The Alberta Next Panel, Immigration, and the Rise of Anti-Immigrant Sentiments
As part of the Government of Alberta’s strategy to “chart a path” forward by engaging Albertans, Premier Danielle Smith has established the Alberta Next Panel to consult Albertans on various issues, with a referendum on proposed ideas planned for next year. The issue of immigration is one of the proposed policy areas to discuss at the town halls scheduled to take place July to September 2025. The initiatives on the Alberta Next Website require careful examination, especially those related to immigration.
Given the rise in anti-immigrant sentiments across Alberta and Canada, it is crucial to understand how this initiative may exacerbate these trends and what this means for newcomers, communities, and the organizations that support them. These narratives don’t just shape public opinion, they influence policy decisions that directly impact healthcare access, social services, and the safety of immigrant communities. We’ve already seen this rhetoric manifest in protests and attacks on settlement agencies (in Red Deer, St. Albert, and in Calgary), making it necessary to examine how government messaging contributes to this climate. With a referendum planned for next year, the framing used now will directly shape which policies Albertans vote on and support. We will analyze how the Alberta Next Panel and survey communications is exacerbating the alarming racism in public discourse across Alberta, and anti-immigrant sentiments.
AAISA had previously published an informational guide on immigration in Canada shortly after the launch of the Alberta Next Panel which you can access here.
The real cause of the province’s housing challenges are more complex and are due to factors that have more impact on housing affordability than immigration levels alone such as supply constraints, rising costs for construction, regulatory delays, and municipal zoning policies. These issues are less visible and more difficult to understand than simply blaming newcomers.
Background: What is the Alberta Next Panel?
The Premier (Chair of the Panel) and the 15-member panel have already begun conducting the in-person town halls in Red Deer and Sherwood Park/Edmonton (you can find the Red Deer town hall recording here and the Sherwood Park/Edmonton town hall recording here). The panel is scheduled to conduct 10 town halls and is tasked with gathering feedback and recommending potential policy proposals for a future referendum. Coupled with this, the Alberta Next website features surveys on six issues: immigration, federal transfers and equalization, Alberta Pension Plan, constitutional changes, a provincial police force, and tax collection.
To complete the survey, participants must first watch a video that provides context on each issue. However, there are significant concerns about the misleading framing within these videos and background materials, particularly around immigration.
Messaging and Framing Concerns
The Alberta Next video on immigration begins by acknowledging immigrants’ historical and ongoing contributions to Alberta’s prosperity, but the messaging quickly shifts to portraying immigration as a problem tied to housing affordability, unemployment, and social division (we will dive deeper into these issues later). This rhetoric is identical to the rhetoric seen across Canada at the federal level and internationally, fueling anti-immigrant sentiments and contributing to the normalization of racism in public discourse. We have previously reported on the rising anti-immigrant rhetoric and the federal governments Levels Plan which collates the evidence of this occurring in the media and our communities.
The immigration-related content provided on the Alberta Next webpage is brief and misinformed. The various immigration pathways, policies, and common terms/words used in the immigration sector are not well known to all Albertans and the limited information provided does not include background for Albertan’s to provide informed feedback on the survey.
The materials present immigration as a burden requiring stronger provincial control, including the suggestion of withholding social services from certain newcomers as a solution. This framing oversimplifies complex systemic issues while ignoring the many factors driving challenges like housing affordability and job market pressures, including provincial and municipal policies, lack of affordable housing investments, and private market dynamics. It positions newcomers as the scapegoat for complex systemic challenges without acknowledging the many intersecting factors at play.
Additionally, describing Canada’s immigration system as “open borders” misrepresents the structured, regulated, and vetted processes that govern immigration, refugee claims, and temporary resident pathways. Canada does not have an open-door immigration policy. Every newcomer must go through a structured, vetted, and often lengthy process. With this, there are also several different immigration streams, each with its own limits, restrictions, and access to social services.
Most of the rise in housing prices (about 89%) comes from causes unrelated to immigration, including interest rates, demand, and lack of supply.
What the Data Actually Shows: Housing and Employment
The narrative that immigration is driving Alberta’s housing crisis is more complicated than what is being presented. Discussions around immigration and housing often rely on assumptions and simplified narratives, but the data shows a more nuanced picture. Public concern about affordability is valid, but it often rests on the mistaken assumption that immigration is the root cause. In fact, immigration is only weakly correlated with these trends, and correlation does not mean causation. This is an important distinction that is often lost in public discourse. The numbers reveal how small this correlation actually is.
Most of the rise in housing prices (about 89%) comes from causes unrelated to immigration, including interest rates, demand, and lack of supply (Feng et al., 2025). The effect of immigration on housing is generally small to modest overall, and it depends on the region. Across Canada, a 1% increase in immigration is associated with only a 0.143% increase in housing prices on average. The effect is strongest in large cities and provinces like Ontario and British Columbia, where both home values and rent increase with immigration. In smaller towns and regions like the Prairies or Atlantic Canada, the effect is either much smaller or not significant at all. Rent prices also increase a little nationally with immigration at 0.045% but this is mostly seen in big cities and certain province, but in smaller towns and less populated provinces, immigration does not have much of an impact on rent.
The real cause of the province’s housing challenges are more complex and are due to factors that have more impact on housing affordability than immigration levels alone such as supply constraints, rising costs for construction, regulatory delays, and municipal zoning policies. These issues are less visible and more difficult to understand than simply blaming newcomers.
