Alberta is two and a half years removed from hearing Premier Danielle Smith declare her government looked forward optimistically to doubling the province’s population to 10 million people by 2050.

She also spent part of 2024 repeatedly musing that Red Deer, with its 106,000 residents, ought to swell to one million.

But that was then. Times have changed.

Certainly, the public mood toward immigration has changed, all over Canada, as a recent surge in newcomers (though not quite as aggressive as Smith had fancied) strained housing and some public services.

Alberta’s budget picture has changed, too — lower than expected oil prices jerking the province from an $8.3 billion surplus in Smith’s more-bullish-on-immigration days to a big deficit this year, and another bath of red ink the premier has forewarned will come in next Thursday’s budget.