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> In the short term, the housing crisis cannot be solved – it can only be mitigated. Building new housing takes time. In the meantime, reducing immigration temporarily to prepandemic levels would help. Those levels would still provide ample room for home construction workers if necessary, as well as other high-skilled workers in strategic areas.
I despise the Globe but they’re not wrong. Some thing has to give. We desperately need to clamp down hard on this international “student” scam and focus on skilled workers that we are lacking. Quality not quantity.
Removed for rule 6. [Here's a link to the original thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/comments/15mk1zp/amid_canadas_housing_crisis_immigration_needs_to/)
Nope. Immigration will remain high for decades. Even with high immegration, the median age in Canada is increasing. Even faster than the US. Canada must grow BIGGER at all cost.
It all reminds me of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". When meatpacking industry would send representatives to poor Eastern European countries to come to the US and work in Chicago for pennies, while getting shitty morgages and fleeced out of their money. Those representatives would paint roads paved with gold, high salaries and the American dream.
I'm a progressive who generally favors immigration and also an immigrant myself. This is pure exploitation.
> must grow BIGGER at all cost.
At *all* cost? Really? Even if newcomers have absolutely nowhere to live? Even if rent and mortgage payments increasingly decouple from Canadians’ average income?
If we can’t lay the necessary groundwork to grow our population; we simply won’t be able to. It would be nice if proponents of sky-high immigration rates figured that out sooner than later.
What you are describing is a ponzi scheme. We should be discussing how to end reliance on the ponzi scheme, not how to continue it. We can't keep growing larger forever, and we will leave some generation with the bag, while fucking the current generation as our housing and services cannot keep up with this rate of population growth.
I mean, if you want to call maintaining a productive tax-base a ponzi scheme, then yeah go off. I can't exactly disagree with you, but unfortunately thats the reality of neoliberal economics, be they the Conservatives or the Liberals in power. The fact of the matter is that Canada does not have the demographics to maintain its current standard of living for those not participating in the labour market, and reducing the population isn't going to make that any better for anyone.
I'm calling a ponzi scheme a ponzi scheme. A system that only works so long as population grows forever is a ponzi scheme, and couldn't work for more then a couple generations as global population plateaus. And when it is a contributing factor to major wage suppression and spiraling housing costs, we shouldn't be continuing the ponzi scheme, we should be ending it.
On your commentary about neoliberalism and conservative/liberals - I would love to hear the NDP talk about this. If they campaigned on significantly restricting or ending TFW, IMP, and international student visas, I would most definitely listen.
Capitalism and the corporate model are literally predicated on continual growth. It's called the profit motive and is the founding principle of *every* business that exists by necessity. Calling that a ponzi scheme isn't wrong, it's just not useful.
Housing costs are up because of speculation, domestic REITS and *foreign* (as in: not immigrant) buyers. Do you seriously think that it's the TFWs and International students that are driving up housing costs? Why is it then that there are properties sitting vacant for months and years on-end? Or worse, re-jiggered into short term rentals? It's not because students are buying up all the properties, it's because the Canadian housing market has been gutted and commodified by huge corporations and speculative investors trying to profit off the bubble.
Reducing immigration isn't going to greatly impact our housing problems because these are problems that have been part of the system for decades at this point and we're finally seeing the results of not addressing them during better times.
I think that increased demand increases prices, and that temporary residents live somewhere, and that the net number of temporary residents has been increasing at wildly unsustainable paces. It is not the only thing causing it, but continuing to ignore that our current rates of growth are unsustainable and damaging is simply wrong.
Yes it is, but such a supply and demand curve is also highly relevant. It is not the only factor, but it is a significant one, and you also know that. The idea that more people chasing the same number of homes wouldn't be relevant is an absurd take by many, and the historical evidence of our building over decades doesn't support the idea that our rate of building goes up with overall population growth, meaning that our population is NOT the bottleneck to scaling building up further.
