CMS： with Premier Danielle Smith on immigration.
Episode Stats
Summary
Corey takes a look at the state of the economy, the public services, and the public finances. Also, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party are on track to spend Canada into poverty in the coming decades.
Transcript
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We've got a good one this week. I like to think they're all good.
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Some are better than others. We've got to get realistic with things.
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And yeah, today's a good one. It's really addressing a pressing issue.
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In a little while, I will have Premier Daniel Smith on.
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It was actually a recorded interview. We rarely do that here.
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But, you know, the Premier's schedule is tight and I just couldn't get her on live.
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So when that runs, though, I mean, I still, it's going to be running live on here.
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Use the comment area. Send your comments, ideas, questions on there.
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Interact with each other. I like you seeing that comment scroll being used.
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It reminds me that we are live. Just keep things civil.
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And, of course, there's going to be the rest of the news and other things going.
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So I'm going to start things off on a federal note.
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One of my pet subjects, our imbecile of a prime minister and his behavior of late.
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So, I mean, the Trudeau government, though, they've been on the ropes for over a year.
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Polls have been abysmal and it appears nothing's going to turn them around.
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So changing the leader of their party, I mean, it could improve their fortunes.
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It worked for the Democratic Party south of the border.
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Sure, but Trudeau appears to be stubbornly unwilling to step aside no matter how unpopular he becomes.
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I mean, unless Trudeau steps down within the next couple of months,
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the liberals won't be able to hold a leadership and have a new leader well enough established
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They're basically going to have to accept them and get used to it.
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Aside from the usual campaign of trying to label all their opponents as being far right,
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you know, and scary and all that usual garbage,
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as the liberal tactic of trying to spend their way back into the hearts of Canadians has continued.
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Hardly a day goes by without a new spending announcement.
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And with over a year expected at least to pass before the next general election,
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the Trudeau government's on track to spend Canadians into poverty for generations.
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The latest announcement comes from Napanee, Ontario,
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where a Goodyear plant is going to be getting 44 million tax dollars for an expansion.
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Goodyear's a large multinational corporation does not need corporate welfare from Canadians.
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They're not going to say no when Trudeau comes prancing in with a signed check from taxpayers in his hand,
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The ones who are in need are the desperate liberals,
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and they're praying that somehow through corporate handouts,
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the potential new jobs they might create may reverse the downward spiral in the polls.
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It hasn't worked yet, but they're still doggedly trying,
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and it's pretty easy to do when you're writing checks with somebody else's checkbook.
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The subsidies are adding up to tens of billions of tax dollars
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when the mad lust for investing in battery plants to service electric vehicles that nobody wants is added up.
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While automakers are backing off from EV targets and cutting production,
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Canadians are having their tax dollars poured into companies with a mandate to supply EV manufacturing.
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In other words, a really stupid business decision and a recipe for financial disaster.
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With a decade in power, the Liberal government's managed to bloat the already grossly large civil service by 40%.
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We just have more people underserving us than ever before at a higher cost than we ever possibly could have imagined.
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and more have since been threatening labor action over having to come to the office more than two days a week.
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Job growth in the private sector in Canada remains stagnant.
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So that means we've got a smaller pool of people having to work more to pay a larger number of people to work less.
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and as much as Trudeau is trying to change that private-to-public ratio to win an election,
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there won't be enough civil servants hired to turn around an election.
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Trudeau's partnership with Singh's NDP is costing a fortune, too.
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I mean, come on, nationalized dental services, daycare services, lunchroom services, pharmacare services,
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they're adding up to more billions of dollars that we can ill afford.
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Clearly, though, the Trudeau government still somehow fears that Singh might pull the pin on their government,
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you know, if he ever found his knackers and some courage.
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and if he tries to, you know, he tries to talk tough now and then,
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He doesn't want to go anywhere than Trudeau does.
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But the liberals are still tossing billions into NDP initiatives to be on the safe side.
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Trudeau's government used to at least pretend they had a plan to reach a balanced budget one day,
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but they've tossed out those pretenses of fiscal responsibility and just now plan to increase the national debt indefinitely.
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You know, Trudeau has realized that budgets don't balance themselves finally,
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Government spending just keeps rising with the debt.
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It's anticipated that the program spending is going to increase by another 18% by 28-29,
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That estimate's going to keep growing as the announcements keep coming.
