A new report says the questions on Alberta’s upcoming referendum are fuelled by anti-immigration sentiment.
The Oct. 19 referendum includes 10 questions, half of which are about immigration.
These include questions about whether Alberta should have more control over immigration and restrict temporary residents’ access to provincial programs, such as education and health care.
The questions reflect “an age-old strategy of blaming minorities for the social, political, and economic challenges facing society,” says the report by the Parkland Institute, a research centre at the University of Alberta.
The non-partisan institute focuses on the interactions between wealth, power, class conflicts and public policy and examines “market-oriented assumptions.”
Bronwyn Bragg, the report’s author and a geography and environment professor at the University of Lethbridge, says most Albertans are not paying attention to the referendum’s questions about immigration.
“The separatist question is taking up all the oxygen in the room,” she said in an interview, calling it the “most alarming” of the 10 questions.
But Bragg, who studies immigrants’ work experiences and refugee resettlement programs, says it is impossible to separate immigration policy from separatism.
“Part of being a nation-state is controlling who is inside those borders and controlling those borders,” she said.
“Immigration is always part of separatism. They go hand-in-hand.”
Cutting costs
The immigration referendum questions are mainly focused on ensuring jobs for Albertans and reducing costs of government services.
The first question asks whether citizens agree with Alberta taking leadership in immigration, decreasing immigration numbers, prioritizing economic migration and giving Albertans priority for jobs.
Questions two, three and four ask about restricting temporary residents’ access to some publicly funded services, such as education or health care, or charging fees for them.
The fifth question asks whether Albertans support a law requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship to vote in provincial elections. Alberta is adding a citizenship indicator to drivers’ licences and ID cards, the government’s referendum website says.
Polling suggests most Albertans support these initiatives.
An August opinion poll from pollster Research Co. found support ranged from a low of 58 per cent on the question about increased provincial control over immigration, to a high of 66 per cent on the question about voting.
In contrast, the same poll said only 22 per cent of Albertans supported a referendum question about whether the province should hold a binding referendum on separating from Canada.
Rationale
On its referendum website, the government describes its rationale for the referendum questions.
It says federal immigration policies have led to rapid population growth in the past five years and that social services for temporary residents are expected to cost more than $1 billion a year.
But Bragg says Albertans may not understand the referendum’s immigration questions or know that Albertans already have priority for jobs. She also notes that the government can change the rules about who qualifies for social services without a referendum.
“They don’t need a referendum to take away services for temporary residents,” she said.
In her view, the referendum questions are not about policy.
“This is about politics, and this is about communicating a particular story to Albertans,” she said.
That story is one that blames strapped social services on immigration, even if immigration numbers have decreased recently, the report says.
This rhetoric has been repeated by provincial ministers, as well as separatist leaders, the report says.
“Scapegoating may be a politically expedient strategy for a premier trying to keep together a political coalition that includes people who hold radically anti-immigrant views,” the report says.
“But ultimately it will prove deeply harmful to the social fabric of Alberta.”
‘False and inflammatory’
In an emailed statement to Canadian Affairs, the Alberta government staunchly rejected the report’s interpretation of the referendum questions, adding that they reflect the priorities Albertans identified during public town hall meetings.
“This report is hardly more than an opinion piece,” wrote Hunter Baril, press secretary for Joseph Schow, Alberta’s minister of jobs, economy, trades and immigration.
“It overlooks that Alberta is not the only one raising the alarm on the loss of control over immigration, and that unchecked immigration policies have placed excessive pressure on cost of living as well as our public services such as health care and education.
“Any accusation that the referendum questions on sustainable immigration constitute ‘scapegoating’ is false and inflammatory.”
The federal government reduced immigration targets, after permanent resident numbers rose significantly after the pandemic.
In a July letter, all of Canada’s premiers also called for greater control over immigration.
“Federal immigration policies have impacted Canada’s ability to attract and retain global talent — an imperative more important than ever given our collective commitment to build major projects,” the letter says.
“As a shared area of jurisdiction in the Constitution, premiers call for a greater role in economic immigration, including increased provincial and territorial nominee allocations.”
