Why Alberta is asking voters about immigration
Episode Stats
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182.91931
Summary
In this episode, I sit down with Alberta s new premier, Rachel Notley, to talk about her plans for a referendum on immigration and curbing immigration in Alberta, and why she doesn't just want to implement them as policy.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
You know, you and I both came from kind of the wild rose, direct democracy tradition.
00:00:09.620
But I was mildly critical of this, not in terms of the policies you're proposing for these referenda, but why you wouldn't just do it.
00:00:21.460
I think that there's a very broad support for the measures you're talking about, requiring identification, proof of citizenship to vote.
00:00:28.000
Alberta taking control of immigration, limiting migration, I think these things have broad
00:00:33.400
support in Alberta, even Canada more broadly. Why is it you feel the need to put these items
00:00:40.940
in particular to referendums rather than just implement them as policy?
00:00:46.120
Well, there's a couple of reasons. I mean, one is that it's a change of direction
00:00:49.760
from where we were in 2022 when we did go to the people to seek a new mandate. Because you have
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remember back in 2022, we were just coming out of COVID and our unemployment rate was 4.9%.
00:01:03.000
We had major big projects on the horizon and we were concerned we weren't going to be able to
00:01:06.680
attract the skilled workers in order to fill the jobs. And so that's when the Alberta is calling
00:01:11.160
campaign started. But what we didn't know is that Justin Trudeau was going to take all of
00:01:15.560
the restrictions off all of the programs over the intervening few years. And as a result,
00:01:20.920
600,000 newcomers came into Alberta in that time. And so what we're asking is a question that Justin
00:01:27.400
Trudeau should have asked. Justin Trudeau never asked anyone whether or not they wanted him to
00:01:31.960
change the policy. What we're asking is, do you want to go back to the kind of immigration policy