclusion of citizenship markers will not, of course, be accepted by US authorities:

Alberta’s government has tabled legislation to add health-care numbers and mandatory citizenship markers to driver’s licences and identification cards.

The government had announced its plans to do so earlier this year, leading critics to say the province was creating privacy concerns rather than protecting against them. 

Critics at the time said someone’s citizenship status would become known in unnecessary situations, such as purchasing alcohol.

Service Alberta Minister Dale Nally told reporters Monday that having citizenship markers on driver’s licences and other forms of identification is only meant to streamline access to services.

“When you’re applying for future benefits from the government of Alberta, it’s going to make it easier for you because you’re not going to have to produce a birth certificate. It’s going to be on your driver’s licence,” said Nally.

“Let’s be clear, that’s what this is about. This is about making it easier for Albertans to access services.”

Nally, and Premier Danielle Smith, had previously said adding citizenship markers — which will read “CAN” — to licences and ID cards was also about preventing election fraud and routing out potentially fake health-care numbers, but the minister didn’t mention either concern on Monday….

Source: Alberta tables bill to add citizenship mark, health-care numbers to driver’s licences

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Parkin: The limited prospects for a “rebel alliance”

2025/10/28 Leave a comment

More interesting analysis by Parkin and Environics, written in response to the Globe editorial. Main takeaway, problem appears to be more on the Alberta side in terms of resentment:

The Globe and Mail published a special editorial this Sunday on the alliance between the Quebec and Alberta governments in support of greater respect and autonomy for their provinces. You can read it here. 

I am going to weigh in. What’s the point of having a Substack if you can’t drop everything you had planned for the morning in order to share some charts?

The editorial, on the whole, is not wrong. Quebecers and Albertans share many frustrations. Our survey confirms they are the two provinces where support for more provincial powers is highest. But there are two specific nuances that are worth noting, since they arguably constrain the prospects for any Quebec-Alberta “rebel alliance.”

The first is one of the findings that jumped out early on in the Confederation of Tomorrow survey project. Quebecers who are critical of federalism are more likely than those who are not to support an asymmetrical distribution of powers (the option in the survey is: “the federal government should offer more powers to those provinces that want them, so that the federal system can respond to the different needs that some provinces may have”). But this is not the case in Alberta, where more insist on the equality of provinces: there is no greater openness to asymmetry among disgruntled Albertans. While many Quebecers and Albertans will find common ground in feeling disrespected within Canada, their solutions are not the same: the asymmetry that represents a step forward for autonomist Quebecers actually represents a step backwards for autonomist Albertans….

The second finding comes from a question added to the survey more recently, about the perceived contribution that the people in each of the country’s major regions make to Canada.

Relatively few Quebecers (12% overall) say that western Canadians contribute less than their fair share to Canada, and the proportion that holds this view is only slightly higher (16%) among Quebecers who don’t feel their province is treated with respect. 

Far more Albertans (54%) say that Quebecers contribute less than their fair share to Canada, and this rises to a striking 81 percent among Albertans who don’t feel their province is treated with respect….

In short, whatever it is that annoys some Quebecers about federalism, it’s not their sense of what’s going on in the west. But one of the things that annoys some Albertans about federalism is precisely their sense of what’s going on in Quebec.

Resentment of Quebec (among other things) continues to fuel western alienation. The potential for a meaningful Quebec-Alberta alliance that leads us to a reformed federation, along the lines discussed in The Globe and Mail’s editorial, will be limited until Albertan leaders try to address and even defuse that resentment. 

Source: The limited prospects for a “rebel alliance”

Filed under Politics Tagged with , , ,

Plan to accept newcomer parents and grandparents will strain health services, Alberta warns

2025/07/26 Leave a comment

Parents and grandparents applications always over subscribed. Suspect some, if not many, of immigrant origin Albertans are interested in sponsoring their family members. But of course, from a demographic perspective, parents and grandparents only increase average age, not decrease it:

Alberta’s immigration minister says he’s concerned about the federal government’s plan this year to accept thousands of parents and grandparents of immigrants already in Canada.

Joseph Schow responded Tuesday to a federal notice that Ottawa plans to take in 10,000 applications from those who have previously expressed interest in sponsoring family members.

Schow took issue with the 10,000 figure.

In a statement, Schow said provincial health-care systems, housing and social services don’t have the capacity and could be overwhelmed.

Federal Immigration Minister Lena Diab’s office said the federal government’s actual countrywide target for approvals this year for the parent and grandparent immigration stream is higher at 24,500.