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The cost for servicing the debt's nearing $50 billion a year.
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$50 billion a year in interest payments is flushing money down the toilet,
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and it's as much as the federal government spends on health care.
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Worst of all, it's the future generations who are going to be left with the bill.
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Trudeau, he's eventually going to be tossed from office.
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He'll retire on some private island, live out his life in luxury.
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Meanwhile, young Canadians are going to have years of austerity
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when budgets have to be cut and taxes have to be risen
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when the nation hits the inevitable fiscal wall.
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Trudeau is the most irresponsible, selfish prime minister in Canadian history.
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He has no qualms about indebting generations in a desperate attempt to remain in power.
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Some people think that Trudeau should remain in power until the next election
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because his terrible leadership provides an advantage to the Conservative Party.
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This might be true, but the price to keep that fool in power any longer than we have to is much too high.
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Trudeau is clearly never going to discover the concepts of personal accountability
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or empathy for struggling Canadians, but perhaps some Liberal caucus members will.
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They have to pressure that clown to resign as strongly as possible and as soon as possible.
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We just can't afford to keep him there any longer.
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It's just, I can't, you know, opening the news and finding more spending, more spending.
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All right, let's see what the hell else is going on out there.
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We've got our news editor, Dave Naylor, in studio with us today.
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You probably forgot you were wearing that, didn't you?
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It's just a temporary measure going on right now.
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Yeah, well, you know, Premier Smith's been getting a lot of flack over the immigration issue.
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Yeah, I'm interested in hearing what she has to say.
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Leading off today, Corey, with a really disturbing story out of Calgary, where a dead kitten was found with its head sort of caved in and zip-tied to a fence post in the community of Kingsland.
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So that's prompted a big Calgary Humane Society investigation.
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And it turns out that since May, the end of May 30th, they found six kittens in and around that Kingsland, Sandy Beach area that have been abused and had their, like, paws tied together and covered in tar and stuff like that.
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So there is one really sicko individual out there.
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Sorry, Jaime Rubenstein, expert on Indigenous affairs, talking about the trend now to fake your Indigenous identity to get funding, federal funding for your business or whatever it may be.
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A big hailstorm is continuing to wreak havoc on WestJet.
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You should see some of the pictures of the wings of the plane just dented.
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And they've had to cancel 600 flights since the storm last week.
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And if you phone the passenger hotline, you're told three days until an agent can get back there.
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And interestingly, during their little strike last month in July, they ranked dead last in North American Airlines for arriving on time.
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So I don't see their August stats picking up any time soon.
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As you know, Corey, Winnipeg, the Canadian capital of Slurpee consumption.
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And they may have to go a bit further to get it.
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So now the corporation has announced they're closing 10 7-Elevens because of crime.
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And they're just in crime-ridden neighborhoods.
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And it's just not worth their while to stay open anymore.
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You know, it's like shades of San Francisco and stuff like that.
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Algerian boxer Califf was the boxer in the ladies' competition with male chromosomes.
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She is suing everybody and their dog for defamation during the Olympics, including Elon Musk and Donald Trump and Arthur J.K. Rowling.
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So French officials are investigating and we'll have to see what happens there.
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And the liberals have resorted to their old tactic of blame Stephen Harper.
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This time it's for letting those two ISIS terrorists into the country and letting them go live in Toronto where they're planning to kill as many people as they can.
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Coming up this afternoon, right now, when NASA is holding a press conference on those poor stranded astronauts who went up for a weekend and now may be stuck there until next year.
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So our own space geek, Sean Polzer, will be filing a story on that.
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And our opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford, is pecking away on a column on what's happening in Great Britain now.
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So, you know, I had some bad rioting and now people who are saying things on Facebook are being thrown in jail for more than a year.
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It's kind of what, like Trudeau's proposing, you know, on these online harms bills.
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So he's taking a look at that and I'm sure it's going to be interesting.
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Well, I'll let you get back at chasing those reporters around and keeping us all up to date on these fantastic happenings.
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As you heard, that is our news editor, Dave Naylor.
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Boy, that kitten story, that's the first I'd heard of it, actually.
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There's something extra horrible about animal abusers, you know.
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I think it's part of why we get more upset when we hear about, you know, a senior citizen being attacked or a child or an animal is that they're helpless, right?
