Premier Danielle Smith says Alberta’s growing population — and the immigration that is largely driving that growth — will be a key part of her address to the province Thursday.
Scheduled for 6:45 p.m. MT, her address comes one week before the UCP government tables its budget, which Smith has already forewarned will paint a grim financial picture.
Smith said Wednesday the province is facing combined pressures from decreased revenues as oil prices trend lower and increased costs of covering services for a rapidly growing population.
“This clearly needs to change. This is not sustainable. So I’ll have more to say about that in the address, and then we’ll begin the conversation with Albertans about what needs to happen next,” she said at an unrelated news conference.
In a post on X, Smith’s chief of staff Rob Anderson reshared statistics related to immigration to Canada, and teased that Albertans should tune in to the premier’s address.
“This absolute insanity needs to stop. It will,” Anderson said in his post.
Smith’s executive director Bruce McAllister also weighed in on X.
“The people orchestrating this reckless, unsustainable mass immigration into Canada fill me with profound disgust,” McAllister wrote.
