CALGARY — Premier Danielle Smith's Chief of Staff, Rob Anderson, says Smith will address staggering immigration numbers on Thursday in a televised address to the province.Anderson was reacting to a post by David Coletto on X, CEO of Abacus Data Canada on Wednesday.The post included statistics measuring the population change of different countries over the span of 24 years, comparing the population in 2000 to 2024 for several countries.It compares a number of European countries in a combined percentage change to Canada's — Canada still beating 11 European countries combined for the highest population change in over 20 years..Canada experienced a 34.6% jump in their population from 2000 to 2024.The European countries mentioned which include, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Sweden — all together experienced a 5% population growth."This absolute insanity needs to stop. It will," stated Anderson in reaction to the stats, insinuating the Alberta government will somehow address the numbers. At a press conference Wednesday, Smith said she will be discussing the issue at her address Thursday.."There's a number of things that we're going to address, but I think it's no secret that part of our budget challenges, number one is on the revenue side, that we've seen a decline in our revenues as a result of WTI trending below $60 for most of the year, when we need $74," stated Smith."But at the same time, our expenses have been growing faster, and part of that is the we have the fastest growing population in Canada, adding 600,000 people in the last four years alone.""I think there's only one country in the world that has exceeded the level of population growth Canada has had.""This clearly needs to change. This is not sustainable."."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 continued later to echo even the feds have stated the immigration over the last few years has been unsustainable."They've completely changed the international student program, and the worker program, and we're working with them to get refocused on economic migrants," stated Smith."Things need to change. There's no question about it. It was the number one issue that we've heard in the Alberta next panel, which was that it was putting too much pressure on our social services, on our job market, on our housing market, and on food prices.""We need to get back to the kind of more rational policy that we had under Stephen Harper, where we have those coming here are able to integrate easily into the society that they chose."EDITOR'S NOTE: You can watch Premier Smith's address at westernstandard.news Thursday night at 6:45 p.m.
