Western Standard - October 22, 2026


Carney responds to Alberta’s immigration referendum vote

Premier Smith stands alone

Episode Stats


Length

2 minutes

Words per minute

138.7

Word count

278

Sentence count

11


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.240 No, it's a great result for Canada, thrilled that Albertans have chosen unity, they've chosen to build together,
00:00:09.060 they've chosen to continue to take care of each other, to move forward together with purpose, high ambition.
00:00:20.160 The first thing is we take into account those votes. They're still being tabulated, but take into account those.
00:00:27.420 Let me speak maybe to one of the aspects, which is around immigration, which is we've recognized, pardon me, this government has recognized from the start the need to take back control on immigration, and we've done so.
00:00:44.040 You know the numbers, but I think it's important to underscore them for all Canadians.
00:00:48.980 reduction in asylum seekers of 70%, reduction in temporary foreign worker flows of 60%,
00:00:55.200 reduction in foreign students of 80% over the course of the last 18 months.
00:01:02.580 And so we're moving to stabilize, moving to a more sustainable, pardon me,
00:01:10.840 more sustainable pace of immigration.
00:01:13.640 Now, where we go from here, and I'm not saying that that stabilization is complete, but where we go from here needs to be established in cooperation with the provinces.
00:01:24.400 And that's very much the spirit of at least one of the questions, I guess it would have been question two, in the referendum.
00:01:33.160 So we take into account, and look, where we can find solutions together, pragmatically working together as provinces, territories, federal government, working with Indigenous peoples, and I'd remind that there is a First Minister's meeting with Indigenous leaders, with First Nations leaders, to be more specific, next Monday, where we can find solutions, that's our responsibility to move forward.
00:01:56.460 That's what Canadians expect, and we'll look to find those.