CALGARY — Jason Kenney told reporters in Calgary on Tuesday that Canada should continue to reduce immigration levels and return to a system that focuses on welcoming highly skilled newcomers into the country, such as the one under former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.The former Alberta premier, who also served as a federal immigration minister under Harper, said that he was “pro-immigration” but also “pro-controlled immigration that is supported by the Canadian people at reasonable levels.”He argued that immigration policy should avoid bringing in large numbers of lower-skilled workers who could put downward pressure on Canada's GDP per capita.Kenney blamed the approach on the former Trudeau government and said Prime Minister Mark Carney has acknowledged problems with the system.“He acknowledges that problem. He's admitted it,” Kenney said.“They put the brakes on a lot of the temporary resident streams of migration.”Kenney’s comments come after Carney recently told the New York Times that the current system was functioning well following the mass immigration surge under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, and that the current government has cut back on immigration, especially foreign students and temporary foreign workers.However, in the same interview, the prime minister hinted that there was a possibility that immigration numbers could be ramped up again..Kenney urges Albertans to reject independence after Parti Québécois victory.“Now the question starts to become: When do we resume some controlled increase in the population, which is the nature of Canada,” Carney said.“So that will happen, and we just want to make sure that we’ve got it under control.”Asked about Carney’s comments and the questions regarding immigration on the upcoming Alberta referendum, Kenney said lower immigration levels do not necessarily have to prevent Alberta from finding the workers required for a potential economic expansion.“While immigration can be a shared jurisdiction in some respects, at the end of the day, Canada decides who enters our borders, and once they're here, they have full mobility rights,” he said.“So somebody selected by the government of Canada or the government of Quebec can come straight to Calgary and make this their new home, or they can make this their second home after they've re-realized we have better opportunities. So the idea that we can sort of seal Alberta off from Canadian immigration policy is not correct.”Negative sentiment toward immigration has increased in recent years in Canada.In the latest available federal poll from 2025, 47% of respondents said that too many immigrants were coming into Canada.Kenney suggested Alberta employers should increasingly look elsewhere in Canada for workers, including newcomers who initially settled in other provinces, and said population growth has historically played an important role in diversifying Alberta's economy by increasing demand for services.“There are going to be prospectively tens of thousands of our fellow Canadians in Central Canada perhaps regrettably losing their jobs like the folks at the steel mill in Hamilton last week, and we can invite them to move here,” Kenney said.“The biggest driver of diversification in modern Alberta's history has been population growth and demand for services. We need that to continue at a manageable pace... I just encourage Mr. Carney to step into that in cooperation with the provinces.”
