CALGARY — Prime Minister Mark Carney says he is open to discussing the possibility of Alberta’s government having a greater say in provincial immigration.At a joint press conference in Red Deer on Wednesday with Premier Danielle Smith, the prime minister said conversations around that topic have already been taking place and the outcome does not depend on the outcome of Alberta’s upcoming October referendum.“We had a discussion on this just a few days ago amongst first ministers,” Carney told the Western Standard, referencing the recent First Ministers Meeting in Charlottetown, PEI."I thought it was quite a productive discussion because it was a well-informed, well-grounded stocktake of where we are."Carney said Smith presented her views during the meeting but noted immigration concerns were raised by premiers across the country.“All of the premiers raised issues around this,” he said, adding that the federal government had already “taken back control of immigration” after his administration inherited unsustainable levels from former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s regime.“The government's been in place for sixteen months. We came in where immigration had been far too high. We'd lost control of levels and foreign students and temporary workers,” he said..New poll shows Smith's immigration questions have support from majority of Albertans .Since then, Carney said that asylum claims were down by roughly one-third, temporary foreign workers by one-half, and international student numbers by roughly two-thirds.“We're on top of the numbers,” he said.“Now it creates the opportunity for premiers, the prime minister and governments to discuss where we go from here.”He added that the question of whether or not Canada should have a few more years of restraint on immigration needed to be discussed, as well as longer-term immigration policy, including whether the country should continue to decrease immigration levels due to ongoing pressures on the housing market."As economic migrants come in, what skills should they have? Do the provinces have a better perspective on what those skills would be, and how do we engineer a system for that? That was the spirit of the discussion," Carney said."That doesn't require any tick in any box in a vote, because that's working together to get things right."In October, Albertans will be asked if they support the provincial government taking increased control over immigration “for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities.”Smith has repeatedly argued Alberta should have greater authority over immigration and has blamed the “disastrous” open-border immigration policies of the Trudeau government for straining Alberta’s health care, education, and social services programs.
