Refugee advocate calls Alberta premier's 'shared values' comments regarding asylum seekers stigmatizing

Premier Danielle Smith is facing criticism for a statement she made Thursday, saying that the province should welcome asylum seekers with the "shared values" of Albertans.

Smith expanded on those comments on her weekend radio show.

"I think that's why we have a lot of peace in Alberta. We have those shared values," the premier said. "They're enshrined in our charter of rights and freedoms, they're enshrined in our Alberta bill of rights. It is the culture of Alberta, and I'm pretty proud of that."

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Smith's comments came in response to a proposed federal policy that would redistribute asylum seekers across Canada instead of mostly in Ontario and Quebec.

She says Alberta should be encouraging people with the values of "freedom, family, faith and community."

She says the province should be welcoming "people who want to work" and "leave the conflicts of their home countries behind."

Critics say governments should not impose subjective values onto asylum seekers.

Raj Sharma, a Calgary-based immigration lawyer and a refugee advocate, told CTV News Edmonton on Monday that Smith's comments about values "can only detract and don't add to the conversation."

"Whenever you talk about values, you have the impermissible use of subjectivity to who's in, who's not, who meets this threshold, who doesn't meet these thresholds," said Sharma, a partner at the Stewart Sharma Harsanyi law firm.

"Whenever we talk about values, this is kind of a dog whistle. Maybe that term is overused as well, but it is, because many, many decades ago, when the Irish came here, there were certain pejorative comments about them, both in the United States and in Canada, because we had large numbers of Irish immigrants coming to Canada as well. And so you had the same comments regarding Italians. You had the same comments regarding Roman Catholics.

"You keep going back, every new community has been stigmatized."

Smith also says the federal program does not properly connect refugees with supports, such as jobs for which they already have a skillset.

She says this places the burden of taking care of them on the provinces and cities.

Federal immigration minister Marc Miller says the relocation plan would include compensation.