Ottawa’s updated immigration target still not enough: Alberta government

Canada’s decision to cut its immigration targets will not solve the country’s housing crisis, hospital capacity issues and rising food costs, the Alberta government says.

Ottawa had targeted bringing in 500,000 new permanent residents in both 2025 and 2026. Next year’s target will instead be 395,000 new permanent residents, and that will fall to 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027.

But Alberta says it’s not enough.

“The federal government’s plan to cut a mere 105,000 new permanent residents will not solve these pressures when they are bringing in almost two million additional people annually,” Premier Danielle Smith and Minister of Immigration and Multiculturalism Muhammad Yaseen said in a joint statement.

“With the cost of food, energy, housing and everything else in this country increasing, and with tens of thousands of new people moving to Alberta monthly, our hospitals and schools are at or above capacity.

“As a province, we need a reprieve from this explosive population growth so we can catch up with these pressures. So do all provinces.”

The Liberals’ previous increases to immigration have been heavily criticized due to the impact of strong population growth on housing availability and affordability. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau admits the government did not get the balance right after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The federal government’s goal is also to reduce the proportion of temporary residents to five per cent of the population over the next three years, down from 7.2 per cent in July.

Ottawa estimates this will mean the non-permanent resident population will decrease by 445,901 in 2025, 445,662 in 2026 and will increase modestly by 17,439 in 2027.

“Alberta has a long history of welcoming newcomers, and we plan to maintain that reputation,” Smith and Yaseen wrote.

“However, the federal government’s reckless and irresponsible open-border immigration policies, permitting almost two million newcomers to enter Canada last year alone, have led to unsustainable financial pressures on all provinces.”

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The province is calling on the federal government to cut the total number of newcomers to Canada to “well under 500,000 annually until further notice.”

“Ottawa’s priority should be on reducing the number of temporary foreign workers, international students and asylum seekers – not on reducing provincially selected economic migrants.”

According to the provincial government, Alberta is the fastest growing province in the country with its population nearing 5 million people. Both international and interprovincial migration have been cited as the largest factors driving the province’s population growth.

While Smith may have not been premier at the time, it was the UCP government that ran an ad campaign in the wake of the pandemic inviting Canadians from more expensive cities to move to Alberta.

–With files from The Canadian Press