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You know, it's one thing if a grown person's assaulting another, it's still never good.
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You know, these are the things that we really need to take seriously.
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I mean, with some of the most horrible killers and, you know, sadistic individuals we get out there in the world that we run across,
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almost always they have a history of violence towards animals.
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So let's catch this person in Calgary and any other animal abusers as soon as possible and just get this dealt with.
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So this is the time I'd like to remind you, too.
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As you know, as you can see, Dave's busy, Nigel's busy, Sean, Jen, Jonathan, boy, so many names.
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The reason we've got all that going on, guys, is because you've been subscribing.
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So this is when I nag you to pay the bills a little.
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Ten bucks a month, $100 for a year, just like a newspaper subscription.
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You can get past that paywall, get straight through to these stories, these editorials, the rest of this stuff.
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And it helps support us so we can keep reporting.
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We're not like that wretched CBC and, you know, CTV and the rest who keep getting their bailouts and tax dollars.
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Nobody's, well, I guess they are kind of offering it to us if we wanted to try.
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So if you subscribed already, thank you very much.
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If you haven't yet, come on, get on there, guys.
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And it's interesting, you know, the little trivia things you find out.
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So, yeah, Winnipeg is the Slurpee capital of Canada.
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And now 11, 7-Elevens are being shut down within Winnipeg because of the high crime.
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Something that's making a lot of news lately has been the list of the highest crime cities in the country.
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And people sometimes aren't thinking, you know, they're wondering, why isn't it the great big cities?
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And you look at who's topping it, and it's like Kamloops, and it's Chilliwack, and it's Red Deer, Alberta.
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It's these smaller cities, Saskatoon, Regina, and Winnipeg.
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This is, you know, we were talking about immigration.
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We're talking about challenges and things that happen.
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This has nothing to do with immigration, actually.
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It is a social thing, though, and it's a demographic thing.
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It's one of the things we really do need to discuss.
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It's a sensitive area, very sensitive, but it shows how we, it's not a coincidence, excuse
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me, that every one of the cities that top the crime lists of violent crimes are also the
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cities that top the percentage of having Indigenous populations.
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And see, this is where it gets delicate because you don't want to label every Indigenous person
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But they're very, very socially troubled, economically troubled.
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I mean, part of it is they're coming from reserves, they're settling in cities, and they're having a
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We can't ignore the reality that this is, you know, among the many measures.
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They've got shorter life expectancies, bigger health problems, lower graduation rates.
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It's failing everybody, but it's failing the Indigenous people the most.
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This two parallel systems, this race-based policy we have.
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The irony is, a lot of what messed up the Indigenous population socially over the generations was
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They weren't allowed to leave reserves without talking to an Indian agent first.
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They were treated with a lot of terrible racism from people when they would leave the reserves.
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But we're trying to fix it by applying more race-based policy.
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Guys, what we need to do is get race out of policy.
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We need to have discussions about what's working and what's not working.
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And this is not working for our First Nations in Canada right now,
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and for other people who live in areas where the social disorder is spreading.
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We're going to get into that right away here with my guest.
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But she'd recently, you know, well, not recently, but it recently kind of hit the news
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about an interview she did where she talked about doubling the population of Alberta.
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A lot of people were wondering, what the heck is she talking about?
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And Premier Smith kindly came on the show and gave us 15 minutes to explain where she's
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coming from with immigration and what Alberta can do about it.
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So let's run that and listen to Premier Smith, and we can have a discussion on immigration.
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Well, thank you very much for joining us today, Premier Smith, on an issue that's really, well,
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a sensitive one and a big one with a lot of people, and that's immigration.
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I guess you kind of unexpectedly brought it into the fore again with an interview you did last January.
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Perhaps if we could start there, we're just kind of clarifying.
00:16:59.920
You'd spoken of aspiring to have Alberta double its population by 2050, and it got a lot of people
00:17:09.760
Well, my thinking about it was that we were already growing at 200,000 a year based on those numbers.
00:17:16.980
So if you just do the math, by 25 years, it would be 5 million population.
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And I have often thought that we would have more political clout if we had a higher population
00:17:28.220
But what I'm seeing, and I'm doing a lot of roundtables and town halls across the province,
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People are very nervous about our ability to be able to keep up with that pace of growth.
