Premier's Address to the Province

My fellow Albertans,

Alberta’s economy is entering yet another period of major economic growth.

As all of us well know, our province has long enjoyed a significant employment, cost of living and income tax advantage over all other provinces and most US states.

That Alberta Advantage is acting as a significant catalyst for the infusion of tens of billions of new investment dollars into the Alberta economy for new energy, agriculture, health care, manufacturing, technology and other large-scale projects and new business ventures.

This means tens of thousands of new job openings in Alberta each month.

Which means thousands of new people and their families moving here to help fill those new job positions.

Last year alone, an all-time record of over 200,000 people moved to Alberta. That’s like adding 2 new Red Deer size cities in just one year!

Now Alberta has always welcomed newcomers who possess our shared values - and we will continue to do so.

Welcoming those who believe in working hard, protecting our freedoms, contributing to society, following the rule of law, and who have a deep respect for other cultures and faiths different from their own, have long been a strength of our provincial culture and history.

Equally as important though, Canada’s previous immigration policies under leaders like Prime Minister Stephen Harper as an example, focused on ensuring that immigration levels matched our nation’s economic needs and was commensurate with our ability to build enough houses and infrastructure to keep up with that growth.

However, the Trudeau Government’s unrestrained open border policies permitting well over a million newcomers each year into Canada is causing significant challenges, and has broken this delicate balance.

These historically high immigration levels - especially as it relates to those with temporary visas - is exacerbating shortages in housing, job opportunities for young people, as well as health, education and other social services infrastructure in a manner that is a severe challenge for all provinces to keep up with, including our own.

This drives up the cost of living and strains public services for everyone - new Albertans, life-long Albertans and everyone in between.

So I am joining with other Premiers across our country in calling on the current federal government to immediately reintroduce sensible and restrained immigration policies - similar to levels we saw under Stephen Harper - so that all provinces have some time and resources to sustainably catch up with growth, and to ensure those coming here closely align with our country’s economic needs and our core values.

And if the current Federal Government won’t make these changes, our government will certainly support a new one that will.

In the meantime, people from all over Canada and around the world are still coming to our province by the tens of thousands each month, and we have to do what we can to keep up.

Not only that, we have to do so while continuing to balance our provincial budget and delivering on our promised income tax cut in the next Budget that will help all Albertans offset the loss of income that Albertans face from the Federal carbon tax and other inflation-driving policies from Ottawa.

One of the most critical growth shortages we are experiencing is found in our K to 12 education system.

After several years of very modest student enrollment growth from around 2015 through the Covid years, Alberta’s student population is now surging in an unprecedented fashion.

We estimate that it is increasing at about 33,000 students per year - that is the equivalent to roughly 35 new schools each year!

And although Budget 2024 allocated a record $2.1 billion for new school construction and modernizations over the next 3 years to add about 33,000 new spaces - this is simply not enough for the growth we are experiencing.

Fortunately, our province enjoyed a provincial surplus this past year and prospects for another modest surplus this year are looking good.

That strong financial position gives us the flexibility we need to make a large one-time capital investment into our K to 12 school system to manage this massive growth without having to go into deficit.

And that is exactly what our government is going to do.

I am announcing today that our Cabinet and Treasury Board have approved a new School Construction Accelerator Program to help keep up with our province’s exploding student enrollment growth.

Here is how the new program will work:

We will be increasing our K to 12 capital budget for new school spaces and modernizations to approximately $8.6 billion dollars over the next 3 years.

This will allow us to complete actual construction on approximately 50,000 new student spaces over the next 3 years - and to complete and open over 150,000 new spaces over the 4 years after that.

This is quite literally the fastest and largest build our province can manage given available construction workforce capacity and the time it takes to permit, prepare and service available school sites.

Although most of these school construction funds will be used to build new schools, we will need to implement a stop gap solution as we ramp up to full construction capacity

That is why this new program will also fund the purchase of new specialized modular classrooms to provide over 20,000 new student spaces over the next 4 years.

Further, as our government is wholly committed to the principle of providing school choice for parents, we will be using a portion of this new funding to pilot a Charter School accelerator program designed to add 12,500 new charter school student spaces over the next 4 years.

And finally, we are 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.

There is no time to lose in getting our school construction accelerator program off the ground right now.

To accelerate school construction immediately, our cabinet has just approved full construction funding for new school projects, but we need all hands on deck to begin construction on many more schools before the end of this school year.

Oftentimes the only thing holding back construction of a new school is a school board or municipality not having the site prepared or permitted for construction.

That is why I am asking all school boards to work with their respective municipalities and the Ministry of Education on an expedited basis to get priority school sites permitted, serviced and otherwise prepared for immediate construction work. If you can prepare the sites, the province will have the dollars set aside to get shovels in the ground.

Same goes for our Charter schools - bring us proposals and permits for new shovel-ready projects and renovations that will result in new student spaces, and we will work with you on making an appropriate level of funding available depending on the project.

And municipalities - we ask that you make this a top priority in your communities - especially in our high-growth areas such as Calgary, Edmonton, Rocky view and other growing mid-sized cities. Cut the red tape. Permit and service the sites to our public, catholic, charter and private schools. We must all lend ourselves to this effort together.

Obviously our provincial growth will necessitate expansion and investment in other areas in addition to education…health and transportation infrastructure most especially…and that is also being worked on daily.

But this School Construction Accelerator Program is ready to commence now. So let’s work together to build the schools, create the spaces and hire the teachers we need so our children have what they need to flourish, grow and build their lives with. Because providing the next generation of Albertans with unprecedented opportunity here at home is what the Alberta Advantage is really all about.

Our province has become a beacon of freedom, opportunity, quality of life and prosperity for millions across our country and around the world. And with that incredible success comes very real growth challenges.

But we are Albertan. There has never been nor will there ever be any challenge too large for us to overcome and conquer together.

May our province forever remain strong and free.

Thank-you and good night.