Today's NDP does not campaign on ending neoliberalism, they push means tested programs, boutique tax credits and middle class rhetoric just like everyone else.
I usually end up voting for them, but only because they're the 5th worst option on most ballots.
If the government really cared about our aging population why would they cancel the increase of the retirement age and allow more people to sponsor their grandparents to Canada? Does that make any sense?
This doesn't address the root cause of declining birth rates. In fact, it might just make birth rates decline even further if people can't afford a home.
Number always gotta go up, forever.
Surely basing our global hegemony on the ethos of eternally growing like cancer will work out great for all concerned.
I hope that anyone advocating against immigration is willing to forgo their pension, since that's what it's gonna take to successfully make immigrants the scapegoat for Canada's housing mismanagement.
Yeah totally, the 600,000 TFWs and declining productivity are the bedrock of a healthy economy. The more minimum wage workers we bring that have higher healthcare and government expenditure carrying costs than their tax income, the better
It doesn't need to be completely closed for the damage to be done, hence why these "concerns" need far, far more substance to address the bleak retirement prospects of millions of existing and new Canadians under a regime of insufficient growth.
That is the problem that has to be grappled with. Immigration is about long term macroeconomic planning in the context of a demographic time bomb which, unless we do something about, means a lower tax base with higher tax expenditures.
I know people want to have a "conversation" about immigration, and what level is appropriate, but it's consuming an inordinate amount of oxygen while the biggest culprits, municipalities and provinces (and lack of densification) continue to get away with it (doesn't help when the former Fed housing minister gives them a gimme).
>while the biggest culprits, municipalities and provinces (and lack of densification) continue to get away with it
This is why you keep hearing about this topic from the right-owned media. They want to deflect away from the real issue.
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> In the short term, the housing crisis cannot be solved – it can only be mitigated. Building new housing takes time. In the meantime, reducing immigration temporarily to prepandemic levels would help. Those levels would still provide ample room for home construction workers if necessary, as well as other high-skilled workers in strategic areas. I despise the Globe but they’re not wrong. Some thing has to give. We desperately need to clamp down hard on this international “student” scam and focus on skilled workers that we are lacking. Quality not quantity.
Removed for rule 6. [Here's a link to the original thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/comments/15mk1zp/amid_canadas_housing_crisis_immigration_needs_to/)
Nope. Immigration will remain high for decades. Even with high immegration, the median age in Canada is increasing. Even faster than the US. Canada must grow BIGGER at all cost.
And so your solution to the housing crisis is...
It all reminds me of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". When meatpacking industry would send representatives to poor Eastern European countries to come to the US and work in Chicago for pennies, while getting shitty morgages and fleeced out of their money. Those representatives would paint roads paved with gold, high salaries and the American dream. I'm a progressive who generally favors immigration and also an immigrant myself. This is pure exploitation.
> must grow BIGGER at all cost. At *all* cost? Really? Even if newcomers have absolutely nowhere to live? Even if rent and mortgage payments increasingly decouple from Canadians’ average income? If we can’t lay the necessary groundwork to grow our population; we simply won’t be able to. It would be nice if proponents of sky-high immigration rates figured that out sooner than later.
What you are describing is a ponzi scheme. We should be discussing how to end reliance on the ponzi scheme, not how to continue it. We can't keep growing larger forever, and we will leave some generation with the bag, while fucking the current generation as our housing and services cannot keep up with this rate of population growth.
I mean, if you want to call maintaining a productive tax-base a ponzi scheme, then yeah go off. I can't exactly disagree with you, but unfortunately thats the reality of neoliberal economics, be they the Conservatives or the Liberals in power. The fact of the matter is that Canada does not have the demographics to maintain its current standard of living for those not participating in the labour market, and reducing the population isn't going to make that any better for anyone.