Diab’s office said Schow was responding to a notice that the ministry is preparing to take in 10,000 applications for consideration from already settled immigrants who expressed interest in 2020 in sponsoring their parents or grandparents.

“Family reunification is an important part of Canada’s immigration system, helping Canadian citizens and permanent residents sponsor their loved ones to live and work alongside them in Canada,” a spokesperson for Diab said in an email, adding that the federal government is committed to reuniting as many families as possible.

“Opening intake for 10,000 applications will help us meet this commitment and will not increase the target.”

Schow’s office said it was under the impression the 10,000 was the 2025 target, and his concern remains the same.

‘Disproportionate strain’

Schow said in the Tuesday statement that he understands “the importance of family reunification, [but] inviting large numbers of parents and grandparents into the country without proper co-ordination with provinces places disproportionate strain on already busy health systems.”

“This creates serious concerns for both Albertans and the newcomers themselves, who may not receive timely care if our system is overwhelmed.”

The minister didn’t directly answer questions about whether he wants to see the parent and grandparent target reduced or eliminated. In an email, he said the “root issue” is the federal government setting immigration targets without provincial input.

“The more direct concern with this program is its impact on health care,” Schow added….

Source: Plan to accept newcomer parents and grandparents will strain health services, Alberta warns

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Newcomers vs. born-and-raised Albertans: Turns out, they’re not all that different

2025/07/10 Leave a comment

Would be interesting to also have data contrasting political affiliation to see if same pattern holds (it may well). Measure of political integration:

….Conservatives have long fretted that international and interprovincial migrants will bring with them a tidal wave of views — and votes — at odds with traditional, right-leaning Alberta values. Some progressives, meanwhile, have been wishing and hoping for the day that happens.

So far, it hasn’t.

And it likely won’t, says pollster Janet Brown, even with the latest wave of people moving to the province.

“It’s a widely held belief that newer Albertans are different, but the data has never borne that out,” said Brown, who recently conducted a wide-ranging survey for CBC News that examined the beliefs and perspectives of people in this province.

The results were in line with polls she had done in years past; overall, Brown has found very little difference in opinion between Albertans who have lived all or most of their lives in the province and those who have moved here from elsewhere.

When it comes to many beliefs, in fact, the two groups are virtually indistinguishable.

Value statements

This most recent poll asked Albertans whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of value statements on a range of topics and issues.

You can see for yourself in the chart below just how similar the responses were.

Albertans who have always or mostly lived in the province are seen in the left-hand column, while Albertans who moved here from elsewhere are in the right-hand column.

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/wuJvs/1/

These results may come as a surprise to many Albertans, but not Brown.

As a pollster, she says the lack of difference between these two groups has been apparent for some time, even if others didn’t believe it.

“In the past I’d have liberal friends and they’d say, ‘Well, if we just wait for enough people to move from Ontario, then Alberta will become liberal,'” Brown said.

That has yet to materialize, she said, because “the people who move from Ontario aren’t a random, representative sample of people who live there.”

“Sometimes we find that new Albertans are more stereotypical than people who were born here,” Brown said.

Search: Newcomers vs. born-and-raised Albertans: Turns out, they’re not all that different

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Minister preemptively shuts down Calgary proposal to let permanent residents vote

2024/04/18 Leave a comment

Right call, given that Canadian citizenship has reasonable requirements (high fees perhaps excepted) and that backlogs largely eliminated:

A Calgary city council motion to extend municipal voting rights to permanent residents has been stopped in its tracks by Alberta’s municipal affairs minister.

The motion is set to be introduced by councillors Walcott, Wong, Dhaliwal, Mian, and Penner on Tuesday.

However, in a post to X on Saturday, Minister Ric McIver said he’ll “save us all some time.”

“Only citizens of Canada can vote in municipal elections. That will not be changing,” he said.

The motion calls for an amendment to the Local Authorities Election Act, which determines who has the right to vote in municipal elections. 

Because municipalities exist due to provincial legislation, the Alberta government would have to decide to amend the Local Authorities Election Act.

The councillors argued in their motion that all levels of government make decisions that affect residents’ daily lives, regardless of their citizenship status. 

“Municipalities are unique, as the only order of government that is not constitutionally defined. The opportunity to extend voting rights to more members of our local communities would represent a significant shift to ensure our local communities are representative of the people who call them home,” reads the motion.

The procedure on Tuesday is to ensure that the motion is written properly, Wong told True North in an interview. The motion will not be debated until the next regular council meeting on Apr. 30.