Similarly, Alberta Next ties rising unemployment to immigration, implying newcomers take jobs away from Albertans. However, research across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries finds no systematic link between immigration and rising unemployment, which contradicts claims that newcomers are responsible for job scarcity (Jean & Jiménez, 2011). Jean & Jiménez (2011) also highlight that any effects between long-term impact of immigration on non-immigrants employment found were small, temporary, and policy-dependent, vanishing within a few years and heavily influenced by factors like product market regulations and unemployment benefits, rather than immigration itself.
Rather, immigrants have challenges in labour market integration when compared to non-immigrants due to integration barriers, not because their presence causes unemployment (Dumont, 2021). Migration is a structural driver of labour force stability and growth, and not a burden. Additionally, the focus on unemployment should not be centred around immigration as the problem but as the solution to many of the issues present, as the presence of immigrants often unearth systemic barriers, policy discrimination and other market failures (i.e., systemic discrimination and market failures in housing systems (Lukes et al, 2018)).
Alberta Next singles out refugee claimants and international students as sources of strain on public services, an implication that fuels harmful narratives that stigmatize entire communities and misinforms the public about who contributes to Alberta’s economy. Alberta Next’s content suggest that these groups are burdensome, evidence tells a different story.
A recent Census-based study (Choi & Xu, 2025) examined how closely former international student’s fields of study aligned with their occupations. The results are striking: Among those who studied STEM, 43% were working in STEM fields in 2021, compared to just 30% among other recent immigrants. This suggests that former international students are far from being a liability and are a highly effective source of skilled labour in areas with persistent shortages. In short, the framing of international students as a “problem” ignores their demonstrated contributions to Canada’s workforce and risks undermining a sustainable source of talent that Alberta actively needs.
Despite welcoming many newcomers, Alberta remains more affordable than other provinces. Any increases in cost of living are driven by other economic factors such as provincial, municipal, and private sector decisions rather than immigration levels directly. This framing not only diverts attention from real solutions but also creates contradictory messaging. Alberta actively seeks newcomers to fill labour shortages while simultaneously presenting them as a burden. This contradiction entrenches harmful narratives that divide communities and undermine efforts to build a welcoming province.
By presenting immigration as the cause of these issues, the messaging on the Alberta Next website risks misleading the public and diverting attention away from actionable, evidence-based solutions that would benefit all Albertans. This approach not only oversimplifies the realities of housing and labour markets but also contributes to a narrative that it feeds the anti-immigrant narratives, allows for harmful racist rhetoric to flourish thus further isolating and stigmatizing newcomers in our communities.
Solutions Presented by Alberta Next
Beyond framing immigration as a problem, Alberta Next proposes some solutions:
“Withhold provincial social programs to any non-citizen or non-permanent resident who does not have an Alberta-approved immigration status”
Several issues with the language used emerge within this proposed solution that requires unpacking:
- The core proposal references withholding social services including healthcare, education, and other provincial supports from certain newcomers which has serious human rights and community impacts. The panel states that they may face the courts if they went in this direction. Simply put, this solution has legal risks and could violate Charter rights, human rights law, and other international obligations. If this measure is implemented, Alberta will contribute to issues rather than solving them in the following ways:
- Public health and community safety: Refusing social services to vulnerable people contributes to houselessness, untreated health conditions, and an overall increase in poverty. Denying these services could potentially increase costs to the health care system (Canadian Health Coalition, 2024).
- Contradicts our economic goals: While the province continues to seek newcomers to fill labour gaps, this proposal creates a hostile environment that discourages settlement and integration, undermining the provinces goal.
- Social divisions and community harm: Withholding services from community members contributes to social divisions, discrimination, and xenophobia, deepening fear among newcomers and further isolating them within Alberta communities.
- The use of “non-citizen” alongside “non-permanent” can be misleading and can be mistaken by the general public that the policy would only affect people without status or with precarious status. In reality, “non-citizen” can include Permanent Residents (PRs) who are in Canada long-term and are entitled to provincial healthcare, education, and social services. Using this broad language risks creating more fear in our communities and among newcomers and their families while misinforming the public about who would be impacted.
Impact on Communities
The framing of immigration and proposals presented in Albert Next risk fueling anti-immigrant and xenophobic sentiments within the province. By portraying newcomers as a burden and the source of complex social and economic challenges, such messaging contributes to fear among newcomers and undermines their sense of safety, belonging, and ability to integrate fully into Alberta’s communities. This creates an environment where newcomers who are actively brought to address labour shortages and support Alberta’s economy, may feel unwelcome and targeted, especially when the province positions itself to decide which newcomers it deems acceptable. Ultimately, this approach harms community cohesion and Alberta’s reputation as a place where newcomers can thrive and contribute.
What Can You do?
If you are a settlement service provider or a community member, you may be wondering how to respond. We encourage you to get involved and engage with the province.
- Take the survey! We encourage you to take the survey, and use the “share your ideas” section to voice your opinion, add your perspective, and change the narrative.
- Attend a town hall! Find the next in-person or online town hall and use your voice. We can use our collective strength to ensure that newcomers in our province are welcomed. At the Edmonton/Sherwood Park townhall, there was some criticism that the survey questions did not allow for disagreements which prompted the province to make adjustments to three of the survey questions.
Public narratives have real consequences. They shape policies that directly impact newcomers already building their futures in Alberta, and they create space for racism and xenophobia to take place in our communities. Alberta deserves immigration conversations rooted in evidence-based decision making rather than one rooted in fear.