Canada Immigration discussion

[adamyyc]

We're way off on urban development and proposals but I'll just add my two cents. Definitely don't appreciate the blame on the international immigrant for where the country is, unless you're indigenous, you or your family came here wanting what all immigrants want, a better life.

International immigration numbers need to come down. I'm not a scholar so take the next part for what you will and I don't believe all our problem's are "the immigrant" but more people coming here (from Ontario and BC too) has increased demand for services that were already stretched after the post-covid demand. It has increased the labour market which has been good for businesses but it hasn't helped my wage (which went up only 1.92% in the last 18 months). I have theory that if there was less labour available not actually that much less work would be getting done, people would be paid more to do more, increasing our productivity (GDP).

What some people have posted in this thread is prejudice and shameful. You can have theories about immigration without being prejudice. It isn't just international immigration to blame but you conveniently forgot about the fact our provincial government told people from other province's to come here while our services were already stretched. Meanwhile all the opposition can do is setup town halls about some pension thing that isn't even happening. So yeah, there are people to get mad at but not the people you're targeting.

Agreed, not the right forum, but I’m not sure if I’m being lumped in to the “some people being prejudiced and shameful” so I just want to defend myself if I’ve given off the wrong impression, because I’m not at all anti-immigration, but there are a lot of people who agree that we’re currently in a “too my much too quick scenario” (e.g., National Bank of Canada economists: https://globalnews.ca/news/10229466/canada-immigration-reform-population-trap-economists/amp/).

 

[AtlanticAvenue]

I’d also like to express my views incase my post came off the wrong way.

Like adamyyc I am not anti-immigration and I see this as a “too much too quick” scenario. Immigration is inherently good as it creates bonds between countries and people, and provides a stable place to live and grow for people who may not be able to attain the life they intend. However it needs to be done in moderation to avoid crisis’ such as the ones we’ve developed in the past years.

 

[darwink]

In the late 80s Downtown Vancouver and West End had about half the population of today so around 50k. That’s not a huge amount more than Calgary Downtown today (38k) and a similar size.

Granted we aren’t going to urbanize the downtown for living quite like Vancouver did as Calgary can sprawl. However more and more young people do want that downtown lifestyle so it’ll definitely increase rapidly by the time we hit 2.5 million.

The west end/downtown Vancouver's population was suppressed for a long time due to down zoning enacted due to aesthetic preferences of homeowners which was weighed as more important than providing places to live.

 

[CBBarnett]

I’d also like to express my views incase my post came off the wrong way.

Agreed, not the right forum, but I’m not sure if I’m being lumped in to the “some people being prejudiced and shameful” so I just want to defend myself if I’ve given off the wrong impression, because I’m not at all anti-immigration, but there are a lot of people who agree that we’re currently in a “too my much too quick scenario” (e.g., National Bank of Canada economists: https://globalnews.ca/news/10229466/canada-immigration-reform-population-trap-economists/amp/).

While I disagree with some of your comments, yours were not the inciting post. I respect your positions and the debate you brought to the discussion. Debate is healthy when disagreeing viewpoints cooperate in good faith to have a discussion, which I think you both largely do on this topic and others... that are more on topic.

What is not healthy was the original post that triggered this whole detour. Totally off topic by a repeat offender, full of white replacement conspiracy nonsense, anti-immigrant, and nationalistic positions divorced from facts and is clearly not argued in good faith. This would be true in other forums too, but even more so in one dedicated to growth and development. The original post is detrimental to the health of this forum and our ability to have quality discussions development issues.

There's a difference between your posts and the original bad faith inciting post. Most people will (or at least should) recognize that. We actually need to if we want to keep debate healthy, and avoid SRC becoming the new SSP for those that remember those days.

 

[CBBarnett]

In the late 80s Downtown Vancouver and West End had about half the population of today so around 50k. That’s not a huge amount more than Calgary Downtown today (38k) and a similar size.

Granted we aren’t going to urbanize the downtown for living quite like Vancouver did as Calgary can sprawl. However more and more young people do want that downtown lifestyle so it’ll definitely increase rapidly by the time we hit 2.5 million.

Yeah it will be interesting to see the differences. If we can avoid the affordability trap and price escalations that Vancouver fell into, which still adding and encouraging densities, you might end up with a unique model that we haven't really seen in Canada yet.

Outside of Montreal, I have to think that Calgary is leading in low-rise infill development forms given the rapid growth and wide distribution of them (pretty much everywhere). This form will not be able to accomodate a large share of growth, so higher densities will be needed, but it's light-years ahead of the preservationist and locked down communities that are just not trying to be opened up in Vancouver and Toronto. We lag a lot in the higher density categories, but even the infill growth will trigger new clusters and opportunities in areas we probably aren't even talking about yet. This will make Calgary a pretty dynamic place in the coming decades.

