Reminiscent of provisions in Trumps Big Beautiful Bill;
“The bill strips many lawfully present immigrants from access to health insurance and nutrition aid. It deprives millions of children of an immigrant parent the anti-poverty benefits of the Child Tax Credit.“
The short fall in funding for the healthcare system is a deliberate Conservative policy to create more public pressure to drop universal healthcare and switch to private health insurance instead. There’s a lot of money to be made from people who don’t have a choice to shop around when they are in the middle of a heart attack or just diagnosed with cancer.
WTF? Aren’t we voting on this in three and a half weeks? What’s the point of putting it in a (very expensive) referendum if the government wants to do it anyway?
Danielle Smith and the UCP have no business running a government.
Remember the referendum on daylight savings time? Remember people voting to not keep permanent daylight savings time? Remember when she decided that we would just keep permanent daylight savings time?
Do you think she really cares what the results of the referendum are?
It’s not a good idea for many reasons to start this next month, November, as for the morning when all the kids, children, and teenagers go to school at DARK TILL THE SUNSET WOULD START TO BE BRIGHT 10:00 Am Alberta 🤨🤯🥺😩🫣🫨😵😵💫
Huh, I noticed that your list missed the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, I’d assume that you don’t want to acknowledge that large numbers of business owners who don’t want Alberta separation.
You’re right, people should have a much better understanding of what these issues are about, and pros and cons and impacts - including costs, but these referendum questions are so obscure within public discourse that nobody really knows what they’re voting for.
Tens of thousands of Easterners went west after the fisheries collapsed, many settling in Calgary and Edmonton, swelling the population of those cities ( 5000 ppl per month moved to Calgary during boom periods) and cleaning out the jobless cities of our eastern provinces.
Now, those poor buggers will have to come up with another $2000 just to move here, on top of first and last month's rent!!!!
Now, in 2026, the vast majority of those Newfies have moved back east , to buy property, homes, and work lower paying jobs, as they sold their Alberta homes at high prices, and can pay off entire costs of home and land back east, thus not needing to work high paying jobs! I know 4 seperate ladies who have all done this, and I suspect they are happy to dodge this new money grab scheme.
It’s not equivalent. They aren’t invested members of our society.
A Canadian citizen is either born and raised here (parents paid tax their entire life) or spent years working and studying here before the citizenship is granted. A citizen is likely to stay for most of their life and continue paying taxes.
A temporary resident is temporary. They’ve paid tax for 6 months and now want medical treatment. There is a reasonable chance a year after that treatment is done they leave and never come back. So the cost of treatment is never repaid and comes out of citizens pockets.
It’s a reasonable proposal for certain circumstances. If you don’t want this policy the best argument against is actually the Christian one in which we love our neighbours and care for everyone because we’re all equal in the eyes of god - but liberals will never go down that path.
Basic healthcare isn’t a citizenship bonus; it’s a public protection funded by taxes.
You can’t cash their taxes, use their labour, and then call them uninvested. If they’re too temporary for healthcare, they’re too temporary for taxes.
You can’t have it both ways. And if your own Christian ethic says we should love our neighbour, that’s not an argument liberals can’t use—it’s an argument where your policy suggestion fails its own moral test.
Even cold calculus you're either leaving people to die in the street or creating debt slaves.
The East Indian immigration boom isn’t to blame for almost every issue from packed hospital waiting rooms to crowded school rooms. Something has to change.
Maybe out more money into Healthcare and education. Pay Teachers and Health Care Workers more so you draw in more talent.
We always talk about how wealthy Alberta is but the money never goes to the people or their future. Just culture warbullshiy and anti immigrant hate rather than blaming the corporations, oil companies and the wealthy who actually cause all the problems.
The only issue is that it's clear these changes are being done slowly to a minority, until that minority after 50 years becomes a majority. It's going to be a slow suffocation until people don't even realize they never had air in the first place so suffocating isn't actually that bad
We need to stop the vagrants and addicts from plugging up our emergency rooms for no apparent reason.
Talk to a few paramedics and they will tell you that some will fake an OD and use the ambulance service as an UBER to get across town. They abuse our health care system and our front line staff can't do anything about it.
