HANNAFORD: Smith too polite to say so, but Trudeau just hijacked Alberta's budget

Not for the first time has Canada’s federal government dumped a costly problem on the provinces, then walked away. First, it was the Canada Health Act — a federal attempt to take over policy in what was clearly a provincial responsibility under the Constitution. Having baited the provinces with the promise of funding it then withdrew the funding, leaving the provinces to supply a service they couldn't afford but couldn't withdraw. Other services suffered.Then it was the cost of welfare for new immigrants, an expense that has fallen heavily upon the province of Ontario.Now, as Premier Danielle Smith pointed out on Tuesday night, it’s education, also the exclusive purview of the provinces.For, it has suited the Trudeau Liberals to allow as many as a million people a year to enter Canada — an outrageous (not to mention unsustainable) population growth of more than two percent a year — and then leave it to the provinces to look after them. Build schools, hospitals, houses and all without (of course) the resources of the federal government.Last night, it became clear that it was Alberta’s turn to pay for the consequences of what Premier Danielle Smith accurately described as Prime Minister Trudeau’s “unrestrained open border policies” — the more than 200,000 extra students expected to arrive in the province over the next seven years, that have to be accommodated.The cost to Alberta? About $8.6 billion over the next three years. That's the price to Alberta of the crash school-building program that Smith announced on Tuesday night.For federal negligence or not, or for whatever nefarious reason the Trudeau Liberals are “permitting well over a million newcomers each year into Canada,” the Government of Alberta does not have the option of doing nothing for the extra students arriving in the province. It has to spend the money.Not to put too fine a point on it then, the Trudeau Liberals have hijacked the Alberta budget. Thanks to Prime Minister Trudeau, the Government of Alberta now has to put that $8 billion into building new schools instead of the other uses to which it might be put — debt repayment, or cutting taxes for example. Those will now have to wait.As I say, this is just a Canadian tradition and the duplicitous way in which federal governments, particularly Liberal governments, encroach on all provincial jurisdictions.It may of course, be objected that only last year, the Government of Alberta was actively touting the benefits of living in the lee of the Rocky Mountains to all in Ontario who would listen. Cheaper housing, more jobs, a better lifestyle. Come to Alberta and live big.So, did we want more people to move to Alberta or were we just saying we wanted more people to move to Alberta?Yes, of course. Alberta was and remains ready to welcome the people who can fill the many important vacancies to be filled on the Alberta job board. However, with its incentive programs, and unlike the Trudeau Liberals, the Alberta government also had a plan.And the plan was not to just throw open the Alberta border. But, now it is forced to respond to a federal government that has simply lost control of who enters the country and shrugs without regret as it hands off the problem to the provinces.Smith has an obligation to push back. She has no obligation to be a handmaid for federal immigration incompetence.That said, there are some things in Smith’s speech to applaud, especially her commitment to “the principle of providing school choice for parents.” Funds are to be set aside to add 12,500 new charter school student spaces over the next four years. Her government is also developing a "school capital pilot program for non-profit private schools to incentivize investment in the creation of thousands of new independent school student spaces at a reduced per-student cost to taxpayers."Good. Alberta needs more choice in education (as well as the removal from the curriculum of ideological teaching that may be harmful to young people.) Handed this lemon by Ottawa, there may yet be a few drops of lemonade.Nevertheless, the prime minister may be compared to a man who orders a rich meal, then absconds to the washroom when the bill comes. Smith says she is joining with other premiers across our country to call him out. Specifically, they will demand "sensible and restrained immigration policies, similar to levels we saw under Stephen Harper" to allow all provinces time to catch up with growth.Whether an appeal to the authority of Harper will cut much ice with this prime minister is highly doubtful. However, whatever else the provinces may come up with, this is where to start.This, and as the premier emphasized, ensuring that "those coming here closely align with our country’s economic needs and our core values."That's another field of federal failures. The premiers would do well to bring that forward at the same time.

HANNAFORD: Smith too polite to say so, but Trudeau just hijacked Alberta's budget

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