‘It’s too fast,’ Premier Smith says of immigration amid dispute with Ottawa over 28,000 asylum seekers

Alberta’s premier is upset about a federal effort to spread about 200,000 asylum seekers across Canada, but the federal immigration minister has fired back calling Danielle Smith “incoherent” on the matter.

Smith says the working formula, based on current population, would put Alberta’s share at about 28,000 people.

After Alberta set a record for growth last year with 200,000 new residents, Danielle Smith says her province doesn’t have enough classrooms, hospital beds or homes to grow any faster.

“We’re looking at, now, people living in shelter spaces, people living in campgrounds,” Smith said a government update posted on Friday.

“That is not good for the newcomers coming here. There just isn’t the housing stock to be able to support that. We’re also seeing higher unemployment rates in Edmonton and Calgary.”

Smith issued a statement Thursday saying Alberta is not willing to take more asylum seekers especially without financial compensation.

But the federal immigration minister fired back, saying Alberta has refused to take part in the working group dealing with the issue, so Smith doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

“Clearly, there’s responsibility for provinces to take on asylum seekers to ease the pressure on their colleague provinces in Ontario and Quebec and we expect provinces to follow suit,” Marc Miller told reporters.

“But we won’t do this without financial compensation or the consent of the provinces.”

Miller also shared a letter Smith wrote asking Ottawa for thousands more permanent residency spots to help grow Alberta.

Smith has been giving mixed messaging on immigration.

RELATED: Alberta government backs away from podcast comments made by Premier Smith, Calgary MLA

In January, she said she wants Alberta to grow to 10 million including welcoming more people from India, China and Africa.

“Let’s have an aggressive target to double our population,” Smith told the Shaun Newman Podcast at the time.

“People are going to want to come here, and we have to embrace them, and we want to build this place out.”

But when CityNews pressed the premier on her statements she said Ottawa is allowing too much immigration making it hard for all provinces to provide services. 

On the streets of Edmonton Friday, most said Alberta should welcome newcomers and start building more schools, hospitals and houses to accommodate them.

“They need to be here for their safety. So, it pisses me off when they turn them away or don’t want them here,” Sylvia Mahoney said.

“If you look at the population density of anywhere else in the world, Alberta is not full,” said Chase Leclair.

“I agree that [Alberta is] very full, but I also believe [asylum seekers] should be spread across Canada,” said John Wright, calling on all politicians to get more homes built.

Miller said Canada could simply rent hotel rooms anywhere in the country and send asylum seekers there, if Ottawa wanted to. But Smith insists Alberta and Canada can not afford that.

“A normal level of immigration is about one per cent of the population,” she said.

“So, [Ottawa] should be bringing in 400,000 to 500,000 people a year. That could be something that we could absorb. They brought in 1.84 million people in 2023.”

In a post on X Friday afternoon, Smith thanked Miller for agreeing not to send asylum seekers to Alberta without the province’s support.

“We would also suggest you halt the asylum program, which has seen a massive increase over the last couple of years, so that asylum is only granted in the most extreme humanitarian-based circumstances,” Smith wrote.

With a possible federal election looming, the debate over immigration is likely not going anywhere, anytime soon.