In her evening address to the province, Premier Smith announced that her cabinet and Treasury Board have approved a new school construction accelerator program to address the province's exploding student enrollment growth.
"We will be increasing our K to 12 capital budget for new school spaces and modernizations to approximately $8.6 billion over the next three years," she said. "This will allow us to complete actual construction on approximately 50,000 new student spaces over the next three years and to complete and open 150,000 new spaces over the next four years."
Smith noted that the estimated increase of 33,000 students annually requires roughly 35 new schools each year, and despite what she called a record $2.1 billion allocation for school construction, the province is facing a shortage of educational infrastructure.
She noted that this will be 'quite literally the fastest and largest build' the province can manage, given the 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 must 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 specialized modular classrooms to provide over 20,000 new student spaces over the next four years."
A portion of the new funding will be to pilot a charter school accelerator program designed to add 12,500 new student spaces over the next four years.
"We are also developing a school capital pilot program for nonprofit private schools to incentivize investment in the creation of thousands of new independent school student spaces at a reduced per-student cost to taxpayers."
Premier Smith emphasized the government's commitment to funding new school projects but urged school boards and municipalities to expedite site preparation and permitting so that construction can start.
"Often, 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."
She called for collaboration between school boards, municipalities, and the Ministry of Education to ensure priority school sites are ready for immediate construction. Smith also invited charter schools to submit shovel-ready proposals for new projects or renovations, with funding to follow, stressing the importance of this effort, particularly in high-growth areas like Calgary, Edmonton, and Rocky View.
While her address was focused on what the government would do for education in the province, she was critical of the federal government's immigration policy under Prime Minister Trudeau.
"Canada's previous immigration policies under leaders like Prime Minister Stephen Harper, for example, focused on ensuring that immigration levels matched our nation's economic needs and were 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."
She cited challenges such as housing shortages, rising costs of living, and strained public services to better align with the province’s economic needs.
"If the current federal government won't make these changes, our government will certainly support a new one that will," Premier Smith said. "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."
Smith ended her televised address by celebrating Alberta's success and resilience, calling for continued collaboration to meet growth challenges.
On Wednesday morning, the Premier will be joined by Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides, Infrastructure Minister Peter Guthrie, and other education partners to 'announce an initiative to address growing enrolment in K-12 schools.' More details regarding Smith's plan are expected to be announced tomorrow.
Naheed Nenshi, leader of Alberta's official opposition, the Alberta New Democratic Party (NDP), is also expected to comment on Smith's address.