Canada’s housing minister says the federal government isn’t ruling out changes to its ambitious immigration targets, but maintains the country should also focus on what it can do to increase housing supply when it comes to addressing current housing challenges.
This is extremely irresponsible politicking on behalf of the Liberals. It is a right-populist distraction from the issue of the housing crisis that opens up a highway for the Tories.
This country needs immigrants and it needs housing. Neither the Tories nor the Liberals are doing anything to address that.
INB4 “Math is racist”.
Immigration is critical to our future, and given our fertility rates we don’t have many options. But for everyone person we bring into the country that’s one less bed available to anyone already here.
Personally if it were me I’d only allow trades people to come in until we actually have any sort of plan on how to deal with the housing crisis. We have tent cities all across this country right now and an epidemic of homeless people, more and more of which were “normal” Canadians.
The Feds need to treat housing like the infrastructure it is, and get off their asses to do something (anything?) about it.
Our problems are entirely policy and zoning based. Having swoths of low density single-family homes with poor access to public transit is the problem.
Sure having less people does make it less of a problem but it’s never going to fix it and it’s an insane take to suggest otherwise
I hate that there is still so much pushback against density when any neighbourhood close to a little bit of density is seeing massive conversion of SFH into multi rental units. Seems like it would be a lot easier to just start by building denser units.
I think any sane person can see at this point we’re reliant on immigration to make any chance at a balanced budget.
Agreed. Immigration is a must
You can have your arguments with the wind all you want. As the discontent with housing keeps growing, more and more people will reach for the obvious solution of stopping increasing the bodies to beds ratio. Whether this makes economic sense or not. Once this group reaches significant enough proportion, they’ll get pipsqueak in office and then shit’s gonna get real.
In order to avoid this, the LPC may have to play a bit of the immigration card, in order to defuse this and be able to say - see we reduced immigration and the problem is still bad, it’s the other solution we really need, and pipsqueak’s immigration promises won’t do shit for you!
Why stop there? Why don’t we just get rid of everyone Canadian residents included if you’re so eager to find a non-solution.
Withiout a skilled younger generation to support our aging population our economy will collapse, we need more people and we need better planned housing.
Careful, you almost went mask off there
The NDP won’t win the next federal election.
Either the LPC or the CPC will win it.
CPC will cut immigration for sure and likely by a lot.
The LPC might cut immigration if they have to. If they do, they will cut less than what the CPC would.
Which one of the two options produces more immigration?
I’m struggling to find relevence in the non-sequitor here but obviously the current government favors it more than the conservatives.
That is not the issue at hand.
Agreed. Fix the situation internally before we can help those externally. I’m all for providing help to those that need it, but when we don’t have the resources to help anyone, we need to do something about it.
It’s not about helping those in need, it’s about propping up the Canadian economy so that it continues to grow.
Immigration is critical to our future, and given our fertility rates we don’t have many options. But for [every one] person we bring into the country[,] that’s one less bed available to anyone already here.
Correct. The problem is people won’t die as early as they used to; and so we either raise the retirement age or we care for our old people with temporary foreign workers who then leave before they burden the system they prop up. It’s worked for many other countries.
See how the Tory withdrawal of accessible care will fix the ageing problem, though? Yay! Going all American with mercenary healthcare and ‘f u grandma’ with everything else is also how the Tory plan will kill grandpa with life-expectancy changes.
Personally if it were me I’d only allow trades people to come in until we actually have any sort of plan on how to deal with the housing crisis.
Let’s build matchstick bungalows and low-dense firetrap apartments as far as the eye can see. I love it when one guy leaving a stove on or burning a candle in 4c renders an entire building of people homeless.
And let’s grab resources before we have a plan? Ready, fire, aim?
There are planned communities of high-density, mixed-use buildings that better alleviate housing, better localize services and provide space for mom-n-pop stores and use central space more effectively allowing us to give back excess space for greenspace and carbon capture.
Space is being used by bungalows, single-family 1- or two- storey dwellings hoarding greenspace and stretching infrastructure into an unmanageable sprawl (see: Detroit).
We have tent cities all across this country right now and an epidemic of homeless people, more and more of which were “normal” Canadians.
An appeal to charity is a logical fallacy meant to cloud the issue, although your inclusion here was probably accidental.
‘Which’ in place of ‘whom’ renders people into objects. Careful.
The Feds need to treat housing like the infrastructure it is, and get off their asses to do something (anything?) about it.
There are so many problems with this one too. Initially: perceived inaction is not indicative of a lack of planning; that’s what proper planning looks like on the outside. ‘Ready fire aim’ won’t get you in on the planning sessions, though, so you may need to wait for the experts to do their job.
Just stop electing cruel anti-people leaders backed by land-baron donators, let the people do their work, and ensure the more progressive leaders who will champion these ideas get and stay where they’re needed.
Personally if it were me I’d only allow trades people to come in until we actually have any sort of plan on how to deal with the housing crisis.
What qualifies a plan as “having any sort of plan”? How long do you expect that to take?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Fraser said he believes the federal government has “some work to do” with its temporary immigration programs, which currently operate on the basis of demand in an “uncapped way,” but doesn’t “necessarily” need to reduce the number of newcomers who become permanent residents each year.
Academics, commercial banks, opposition politicians and policy thinkers, however, have been warning the federal government the country’s high-growth immigration strategy is exacerbating Canada’s housing crisis.
In a July report, economists from TD estimated that if the current immigration strategy continues, Canada’s housing shortfall could widen by about half a million units in just two years’ time.
Fraser previously said putting a cap on the number of international students permitted to study in this country is one of the solutions the federal government is discussing when it comes to addressing housing affordability and rental availability.
Fraser said the federal government, along with its provincial and institutional partners, have to ensure that international students — many of whom have reported struggles to find affordable and adequate housing in Canada — are supported and communities have the capacity to “absorb them” when they arrive here.
“If we were going to shift the way that we operate, to set a target or to align the numbers with the housing capacity, it’s a monumental change in the way that Canada does immigration,” Fraser said.
The original article contains 665 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 67%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Where are we going to put 465k immigrants this year? then 485k next year then 500k in 2 years? In what schools all those kids will go? In what hospitals all those ill people will go? I understand we need immigrants, I’m one, but we are missing housing and all others services!
Well, now you’ve used the ladder to climb up, you should yank that ladder up and prevent others. Hypocrisy is fun, but it does expose your voting habits.
100%. It is interesting that we never see these numbers with context. Is always just “half a million immigrants coming in” but never numbers that give some perspective along with that such deficit of skilled labour needed per industry or a deficit of births (something in the lines of that). Is always out of context numbers that support people with the theoretic that immigration is the main issue and that immigrants are arriving to work on unskilled jobs.
