Alberta Premier Danielle Smith will be holding a press conference in Calgary on Friday morning to discuss her government’s plans to hold a provincial referendum this fall that will ask Albertans’ opinions on various immigration and constitutional issues.
Smith announced her plans in a provincewide television address on Thursday evening.
The vote will be held on Oct. 19, and the premier said there will be nine questions on the ballot, including whether the Government of Alberta should push to have the federal Senate abolished, whether the Canadian constitution should be amended to allow provincial governments to select the justices appointed to provincial King’s Bench and Appeal courts and whether the constitution should be amended to give provincial laws dealing with areas of shared constitutional jurisdiction priority over federal laws.
However, the most controversial questions focus on giving the province more control over immigration, including whether the province should introduce a new law mandating that only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and individuals with an “Alberta-approved” immigration status will be eligible for provincially-funded programs, such as health care, education and other social services.
Critics have assailed the province’s plan as “weaponizing” the issue of immigration to win votes.
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Smith announced the referendum plans one day after the executive director of her Calgary office, in a post on social media, railed against Canada’s immigration policies, saying, “unsustainable mass immigration into Canada” fills him “with profound disgust.”
In the post on X, Bruce McAllister also asked,”‘Why import from nations with failed systems when our Judeo-Christian heritage and principles have worked so well here?”
Global News will be livestreaming the premier’s Friday morning press conference online starting at 11:30 MST/13:30 EDT.
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