Wong said he is eager to hear more about the pros and cons of the motion, including its virtues and benefits, and how it aligns with federal and provincial criteria for voting eligibility

“Our responsibility as municipalities extends to all… who call our communities home, who contribute to civic life, who work here, raise families here, and use city services, should have a democratic right to vote in our municipalities,” reads the motion.

Wong said that councillors have been canvassing their constituents, both citizens and permanent residents.  

The perspectives presented have been varying. Some have said that citizenship is a vital voting criterion.

“We’ve also heard people saying, ‘We’re newcomers. We want to be able to be a citizen.’ There are reasons why it’s been delayed, whether it’s in their control or not. But they also feel that they’d like to have a voice in municipal governance because they are users of our services as well as people who pay taxes,” said Wong.

He added that one of the most pressing questions is the many different types of permanent residents there are and what would determine voting eligibility.

“The nuance of that has to be discovered by the province, and the province needs to make the system fair across the province because this is not just a Calgary-based request,” said Wong.

The Calgary councillor was not surprised at McIver’s response, he said. He added that McIver is very involved and understands Alberta and Calgary’s multiculturalism. 

“I know that he wouldn’t dismiss it just because of personal feelings about us. He would weigh the arguments presented by all municipalities,” said Wong.

“All members of council are always amenable to persuasion, and therefore nobody’s cast a vote as of yet. And I think Calgarians need to understand that.”.

True North reached out to McIver for additional comment. His office said he has nothing more to add to his previous post to X. 

Source: Minister preemptively shuts down Calgary proposal to let permanent residents vote

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Alberta’s population growth is breaking records, but signs of strain are showing

2024/04/16 Leave a comment

Of note, affordability issue in Alberta:

…But what is happening right now in Alberta is different than in the past, said Mark Parsons, chief economist for ATB Financial.

“Alberta’s is a relatively strong economy, so the fast rate of job growth is contributing to the influx of people coming into the province, no question,” Mr. Parsons said.

“What’s different this time is that affordability is playing an important role – particularly housing affordability.”

Experts say Canada’s housing crisis, and the affordability of the Alberta real estate market compared with places such as Toronto and Vancouver, is one of the reasons the province has been the destination for so many U-Hauls and moving trucks.

In fact, housing affordability was one of the carrots the Alberta government dangled with its “Alberta is Calling” ad campaign, which ran in the spring of 2023 in Southern Ontario and Atlantic Canada. The campaign urged Canadians who can’t afford a home where they live to consider moving to Alberta, with its comparatively high salaries and lower real estate prices.

While the campaign was a smashing success from a marketing perspective, Alberta’s population boom has downsides. The sharp uptick in residents has helped drive economic growth, supporting retail and restaurant sales in the province and leading to a flurry of construction activity, but it has also made Alberta’s famously affordable real estate less affordable.

“In 2022, it felt like everyone was saying, ’Alberta’s on sale, this is great, this is amazing,’” said Calgary real estate agent Dawn Herron Maser.

“But now people who are from here are starting to feel like, ’Is it really that much on sale any more? Because we’re here in Alberta and we’re struggling. We’re struggling to buy our homes here.’”

In Calgary, the benchmark home price in March was $597,600, nearly 11 per cent higher than the previous year, according to the Calgary Real Estate Board. Anecdotes abound of wild bidding wars between buyers willing to waive all conditions and offer tens of thousands more than the asking price, a phenomenon that has become prevalent in hot markets such as Toronto and Vancouver.

Calgary and Edmonton also saw the sharpest acceleration in rent prices among major Canadian cities in 2023. In Calgary specifically, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in 2023 jumped 14.3 per cent, the highest year-over-year growth in the country and the sharpest single-year rise in rent growth the city has seen since 2007, data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. show.

Adam Legge, president of the Business Council of Alberta, said new homes are simply not being built fast enough to keep up with the province’s growth. And there are other signs of strain showing as well. New arrivals to Alberta are struggling to find family doctors, and unprecedented school enrolment growth has led to overcrowded classrooms.

There is also a shortage of construction workers, welders and all of the other skilled tradespeople needed to build everything from houses to schools to roads as quickly as possible.

“We just aren’t seeing a sufficient inflow of new Albertans, either interprovincially or internationally, coming with those kinds of skills and credentials,” Mr. Legge said.

While the pace of population growth in Alberta is expected to moderate this year and in 2025, ATB Financial predicts it will still be strong compared with most other parts of Canada and developed economies around the world.

