EXCLUSIVE: Smith says prioritizing skilled workers will mitigate the risk of temporary residents not leaving Canada

EDMONTON — Premier Danielle Smith has long pushed for Canada’s immigration policies to prioritize skilled workers, rather than temporary residents, claiming that controlling who enters Canada would also help mitigate the risk of individuals failing to leave when required."Well, the first thing is making sure that the people who arrive in our country are arriving because they have a job to go to," said Smith during an interview with the Western Standard. "That's the absolute essence of what our immigration policy needs to start with, and then that's a recognition they have the skills that's needed in that particular business, and then they can decide if they want to have a pathway to permanent residency and ultimately citizenship.""That's what we want to support. But if you've come here in any of those other streams and there isn't a job for you, then, yeah, you have to go home. That's the way our system works," Smith said. .Discussions about temporary residents leaving once their visa expires have increased in Alberta recently because a group of international students from Portage College is holding a hunger strike after learning they will not get to stay in Canada after graduating, despite being led to believe that they would.However, while it may seem easy to say that individuals need to go home after their visa expires, confrontations involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the US have sparked questions about how to address those who are unwilling to leave. Smith said one tool for mitigating such situations is charging a fee or making temporary residents live in Alberta for 12-months before receiving free access to social services. "If we don't then overcompensate people who don't have a legal permanent status to be here, then I think that that's also an encouragement for them to return home to their home country," Smith said. .Albertans often express frustrations with Canada’s immigration levels, but discussions took a turn in February when Smith announced that she is seeking a mandate to pursue more control over immigrants coming to Alberta. "We actually want to reduce the overall number, but the focus needs to be on very high-quality economic migrants to be able to match the needs of our economy, which would be at a greatly reduced level from what we've seen historically," Smith said. However, despite Prime Minister Mark Carney's efforts to refocus Canada's immigration priorities, Smith maintains provincial governments should get input when determining what economic immigrants are being admitted. "We know what the skilled workforce is and the skills that are needed for those jobs, and every single premier is making the same case that we have to de-emphasize some of those other areas and make sure that the province has a lot more control over the economic migrants," Smith said. Albertans will vote on both of Smith's immigration questions in the upcoming October referendum.

EXCLUSIVE: Smith says prioritizing skilled workers will mitigate the risk of temporary residents not leaving Canada

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