Western Standard - Should temporary workers pay for social programs？

00:00:00.000 And what I mean by that is if you look at the referendum questions, we have to decide

00:00:04.560 when we're going to have temporary workers, temporary guests in our province pay for the

00:00:12.480 social services that they use. We're not talking about citizens. We're not talking about permanent

00:00:16.500 residents that have paid taxes for years and so forth. We're talking about people that are here

00:00:20.620 as guests of our country. And I mean, I don't know where you, Nigel, but when I go travel

00:00:27.200 somewhere or if i wanted to live somewhere for four months or a year or whatever it was i'm not

00:00:33.260 sure any albertan doing that would think that oh that government has a responsibility to pay for

00:00:38.320 my health care my education my social supports my my this that the other thing that would be

00:00:45.060 insane to think that of course that'd be i mean i i'd say that's unalbertan to think that and why

00:00:50.340 then do we do that on the other side of the ledger and say yeah come to alberta uh and the moment you

00:00:56.340 get here even though you haven't paid a lick of tax we're just going to give you all our social

00:01:00.000 program we'll take care of you that's that's a silly economically insane thing to do and it needs

00:01:06.980 to stop because if we keep doing it um all we're all we're doing is is what we're bankrupting

00:01:12.440 ourselves and it means poorer you know or more stressed programs education health care social

00:01:18.480 supports for those Albertans that have that are citizens that have been here uh for you know their

00:01:25.420 entire lives or a large portion of their lives paying taxes.

Western Standard - March 09, 2026