In the long term, sustained growth is likely. The province’s economy is diversifying, creating opportunities for workers in non-oil and gas-related fields such as technology and aviation, and the proximity of the Rocky Mountains and some of Canada’s best-loved national parks continues to be a draw for tourists.

The Alberta government’s own projections call for the province’s population to hit six million people as early as 2039.

“We really need to start looking at Alberta, and the West in general, in a different way,” said Mr. Ernst, with the Centre for Newcomers, adding that both provincial and federal governments need to prepare for the growth that is coming by investing in housing, infrastructure, programs and education.

“We’ve got to really think critically about the allocation of resources in this country – really understanding where people are moving, where people are setting up, where some of the population pressures are.”

Mr. Legge agreed, adding it’s vital that Alberta prepare for its future by addressing areas that are already under strain because of the province’s rapid growth.

“The message ’Alberta is Calling’ is clearly working, which is a great thing in the sense of growth for the province and the people who are bringing their skills and talents and passions and entrepreneurship here,” he said.

“We’ve just got to make sure that we don’t become victims of our own success, and tackle some of the challenges that are already putting strain on our quality of life.”

Source: Alberta’s population growth is breaking records, but signs of strain are showing

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Police in schools has long been a topic of debate. In Alberta, at least, the students have spoken

2023/09/04 Leave a comment

Good example of serious research and examination of the evidence of the experience of having police school resource officers in schools. Money quote: “…it is worth remembering that social policies need to be grounded in empirical evidence. Ideally, that evidence should be collected by researchers without preordained opinions.”

Not, of course, unique to this issue as advocates and activists, including researchers, often have “preordained opinions” rather than looking at the evidence more dispassionately.

I come across this regularly in my analysis of public service diversity. My How well is the government meeting its diversity targets? An intersectionality analysis, which showed that Black public servants were not under-represented at the all employees level, and less under-represented at the EX level than South Asian, Chinese and Filipino public servants. Black hiring rates were among the highest, separations the lowest and promotion rates second highest, with overall visible minority hiring and promotion rates higher than not visible minority. Overall visible minority hiring rates were higher than not visible minorities, separation rates were lower (likely reflecting age) and promotion rates were also higher over the 2017-22 period.

This prompted Twitter discussion, with advocates arguing for a disproportionality index based on narrow salary bands rather than my approach based on the broader occupational groups, including EX, and the hiring, separation and promotion data for the last six years. While some engaged on the substance of the different approaches, some “activists on a pension” public servants simply disregarded an “inconvenient truth” to their narratives:

The presence of police in schools, often referred to as school resource officers (SROs), has been a topic of debate for decades. However, after the global movement critically examining the role of the police in modern society, these discussions have intensified. Proponents argue police in schools reduce crime, keep students safe and improve police-community relations. On the other hand, critics maintain that SRO programs are costly and disproportionately disadvantage Black, Indigenous and other marginalized students. Activists and community leaders often argue that SROs contribute to the “school-to-prison pipeline.” Several American studies have found that racialized students are subjected to higher levels of police surveillance within schools and are more likely to be disciplined and/or charged by SROs. These studies have also found that students disciplined by school-based police officers often maintain a criminal label, have poor educational and career outcomes, and are at increased risk of becoming further entrenched in the criminal-justice system. Does the same situation exist in Canada?

Most Canadian research has failed to explore whether SROs disproportionately affect racialized and marginalized students. Nonetheless, a few small-scale studies have suggested that racialized and marginalized youth are likelier to have negative experiences with SROs than their white counterparts. Advocates have used these findings to support removing SRO programs from several large Canadian school boards. However, in the aftermath of recent high-profile incidents of violence in Canadian schools, including student homicides in Toronto and Edmonton, there is renewed support for returning the police to schools. How should we as society assess the different perspectives on this issue? As university professors, we believe that answering such challenging questions begins with rigorous empirical research.