 

[Red Star]

Let's please keep white replacement theory off this message board, thanks. Also, please note that people here on student visas (or any other temporary visa) are not immigrants and have little to nothing to do with immigration policy. If you're going to make these xenophobic comments, you could actually get some of your facts correct.

As for whether immigration has led to "ethnic segregation" and inter-ethnic conflict, people have been saying those kinds of things for as long as they have been migrating to North America. Check out Benjamin Franklin's comments about the "swarthy", "undisciplined" Germans who were opening up businesses and newspapers that communicated exclusively in German! The horror!

The comments made by YourBoy007 were very poignant about the current socio-economic state of affairs and on urban development. He has every right to voice his opinion on a public forum. You also didn't really address his comments...you were snarky and condescending, but I didn't come away from reading that post with any value gained.

The truth of the matter is, mass migration is the battering ram of capitalism.

 

[Golfing guy]

This page is turning into SSP in front of our eyes

 

[gsunnyg]

The comments made by YourBoy007 were very poignant about the current socio-economic state of affairs and on urban development. He has every right to voice his opinion on a public forum. You also didn't really address his comments...you were snarky and condescending, but I didn't come away from reading that post with any value gained.

The truth of the matter is, mass migration is the battering ram of capitalism.

I believe it's appropriate to discuss political policies such as immigration in the context of housing, infrastructure, and related topics on this forum, as long as the discussion remains objective. However, some points from the original comments by Yourboy007 seemed more suited for a platform where social policies are the primary focus, such as Reddit. While I could delve deeper by engaging in a mud-slinging, back-and-forth by providing examples of subtle, in-person rental discrimination by a handful of racist caucasian Canadians, I prefer that we focus on discussions around urban development on this forum.

It's important to recognize that there are negative individuals in every group, and the process of immigrants fully assimilating into the broader Canadian culture often takes a generation or two. What confuses me, though, is why cultural issues are being discussed on an urban development forum.

This page is turning into SSP in front of our eyes

Agreed. We should stick to conversations related to urban development. Someone needs to drop a 40-storey tower proposal ASAP to divert from this topic

 

[BKha]

How, specifically, do you know that 18 students are "international"?

It’s super easy to know which students are international students. Students generally talk to each other.

For the record, I'm not against international students, overall I think it's a net benefit to Canada, as they help bring in money to the country and to our universities. I also don't see any issues on cutting back on international students if housing is tight. We can work on increasing housing and once it's at a better level, we can increase student counts.

 

[trtcttc]

What % of our population are we bringing in every year? It was always about 1%, which seems stable, but it seems far higher right now. I definitely think we need to pump the brakes on it a bit, affordability is a full blown crisis right now and everything seems to be making it worse.

We are now increasing at 1.1% in the last QUARTER alone. It is incredible how we border water, ice, and the wealthiest country on earth, yet are able to manifest an immigration crisis. They are all within government programs too. International students are a big share (less so in AB), and temporary foreign workers. The TFW are largely agricultural workers, but now a higher percentage are low wage, low skill labour (fast food chains, hotels, etc.) The government should've recognized that it is unreasonable to expect business as usual after the pandemic, there will be shortages, there will be issues.
The solution was not to bring in millions more people because businesses refused to pay higher wages then complain of a labour shortage. It is a myth that a labour shortage is a "shortage" at all. A healthy labour market should always be a little short on labour, that's how wages and living standard improve. Firms will also be more interested in investing in their workforce, see the National Bank report on labour capital stock. It's why in the US, where there is a shortage of labour, many low wage firms offer employees education funds, healthcare for part-time workers and other benefits beyond the wages they pay. I am not advocating for the US system, it is undoubtedly worse to be a low wage worker in the US because of the lower level of government support, but they're forcing employers to bear more of that burden.
This is also unfair for the immigrants that come here. My family came here as immigrants in the early 2000s. I benefited from the generous healthcare system, the schools that provided ESL and other services. we were able to live in a decent neighborhood with a decent standard of living. That is so far out of reach for immigrants and young people today. The low wage TFWs are also short on information, and invest a huge sum of their savings for a "Canadian Dream" that doesn't exist.
This level of population increase also hurts locals, in terms of healthcare, overcrowded schools, or having a family in the first place. I have friends in Toronto in their early 30s buying their first home, a 800 sqft apartment with 1 bedroom and a den. They are university educated, lawyers, business professionals, accountants, etc. yet they're not able to have a family probably until they're 40 or move 3 hours away from family and friends. I voted for this current gov when I was in university, so I guess I only have myself to blame, but the level of mismangement is quite baffling.

