Please attend in your city if you can. No to 2-tier healthcare!!

Smith posted this on Facebook today, as part of the push for her October immigration referendum:

"For every $1 of taxes a guest worker generates, taxpayers are covering $10 in services. This is not sustainable."

I went looking for the source. There isn't one. No linked study, no government report, nothing from Alberta Finance. When Smith has been pressed on similar numbers in interviews, the closest she's come is a hypothetical example about a $60k/year worker with two kids, not a documented statistic about guest workers as a group, and not anything close to a clean 1:10 ratio.

Meanwhile, the province's own budget numbers point the other way. Since 2022, Alberta's population has grown 11%, which has driven a 34% jump in personal and corporate income tax revenue. Health-care and education spending over that same stretch rose only 12% and 16% respectively. If guest workers and other non-permanent residents were really draining the system at 10x their tax contribution, you'd expect the opposite trend.

On health care specifically, a University of Calgary researcher pointed out that migrant workers tend to be healthier than the general population: refugee claimants use about $1,600/year in health care, compared to $9,500–$9,800 for the average Canadian citizen.

This matters because the referendum questions are being sold to Albertans on the back of this exact framing that immigrants and guest workers are why the province is running a $9.4 billion deficit. It's a lot easier to blame non-citizens who can't vote in the referendum than to talk about oil price volatility or the lack of a provincial sales tax. Making up a scary-sounding ratio and never showing your work is a pretty clear way to do that.

If the Premier's office has real data behind this, they should publish it before October. Until then, it looks like a talking point dressed up as a statistic.

If Alberta is concerned about what Alberta wants, this seems like a roadmap to something.

Education is the foundation of Canada, not separation and division.

I hope this is acceptable for this subreddit, if not please remove!

I work a camp job up in Nunavut for 3 months at a time, I'm getting back on October 16th. I moved address right before I left, and wasn't able to update my driver's license before I went up.

When I get back, I'll only have three days before the referendum, does anyone have any suggestions for how to get a valid ID in that time that the elections people will accept? I have a passport and my driver's license with the wrong address.

Has anyone received any updates on their special ballot?

Mine was submitted Aug 17th. Still waiting. Seems super suspicious there’s nothing yet.

It’s a simple process.

This video was made without much forethought. Opinions may slightly shift, but as of writing this after a rewatch, I agree with everything here. Thank you.