Between 2022 and 2023 we conducted research on SRO programs within both the Edmonton Catholic and public school systems. Our multimethod approach included a review of official SRO records and focus groups, interviews and surveys with over 11,000 students, 4,000 parents and 650 teachers. These are the largest and most comprehensive such studies in Canada. Unlike most other Canadian studies, we explicitly set out to explore and understand the perceptions and experiences of racialized and marginalized students. We found that:

  • Regardless of race, sexual orientation and self-reported disability status, students and parents were much more likely to report positive experiences with their SRO (approximately 45 per cent of all respondents) than negative experiences (approximately 7 per cent of all respondents). Positive experiences included feelings of safety, assistance with victimization incidents, assistance with personal problems, informal conflict resolution, mentorship, legal education, and innovative strategies for discipline and reform.
  • Regardless of race, sexual orientation and disability status, most students reported that their SRO made them feel safe at school and was a positive member of their school community. Few students felt targeted or intimidated by their SRO.
  • Regardless of race, few students and parents felt that SROs treat Black, Indigenous and other racialized students worse than white students. It was also uncommon for participants to believe officers were biased toward sexual minorities and students with disabilities.
  • Most teachers believed SROs reduce, not increase, formal disciplinary actions (i.e., suspensions, expulsions, arrests etc.) against students. Teachers felt students would be treated more harshly by regular police officers who might be called to the school if the school did not have an SRO.
  • Regardless of race, sexual orientation and disability status, most students, parents and teachers (approximately 80 per cent of all respondents) want the SRO program retained or reinstated at their school. Few want to see the program permanently suspended (approximately 8 per cent of all respondents).

That said, the results of our studies are not all positive. Both teachers and students believed SROs are sometimes called to deal with non-criminal student conduct issues (including lateness) that school staff should handle. Teachers and students also complained that certain police officers – particularly those with an enforcement orientation – should not work with youth and should be screened out and removed from SRO programs.

While most Black and Indigenous students and parents supported Edmonton’s SRO program, Black and Indigenous students were somewhat more likely to support suspending the program than respondents from other racial backgrounds. Black and Indigenous students were also more likely to report negative experiences with SROs, including allegations of oversurveillance, targeting and unfair disciplinary decisions.

Our study also uncovered considerable weaknesses in how the school boards and the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) document SRO activities. How often are SROs involved in school disciplinary decisions, including suspensions and expulsions? How often do SROs ticket, arrest or lay charges against students? Are Black, Indigenous and other marginalized students disproportionately involved in SRO enforcement decisions? Does the presence of an SRO significantly reduce illegal activity on school property? We cannot answer these and other important questions with the existing data. If school boards retain SRO programs, we recommend improving the data being collected, including collecting data on the race and other demographic characteristics of those affected by SRO activities. At the same time, students and caregivers with personal experience with expulsions, suspensions and other interventions consistently reported being treated more harshly by school administrators than by SROs. This (perhaps surprising) finding suggests that leaving conduct issues in the hands of school administrators might lead to more harm for students and families – yet another aspect that warrants expanded data collection.

While many questions remain, our overall finding is that racialized and marginalized students and their families support SRO programs. Further, our results provide little evidence of perceived racial bias. This is news in a climate where some Canadian social scientists and activists now demand that SRO programs be eliminated. Unsurprisingly, they were not happy with our findings.

In the past, our research has – in various contexts – uncovered racial bias with respect to police street checks, arrest decisions and use of force. While the police largely dismissed these results, activists embraced our findings, using them as valuable evidence to support discussions about racial profiling. Our study of SROs has produced the opposite effect: Some advocates and scholars have been quick to criticize our findings because they do not support their preferred policies, while police organizations seem to support the results, without acknowledging negative findings.

This is concerning, but in some respects, these public responses fit a familiar pattern whereby activists and organizations selectively embrace, reject or ignore scholarly research depending on whether it supports or challenges their political position or preferred policies. However, one thing that makes the Edmonton SRO situation slightly different is that those who have opposed the SRO programs have said they were voicing the desires of Edmonton’s Black, Indigenous and other racialized communities. Our evidence, in contrast, demonstrates that such groups mainly support the SRO program, raising questions about who legitimately speaks on behalf of the interests of Black, Indigenous and other racialized parents and students on such issues in Alberta.

We deliberately mention Alberta because it is entirely possible that SRO programs in other jurisdictions are poorly run, biased and not supported by local communities. As researchers, we understand that context matters in how well any program or initiative operates. However, attention to such local specificity often gets lost on the political stage when people make sweeping statements embracing or rejecting policies without knowing or paying attention to the local details.

Given how many aspects of policing are contentious within Canada, it is worth remembering that social policies need to be grounded in empirical evidence. Ideally, that evidence should be collected by researchers without preordained opinions.

Kanika Samuels-Wortley is an associate professor in the faculty of social science and humanities at Ontario Tech University.

Scot Wortley is a professor in the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto.

Sandra Bucerius is a professor of sociology and criminology and director of the Centre for Criminological Research at the University of Alberta.

Source: Police in schools has long been a topic of debate. In Alberta, at least, the students have spoken

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

← Older posts