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I'm having to recalibrate a little bit on what our aspirations should be.
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I think what we really need is a sensible immigration policy, similar to what we had
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under Stephen Harper, where we had a point system for bringing people in.
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We made sure that newcomers matched the economic needs of our economy.
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We made sure that we had a level of newcomers coming to our country that matched our ability
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And I think what we're seeing is that, especially in Alberta, we're beginning to feel some of
00:18:14.000
And I think that that's what people are responding to.
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Yeah, and I'd crunch the numbers because, I mean, as soon as I first heard it, I thought,
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And then I realized, well, actually, with where things went in 2023, if we sustain the
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current growth we're at, we will double by 2050, whether we aspire to do so or not.
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So the discussion has to be, I mean, you can't slow immigration.
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I mean, our health care is having a really hard time keeping up with our existing population.
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Housing is really pressuring people, the education system.
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So I guess through better targeting, we could better adjust to that and have them contribute
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Like the numbers just sound so staggeringly large.
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Well, I think what we, I think 2023 may have been an anomaly.
00:19:03.740
I think one of it was that when I got elected, we'd started into the Alberta is Calling campaign.
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We knew that we were going to turn around with an oil and gas and other building boom,
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But I think that it was more successful than anybody anticipated it being,
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in part because we were one of the first provinces to firmly put COVID behind us
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and the pandemic behind us so that I think a lot of freedom lovers came to our province
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knowing that we were taking a bit of a different approach.
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I think as well that the housing proposition was such a good one.
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We still have several markets in Alberta that are the cheapest in North America.
00:19:46.100
And of course, it coincided with the Ukrainian evacuees as well,
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70,000 of whom came to Alberta during that period of time.
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And the remarkable thing is almost all of them got jobs.
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We just did a recent assessment of how many are on social supports,
00:20:00.660
So I think those factors were part of what led to the surge and grow.
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So part of what we've done is we've really scaled back that Alberta's Calling campaign
00:20:13.040
just to target the skilled workers that we need.
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We're trying to get an additional 2,000 skilled workers to come here
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so that we can keep up with the building growth of homes,
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keep up with the major industrial projects that we have in the industrial heartland
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and in the agri-food processing area and in the forestry sector.
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So that's part of how we have responded to that.
00:20:32.600
But I do think that the federal government has clearly led all of the different streams
00:20:39.060
of immigration get beyond the ability of the Canadian governments
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and provincial governments to be able to properly support.
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I mean, at the Halifax Conference, every single premier was raising the concern
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about the increase in housing prices, increase in rents,
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the number of people using food bank, the number of people who are newcomers
00:21:00.680
who are using shelters, the impact on education system,
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I think Albertans want to be able to embrace newcomers
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but we have to do so at a rate that allows us to keep up with home construction,
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as well as keeping up with being able to provide all of those services.
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And right now, there is just way too much pressure on each of those.
00:21:25.180
I think regular Albertans are feeling it as well.
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And that's why we need to return to a more sensible kind of immigration policy
00:21:32.700
So another area, and it's a more sensitive one,
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particularly when we see what's going on in the UK.
00:21:42.280
I mean, some cultures have an easier time adapting.
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There's a lot of Ukrainian people who had settled in Alberta previously,
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From some of the countries, and they're countries that need,
00:22:00.280
but they can have a hard time integrating with the existing population.
00:22:05.520
And people fear it might lead to the sorts of clashes and events
00:22:13.620
and prevent that sort of cultural clash from happening here over time?
00:22:17.760
Yeah, I think you've identified another reason for unease.
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and they're seeing that these disputes are spilling over
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And I don't think Albertans want to see disputes from other countries
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And I think we've done a really good job of making sure
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that people are coming here for the values that we have in Alberta.
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I mean, we value family and faith and community
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And there's so many, many cultures around the world
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who are coming here so that they can live here in peace and harmony
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and have religious freedom and be able to raise their families
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That's why having an economic focus on immigration makes so much sense.
00:23:00.360
It assists with integration, and it assists with making sure
00:23:04.100
that those international disputes don't spill over into Alberta.
00:23:08.160
So we have to be very mindful of the nervousness people have
00:23:12.980
and make sure that we're doing everything we can.
