Western Standard - November 12, 2026


CORY MORGAN： Alberta must ACT on Its Immigration Vote

Harper, Trump and the Problem With Political Legacies

Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

195.21

Word count

943

Sentence count

39

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00 Let's talk a bit about the budget because something else packed in there last week it
00:00:02 tabled its budget and included an immigration plan that would grant permanent residency
00:00:06 to almost 660,000 people next year. Let that sit for a second. 660,000. I mean the regular
00:00:12 target's 380,000 permanent residents per year. On top of that, Ottawa's going to convert 200,000
00:00:18 temporary residents to permanent status in 2027 and it's finishing another one-time program that
00:00:24 adds almost 80,000 more. Add in temporary residents at CBC says that's more than a million people
00:00:30 granted residency in a year. Residency, that means a lot of things. Carney calls it sustainable. He
00:00:36 says Ottawa is taking back control. Here's the thing, Canadians didn't ask for this. Environics
00:00:41 has asked the same question for decades and it found the share of Canadians who say there's too
00:00:45 much immigration is more than doubled between 2022 and 2024 to 58%. Ottawa lightly tapped the brakes
00:00:53 on the influx and support for some immigration has climbed again. But that doesn't mean they
00:00:58 should press the pedal to the floor again, but that's what they've done. Ottawa loosened the
00:01:02 temporary foreign worker program. Low wage work permits can now last two years instead of one.
00:01:06 How many more Tim Hortons workers do we really need? Do this in an economy where youth unemployment
00:01:11 across Canada just hit 13.7%. Alberta lost 24,000 jobs in October and our unemployment rate in
00:01:18 general has jumped to 7.3%. That's the highest in a year. What do you think happens to the 17-year-old
00:01:22 looking for a first job at a coffee shop when the employer could bring in more low-wage workers
00:01:27 instead. On October 19th, Albertans voted more than 2 million ballots on each question, and the
00:01:31 turnout was over 67%. That's well over the last provincial election. And all five immigration
00:01:36 questions passed. 55% said yes to Alberta taking more control over immigration to bring it down to
00:01:42 sustainable levels. 53% backed a 12-month residency rule before temporary residents get provincial
00:01:47 social supports 52 back limiting provincial programs to citizens permanent residents and
00:01:53 people with alberta-approved status and on changing temporary residents uh charging a fee for health
00:01:58 care and education it was 52 as well just barely i'm not going to pretend it was a landslide it
00:02:04 wasn't calgary and edmonton voted most no on most of it and the margins were thin even the premier
00:02:08 admitted on a radio show i had an idea that albertans would give us a mandate but let's look
00:02:13 at what she did with it two days after the vote she said there was nothing imminent in the fall
00:02:17 session details could wait until spring a few days later on a radio show she said albertans
00:02:22 water to proceed with caution caution on millions where more than a million albertans voted yes
00:02:28 folks a win at 52 percent is still a win nobody tells a government that won an election with 52
00:02:33 to sit on its hands until it feels more popular we just spent about 84 million dollars running
00:02:38 this referendum if the result goes into a drawer until spring and spring becomes after the election
00:02:44 which we could really see what was that 80 million 84 million for and make no mistake this is urgent
00:02:49 ottawa isn't waiting till spring the levels plan is set the new foreign worker rules took effect
00:02:55 last friday alberta has nearly 280 000 non-permanent residents right now roughly one in six albertans
00:03:02 still can't get a family doctor according to the ama and the er triage doctors promised back in
00:03:07 january only now working in six emergency rooms months behind schedule i mean there's some good
00:03:12 news but it's a warning as well calorie rents have come down about 9.5 percent in two years
00:03:17 but that relief came when ottawa was finally cutting the temporary numbers carney was bragging
00:03:21 that student numbers are down 71 and temporary foreign workers are down 57. if cutting volume
00:03:26 was a good policy last year why is ramping it up a good policy now let me be clear about something
00:03:32 because the other side is going to twist this none of this is about the people who came here
00:03:35 the nurse from manila the welder from ukraine the family that played by the rules they're not the
00:03:40 the villains they did exactly what our governments invited them to do the problem is the volume and
00:03:46 planning i keep setting numbers our housing hospital and job markets can't keep up with
00:03:51 and then calls anybody who notices it a bigot premier smith said she wants to move in her words
00:03:57 quite quickly on economic migration and she's chasing a quebec style deal with ottawa good
00:04:02 do it table the proposal before the premiers meet in december not after and on the rest the 12-month 0.67
00:04:08 residency rule and the fees. She suggested grandfathering people who are already here. Fine.
00:04:13 That's a reasonable way to show caution. Now write the bill. Grandfather current residents,
00:04:17 apply the new rules to new arrivals and put it on the order paper. Caution's one thing. Waiting
00:04:21 forever is another. When Smith wants to move on something, she tends to do it quickly. What she's 0.94
00:04:25 doing right now is ragging the puck. And a short deferral can turn into a permanent shelving of 1.00
00:04:29 policies. Remember when we were going to get a pension plan? Albertans gave the premier a mandate.
00:04:34 even if it's a narrow one it's a mandate use it all right that's what i got on that
00:04:39 use it use it get on with it use it premier smith