Uniting across political lines, former Alberta premiers urge ‘no’ vote on immigration questions

Three former Alberta premiers are urging voters to say “no” to the five immigration-related questions on the Oct. 19 referendum ballot, saying the questions target immigrants and pose a “clear and present threat to Alberta’s continued prosperity.”

Former Progressive Conservative premiers Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford, along with former NDP premier Rachel Notley, made their case in a joint submission to the Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal published on Wednesday.

The immigration questions propose that the province take more control over immigration from the federal government, limiting non-permanent residents’ eligibility to public and social services, and ask if voters should be required to show proof of citizenship in order to vote in a provincial election.

The UCP government is campaigning for Albertans to vote “yes” to the five immigration-related questions, saying rapid population growth has put pressure on the health care and education systems.

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On its referendum website, the province says it’s gauging feedback on immigration questions 2-4 “to make our services more sustainable, accessible and affordable.”

But the former premiers worry the resulting policies could cause “economic harm.”

“The key risk we all wish to highlight is that if the measures are adopted, each could have harmful and unintended effects. Mainly, Alberta will immediately be perceived as a less attractive place for precisely the talent we already need,” the former premiers wrote.

For Stelmach, who was Alberta’s first premier of Ukrainian descent, the questions also raise a humanitarian issue — and feel personal.

“I’m grandson of an immigrant and thankfully Canada opened up their arms to immigrants and as a result, I’m here,” Stelmach said, in an interview with CBC News. “Otherwise I don’t know what would have happened to our family.”

A photograph from 2022 shows former Alberta premier Ed Stelmach standing with Thomas Lukaszuk, former Alberta deputy premier, among aid items their campaign collected for Ukraine. (Submitted by Thomas Lukaszuk)

The former premier, who has rarely spoken on politics since leaving office in 2011, said he felt compelled to speak out on the immigration-related questions because they “really hit home.”

Stelmach recalled a vivid memory, witnessing newcomers coming off an aircraft in Edmonton, looking to make a new home in Alberta. He helped welcome dozens of Ukrainian refugees in 2022, after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February that year.

“Just to look at the faces of the children and the parents and thinking, well, if it wasn’t for us, for Alberta, Canada, really opening their doors, you know, what would happen?” he said.

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The UCP government has expressed concern about the impact of significant migration to the province in recent years. 

Alberta’s population increased by roughly 600,000 in the five-year period from July 2021 to July 2026, two-thirds of which came from international migration. 

The rate of migration has slowed since Ottawa enacted several major policies aimed at doing so, including lowering caps on international students and temporary residents.

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Still, the province has said Ottawa’s “unsustainable” immigration policies have had a negative impact on Alberta’s ability to fund and deliver social services like health care and education, “directly impacting Albertans’ access to these services and costing taxpayers billions of dollars.”

After announcing the referendum questions in February, Premier Danielle Smith said that “temporary individuals should be treated as that: temporary and tourists.”

But the former premiers say “the taxes immigrants pay fund critical health and social services,” as just one of their contributions.

“Although there are reasonable debates to be had on immigration policy, this is not the right forum,” they write. “These five propositions take complex policy issues and confound them into confusing, contradictory questions that are hard to decipher.”

CBC News has reached out to the premier’s office for comment.

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“By nearly every economic measure, immigrants are a boon to Alberta’s economy,” the former premiers said in the op-ed, citing recent economic analysis from the Calgary Chamber of Commerce which shows the majority of Alberta businesses struggle with labour shortages.

Several major projects on the horizon, including the Pacific Link pipeline, could signal a rapid growth period for Alberta — one that would require many skilled workers, Stelmach said.

“When I was elected premier, we had many immigrants coming to Alberta and we were very thankful because we just couldn’t keep up with the pressures of growth, especially for labour,” he said.

“If all these commitments that have been made by both the province and the federal government, we’re going to see another tremendous growth period in Alberta. And we’re going to be critically short of not only labour, but people experienced in very specialized fields.”