00:23:15.700
Because if we don't have the ability to provide the supports,
00:23:23.500
to get a person into a community to be able to support them long term,
00:23:28.080
that's when you end up with people feeling disenfranchised.
00:23:31.040
That's when you end up with having some of that anger spill over.
00:23:36.460
And I think we've done a great job of being able to avoid that.
00:23:39.160
And so I'm not as concerned about where we find ourselves now,
00:23:43.400
but I am mindful that this level of continued pressure in Alberta
00:23:50.600
is something that is going to be something we have to address.
00:23:54.760
We don't want for it to spill over into people feeling like
00:23:58.760
there are too many newcomers coming to our province.
00:24:09.600
is that everybody is feeling the increase in the cost of housing,
00:24:18.260
who's essentially thrown out the immigration rules of the past.
00:24:23.360
not only here, but through to Quebec and every other province as well.
00:24:26.560
It was part of the reason it was such a major topic of conversation
00:24:28.980
when the premiers got together at the last round in Halifax.
00:24:32.420
Well, and some of the issue is just sheer volume.
00:24:35.120
I mean, you know, some fantastic people coming,
00:24:37.200
but you can only accommodate so many at so much of a speed.
00:24:43.580
and at least, you know, controls as much as they can provincially
00:24:49.840
Are there more policies we can look forward to from Alberta
00:24:52.480
to try and take more control, at least of our own destiny,
00:24:59.220
Well, let me tell you the way I'm looking at this.
00:25:03.360
and yet we ended up with 22% of the newcomers in the 22-23 calendar year.
00:25:10.500
That gives you an idea of just how much additional pressure it is
00:25:16.860
The other thing I would say is that our home builders have been amazing
00:25:21.660
So they've massively wrapped up their construction,
00:25:24.400
and now we're building 56% more houses this year than we did last year,
00:25:29.000
which would allow for us to build about 40,000 homes this year,
00:25:33.100
which they tell me can accommodate about 100,000 people.
00:25:37.320
So I hope that that gives you some idea of what I've seen our housing capability is,
00:25:43.820
as well as what I'm seeing in the social services area.
00:25:47.040
We know that we're seeing an increased pressure in shelter on food banks,
00:25:53.180
and we want to make sure that that doesn't continue.
00:25:55.500
So part of the approach that I've always taken is that I've watched what Quebec has done.
00:26:00.520
Quebec has the ability to choose about 55% of the newcomers that come to Quebec
00:26:05.120
because they're choosing on the basis of language.
00:26:07.600
I just saw recently that Quebec wants to take over their entire immigration choices.
00:26:14.780
And whereas in Alberta, we only get the ability to choose about 9,500 of the newcomers
00:26:23.340
It seems to me that having more ability for us to use that program
00:26:27.380
so that we can attach workers to the jobs that are available
00:26:30.920
and make sure that we have the supports of the communities around them,
00:26:35.240
So I have been advocating for that, that we should be able to, much more like Quebec,
00:26:40.600
have greater ability to have the selection over those who do come to Alberta
00:26:45.560
so that we can make sure that they're going to be a good fit
00:26:48.860
and also be able to seamlessly integrate and be able to have the jobs
00:26:56.540
But the general issue is that we simply as a country cannot bring in 1.2 million people.
00:27:02.640
That is, I believe, through all the different streams, the family stream,
00:27:07.400
the refugee stream, the student stream, the temporary foreign worker stream,
00:27:11.480
and the regular immigration stream that came in in 2023.
00:27:15.960
And I think we've just seen, whether it's in Alberta or Quebec or elsewhere,
00:27:19.580
that there just isn't the ability for the provinces to keep up
00:27:22.500
and there just isn't the ability for the housing market to keep up.
00:27:24.960
Back in Mulroney's day, I think Mulroney had 250,000 newcomers.
00:27:35.880
But going back to something that is based on what is our ability
00:27:40.520
to be able to effectively build houses and support newcomers,
00:27:44.920
It can't just be an open borders policy without limit.
00:27:48.060
It's just creating way too much pressure on every province's social programs.
00:27:52.560
And it's also putting a lot of pressure on people being able to aspire
00:27:59.160
or ultimately be able to have an affordable rental suite.
00:28:03.240
And we have to make sure that we're taking care of Albertans.
00:28:06.560
And so before I let you go, I mean, there's some reactionary people
00:28:13.760
We do well with immigration and it's important.