The Daily — Canada's population estimates, third quarter 2023

Canada's population was estimated at 40,528,396 on October 1, 2023, an increase of 430,635 people (+1.1%) from July 1. This was the highest population growth rate in any quarter since the second quarter of 1957 (+1.2%), when Canada's population grew by 198,000 people. At the time, Canada's...

www150.statcan.gc.ca

Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is ballooning to fill the labour gap, but workers say they’re abused and poorly paid. Is that the solution we want?

Loosened restrictions now allow many employers to hire twice as many migrant workers as before. In the first half of 2022, approvals to hire shot up by more than 60 per cent.

www.thestar.com

https://www.nbc.ca/content/dam/bnc/...-eco/etude-speciale/special-report_240115.pdf (you will note where the spikes and changes start taking place)

 

[darwink]

Yeah, the international student issue, some people found the doorway and forced it open, and the provinces exercised no control over the colleges (both public and private) who massively increased their enrolment, and the feds had until this surge no reason to be wary.

It is, I am not sure if ironic is the right terms, though, if we hadn't had the surge, all our news today would be about massive labour shortages and how places are reducing hours.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

This probably a poorly informed statement but there are some synergies with our dueling predicaments:
1. A global lack of people, and Canada is no different (decreasing birthrate) although as a non-primary-manufacturing nation we're better off, that has led to some labour shortages.
2. We're increasingly on the brink of labour innovation (AI and robotics).

Taken together, this could mean increased individual earnings because of a lack of people to do the work and increased production because of AI and robotics that make tasks easier. This would mean a smaller, richer, and likely healthier population puts less demand of services, services become more economically and overall efficient.

The problem is this: The timing is a little off.

Boomers are getting older and more reliant on the system (mostly healthcare). We haven't innovated enough to make up for them leaving the workforce (labour shortages). Not to mention making up for the income taxes they paid (leaving out the fact that government costs have gone up to try and get people (mothers) in the workforce: child care tax credit, etc.).

If the reason immigration has increased were explained, and if it actually was better managed (matching immigration and demand on services (healthcare, housing, etc.)) than I think we could have a grown up conversation about where we are and where we're going.

I'll say it in three sentences:
Immigration will be slowed down so services can catch up, and then temporarily increased. This is because our falling birthrate and aging population has put us in a circumstance of a labour shortage, that we have not been able to make up for. Then once innovation and AI and robotics can make up for the labour shortages, we will tailor our immigration to our needs.

We put a man on the moon in a decade, we came up with a vaccine for a world altering virus in a year. We must demand more than incremental change. It's right there in front of us, we can fix this faster than what is thought possible. The liberals are searching the political wilderness for a rally cry for people, they actually have the answer in their filing cabinet. Slow down immigration, cause a labour shortage, force innovation. Sure, there are negatives, like reduced hours,but I'll take a reduced hours McDonald's over the current situation.

 

[MissingMiddle]

I'll throw my 2 cents in, but I'll keep it concise.

Canada & the USA have systematically gutted the middle and lower class for the last 40+ years, our birth rate is declining because people cannot afford to have kids - leading to an aging population, and a future social bill we blatently cannot afford.

Immigration has been unsustainably relied upon to solve this problem for Canada. Couple that with restrictive zoning, lack of transportation options, corporations and landlords commodifying housing, labor shortages (skilled trades), and material supply chain problems, the cost of housing is the defining issue of my generation. This mix of reasons is widely accepted by research experts in housing, both internationally and abroad.

The immigration system is a part of the problem, and reforming it would help, but that's not all of it - our problems won't magically go away once we reform immigration. I'm not saying we shouldn't, but there's a lot of things wrong right now.

 

[gsunnyg]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/international-students-provinces-volume-1.7085915

Now why on earth would they not include Alberta in this, even though it's the fastest-growing province with the fastest-growing housing crisis right now? Sure international students don't take up a large number in Alberta as they do in BC and Ontario but any restrictions in place would help control the surge in housing prices. Another example of Alberta getting a short stick from the Feds unless the UCP had a say in this.

 

[CBBarnett]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/international-students-provinces-volume-1.7085915

Now why on earth would they not include Alberta in this, even though it's the fastest-growing province with the fastest-growing housing crisis right now? Sure international students don't take up a large number in Alberta as they do in BC and Ontario but any restrictions in place would help control the surge in housing prices. Another example of Alberta getting a short stick from the Feds unless the UCP had a say in this.

It’s this chart that’s driving lots of this, Alberta talks a big game but that is really just political posturing, and anti-Ottawa bias. Ontario universities and colleges are the main source of the issue nationally :
https://x.com/mikepmoffatt/status/1747647421746725157?s=46&t=pfyA_Zm55vqyaFyL2drg2A