Smith announces funding to build more Alberta schools, rails against feds immigration policies

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government will spend more to build schools to help address exploding enrolment across the province while simultaneously calling on Ottawa to cut immigration levels.

In a televised address on Tuesday evening, Smith announced the new School Construction Accelerator Program that will see the capital budget increase to $8.6 billion by 2026-27.

“This will allow us to complete actual construction on approximately 50,000 new student spaces over the next three years, and to complete and open 150,000 new spaces over the next four years after that,” said Smith.

She says the province’s existing budget isn’t enough to keep up with Alberta’s rapid population growth, which grew by more than 200,000 people in 2023-24.

The government is changing the process of approving construction funding so school boards don’t need to wait every year for the next budget cycle to get the go-ahead.

The premier opened her address by calling on the federal government to take action to cut immigration levels, appearing to place the blame of Alberta’s overcrowded schools on Ottawa.

“The Trudeau government’s unrestrained open border policies, permitting well over a million newcomers each year, is causing significant challenges,” she said.

“Canada’s previous immigration policies, under leaders like Prime Minister Stephen Harper for example, focused on ensuring immigration levels matched our nation’s economic needs.”

Smith has said her government was taken by surprise at the number of people who moved to Alberta last year, saying every single school is facing capacity issues.

Both the Calgary Board of Education and Calgary Catholic School District have said they have seen record enrolment this year.

‘Governing by crisis’

Although Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi called the UCP’s education investment ‘generational’ in a news conference following Smith’s announcement, he believes they’re reacting to a crisis they should have seen coming.

“We still have a huge shortage of teachers and we have teachers leaving the profession every day because of how badly they’re treated by this government,” he said. “So it’s very typical of Premier Smith to announce the capital funding, but have no idea how we’re going to staff those places.”

Nenshi is calling on the UCP to stop governing by crisis.

“They careen like a pinball from crisis to crisis, they wait until the leak is flooding the basement to try and close the leak and they stick their hand in it, not looking where the water is going,” he said.

The leader also raised questions about the province’s plan to commit taxpayer dollars to private and charter schools, saying that isn’t an answer to the problem.

“These investments in private school capital, which I believe we’ve never seen in Canada before, are basically saying ‘We’re totally willing to take all the taxpayers’ money and put it into places that very few students can access’ and I think that’s wrong,” Nenshi said.

The premier and several cabinet ministers will discuss the new program at a news conference Wednesday morning at Western Canada High School in Calgary.

Smith has done two other government TV updates since becoming premier. The first was to announce inflation relief payments in 2022 and the other, this past February, was to preach budget restraint and a desire to grow the heritage trust fund.

With files from The Canadian Press