It was just six months ago that Premier Danielle Smith was bragging about Alberta’s population growth and cheerfully predicting that we would hit 10 million people by 2050. Remember “Alberta is Calling?”

She even named the city of Red Deer — current population 160,000 — and said she could see it mushrooming to a million. “Because if you have that kind of population base, through the corridor, all of a sudden it makes sense to bring passenger rail from Calgary to Red Deer and on to Edmonton to connect this entire corridor. And I hope that’s what you’re looking forward to in a few years’ time,” she mused hopefully.