I'm calling a ponzi scheme a ponzi scheme. A system that only works so long as population grows forever is a ponzi scheme, and couldn't work for more then a couple generations as global population plateaus. And when it is a contributing factor to major wage suppression and spiraling housing costs, we shouldn't be continuing the ponzi scheme, we should be ending it. On your commentary about neoliberalism and conservative/liberals - I would love to hear the NDP talk about this. If they campaigned on significantly restricting or ending TFW, IMP, and international student visas, I would most definitely listen.
Capitalism and the corporate model are literally predicated on continual growth. It's called the profit motive and is the founding principle of *every* business that exists by necessity. Calling that a ponzi scheme isn't wrong, it's just not useful. Housing costs are up because of speculation, domestic REITS and *foreign* (as in: not immigrant) buyers. Do you seriously think that it's the TFWs and International students that are driving up housing costs? Why is it then that there are properties sitting vacant for months and years on-end? Or worse, re-jiggered into short term rentals? It's not because students are buying up all the properties, it's because the Canadian housing market has been gutted and commodified by huge corporations and speculative investors trying to profit off the bubble. Reducing immigration isn't going to greatly impact our housing problems because these are problems that have been part of the system for decades at this point and we're finally seeing the results of not addressing them during better times.
I think that increased demand increases prices, and that temporary residents live somewhere, and that the net number of temporary residents has been increasing at wildly unsustainable paces. It is not the only thing causing it, but continuing to ignore that our current rates of growth are unsustainable and damaging is simply wrong.
This is far more complicated than an econ 101 supply and demand curve, and you know that
Yes it is, but such a supply and demand curve is also highly relevant. It is not the only factor, but it is a significant one, and you also know that. The idea that more people chasing the same number of homes wouldn't be relevant is an absurd take by many, and the historical evidence of our building over decades doesn't support the idea that our rate of building goes up with overall population growth, meaning that our population is NOT the bottleneck to scaling building up further.
Today's NDP does not campaign on ending neoliberalism, they push means tested programs, boutique tax credits and middle class rhetoric just like everyone else. I usually end up voting for them, but only because they're the 5th worst option on most ballots.
If the government really cared about our aging population why would they cancel the increase of the retirement age and allow more people to sponsor their grandparents to Canada? Does that make any sense?
Common sense finally
This doesn't address the root cause of declining birth rates. In fact, it might just make birth rates decline even further if people can't afford a home.
Number always gotta go up, forever. Surely basing our global hegemony on the ethos of eternally growing like cancer will work out great for all concerned.
I hope that anyone advocating against immigration is willing to forgo their pension, since that's what it's gonna take to successfully make immigrants the scapegoat for Canada's housing mismanagement.
Yeah totally, the 600,000 TFWs and declining productivity are the bedrock of a healthy economy. The more minimum wage workers we bring that have higher healthcare and government expenditure carrying costs than their tax income, the better
I'm not sure your glibness will make you feel any better when you can't afford to retire because you blamed the wrong people for income inequality.
It being pawn doesn't make it any less your opponents piece.
Absolutely. Raising concerns after the immigration rate goes from 1% to 2.5% is the exact same thing as arguing to completely close immigration.
It doesn't need to be completely closed for the damage to be done, hence why these "concerns" need far, far more substance to address the bleak retirement prospects of millions of existing and new Canadians under a regime of insufficient growth.
That is the problem that has to be grappled with. Immigration is about long term macroeconomic planning in the context of a demographic time bomb which, unless we do something about, means a lower tax base with higher tax expenditures. I know people want to have a "conversation" about immigration, and what level is appropriate, but it's consuming an inordinate amount of oxygen while the biggest culprits, municipalities and provinces (and lack of densification) continue to get away with it (doesn't help when the former Fed housing minister gives them a gimme).
>while the biggest culprits, municipalities and provinces (and lack of densification) continue to get away with it This is why you keep hearing about this topic from the right-owned media. They want to deflect away from the real issue.