00:28:17.140
But as you said, the 1.2 million a year is unsustainable as well.
00:28:20.760
Do you have a sort of number you think that maybe a unified premier
00:28:23.820
could be asking the federal government to just tap the brakes on
00:28:28.300
Well, you know, I guess is there like a 1% kind of target?
00:28:32.000
If you look at we have 40 million people in Canada right now,
00:28:36.580
When I look at whether or not our share would be able to accommodate that,
00:28:40.400
I think we probably could if you look at our historical growth
00:28:43.480
before we ended up with a major downturn in our economy
00:28:49.460
I mean, there's probably smarter people than me who can figure that out.
00:28:53.100
But I can just tell you from what I have now observed
00:28:55.840
about trying to provide the services to accommodate folks
00:29:02.840
I think we had the ability to do some of that more effectively
00:29:08.520
and we had some housing projects that had started up.
00:29:12.700
And so we were able to, I think, do a pretty good job
00:29:15.900
of being able to match that that growth pressure.
00:29:18.320
But now I'm looking at the fact that we've got 22,500 additional students
00:29:23.820
that came into school that we weren't anticipating.
00:29:26.280
And it takes three or four years to build a school.
00:29:28.720
We probably need to build 30 or more schools a year for the next number of years
00:29:34.080
in order to be able to keep up with that growth.
00:29:35.960
That's the kind of practical reality that I'm talking about,
00:29:38.680
is that if we're going to be welcoming newcomers,
00:29:45.680
And we've got to make sure everybody has a family doctor.
00:29:47.880
So I think that there is a very pragmatic and practical approach
00:29:51.580
that we can take that allows us to continue to keep up with growth,
00:29:57.340
without creating the kind of tensions that are beginning to emerge
00:30:00.920
because people are beginning to feel disenfranchised.
00:30:04.000
Great. Well, I appreciate you coming on to clarify that for us today.
00:30:08.260
Is there anything else you'd like to add before I let you go?
00:30:10.400
No, thanks so much for the conversation, Corey.
00:30:13.000
I know that you guys do a lot of work on covering these and other issues.
00:30:17.220
I mean, the other thing I might say is one of the things,
00:30:21.520
and it's very interesting to see the difference between North and South
00:30:24.320
because North keeps telling me, we need more people.
00:30:27.020
But one of the things that they're doing up North
00:30:28.440
is they're trying to grow their own skilled labor.
00:30:31.240
They're offering more trades programs to kids or having larger families.
00:30:35.700
And we are also a party that supports families.
00:30:38.600
We're doing what we can to be able to make it easier
00:30:42.680
for moms and dads to both be able to go back to work
00:30:45.480
so that they don't have to choose between having kids and working.
00:30:48.320
That's part of the reason why we have the daycare program that we do.
00:30:52.920
I mean, I think that that's one of the things that has made Alberta so strong
00:30:56.560
is that we always have had a much younger population here.
00:31:00.040
And so we've got a higher workforce participation rate.
00:31:04.900
and that allows for all of us to pay lower taxes.
00:31:07.380
So I kind of like that as part of our model as well.
00:31:10.340
Great. Well, thank you very much for coming on today.
00:31:21.080
So that was 15 minutes of Premier Smith talking about immigration.
00:31:24.100
It's a huge issue, but we got to clarify a few things.
00:31:30.120
No matter what the Premier may say or may try or may do,
00:31:34.380
all she can do as far as it comes to the volume is lobby the federal government.
00:31:44.740
So the volume coming in, the 1.2 million, which, you know, she did say is not sustainable,
00:31:54.740
Then they land in Canada, and Alberta's growth, it's been showing,
00:32:07.640
It's not going to go down no matter what we do provincially.
00:32:11.780
Now, Nadia pointing out in Quebec it's provincial.
00:32:15.720
So what happens in Quebec is they have a larger say
00:32:33.740
There's nothing the province can do to stop that.
00:32:39.080
Some people saying no immigration, no immigration.
00:32:54.540
a big thing I've been a proponent of for a long time.
00:32:56.960
And one of the reasons Alberta is much more strongly placed
00:33:05.460
Because Alberta has a younger working population.
00:33:09.780
Because Alberta has a higher earning population,
00:33:28.340
if we could wave a magic wand and stop immigration,