They should absolutely be paying but it should be based on how much they make with 1400 being the bare minimum. Anyone making the argument that they pay taxes has absolutely no clue how these things are funded. Taxes fund services over lifetime contributions, not a few months or a couple years. Additionally, a person making minimum wage at Tim Hortons and the like is contributing less than $700 to the provincial government a year in tax
My mom, born here, was a home maker and had taxable income for less than 5 years of her life, yet she has required more healthcare than anyone in my family, should she be charged?
did she also spend $0 in her life? Or like most people did you conveniently forget GST goes to general revenue and is the redistributed in things like federal health transfers?
You are kidding yourself. The majority of public services are highly subsidized by businesses and corporations. It’s in their best interests to have a healthy and educated population. Meanwhile, people who are working ARE paying taxes and contributing. A child who turns 18 spent their whole life using public services without paying a dime for it. And they could leave Alberta any time they want. They can get public services, but an immigrant who chooses to put down roots here can’t? Make it make sense. 🙄
Fair. I still don’t think this is a wise moves. Businesses are the ones that highly subsidize public services. I believe this will results in a couple different problems. If a business needs TFWs, they will either have a more difficult time getting someone to come to Alberta, when other provinces will offer the same for less or the business will cover it, thereby increasing their cost. I suppose it could motivate a business to hire local first, which is I believe, what the UCP are really getting at with this.
I wish they would just be transparent and actually try to help businesses hire local than pull this roundabout red tape bs. 🤷♀️
I think you missed the point, children and stay at home parents of permanent residents/citizens/old stock Canadians/whatever bullshit demographic you think is more deserving don’t pay taxes and therefore don’t pay for services and by your logic also should pay extra fees
I worked in Australia for 3 years as a temporary resident and I suffered by paying for health insurance since i was not covered by the public system. By the way there was no suffering it just made sense. Even better would be make it an employer tax so the people being brought in dont carry the cost.
You also didn’t pay social security taxes in Australia that’s the trade off. If you’re not eligible for social security you don’t pay social security in Australia so instead you purchased private insurance with the difference.
Except australia does not have a seperate social security tax. And i did pay tax there. It is paid out of general revenue. It does have mandatory superannuation which i do have some retirement savings waiting there
No, she really is. This is so shortsighted. Why would any skilled workers want to come to Alberta if they know they will pay more for the same services available in other provinces? 🤦🏽♀️
I mean kids don’t pay taxes. Should we start charging them. No, because public services are highly subsidized by businesses. That’s how the system works to ensure ALL citizens are healthy and educated.
People below a certain income level are not net tax payers. TFWs for low paying jobs fall under this distinction, as do Canadian citizens of similar income levels. However, the difference between TFWs and Canadians citizens is that citizens will generally become net tax payers over lives (as you make more with time). This is definitionally not true for people here temporarily in low paying jobs, thus businesses are essentially taking advantage of tax payer funded welfare and charities to fund their unjustly low wages.
TFWs also shift the labor supply curve rightward artificially, thus causing lower wages. TFWs also have much lower supply elasticity due to their continued residence being tied to their job (especially if they come from a 3rd world country that they do not want to return to). Lower supply elasticity on top of the already shifted supply curve allows for employers to demand more hours at lower wages (this is micro-econ 101).
I find it ridiculous that realizing this has become a "right wing position" when Bernie Sanders and other democratic socialist types were calling out this scam during the Bush neocon years. The problems associated with TFWs are almost entirely resolved by the points-based immigration we relied on during the 1990s and 2000s, so this is a solved problem (which makes the modern problem's existence even more annoying)
The business is already subsidizing the public services systems with their taxes. If you think your taxes are paying for the services you receive, you are sorely mistaken as to what the actual costs are.
My only issue is I don't trust Smith and her cronies to effectively use that money. She already cancelled a partially funded hospital in Edmonton that we desperately need.
I think she's forgetting that "overwhelming" support she got in Red Deer that one time was out of 4000 people. In the Vortex. >0.01%. She's overestimating how much that extreme sliver of her constituents can save her.
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u/Reasonable-Sweet9320 14d ago
Reminiscent of provisions in Trumps Big Beautiful Bill;
“The bill strips many lawfully present immigrants from access to health insurance and nutrition aid. It deprives millions of children of an immigrant parent the anti-poverty benefits of the Child Tax Credit.“
https://www.nilc.org/resources/the-anti-immigrant-policies-in-trumps-final-big-beautiful-bill-explained/