Canada Immigration discussion

[Nawads]

I 100% support reasonable immigration policies. We need it to keep some growth. But it has been out of control. The bigger issue for me isn't even necessarily housing cost. But the fact that its keeping Wages low, but bringing in cheaper TFW. Companies never have to offer wage increases because there are so many people vying for jobs. I always keep my eye on the job market and Most jobs I look at on Linkedin at least say 100-1000 people have applied. That to me, does not indicate any Labour shortage that the government keeps talking about.

 

[trtcttc]

The labour shortage has been drastically overstated that people regularly believe it as a justification for our current immigration levels. In a healthy economy of close to full employment, when someone leaves a job, gets laid off, graduates school, it takes time for them to train for a new job, relocate to where there is a job, etc. Companies have been led to believe they can have labour whenever they need and if they have difficulty hiring, we got a shortage. That is just the nature of a functioning economy. We have labour shortage in specific fields, for example, Alberta is in desperate need of anesthesiologist. The immigration levels are not helping fill that shortage. The skill is very specialized that the hospitals have specific recruiting teams that try to recruit individuals to fill those roles. If Tim Hortons is claiming a labour shortage (they are one of the largest TFW program users), they should pay people more, automate more of their production, provide other incentives (education training fund, franchise ownership share, etc.) to fill those roles.

Here is a little tidbit from the Dec 2023 employment report, note the section that immigration "didn't translate into significant growth in the labour force". Essentially immigrants simply added to demand without any increase in the labour force. We have a continually decreasing employment rate, which results in a higher dependency ratio, exactly the thing immigration is supposed to fix? The labour market is complex, when you bring in so many new people, there's a lot of unintended consequences. I am for immigration, but it needs to be considered and adjusted in small increments to see the impact, versus test out the highest population increase in the developed world and let's cross our fingers it's going to work out.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

www.bloomberg.com

The population aged 15 and older grew by 74,000 in December, on par with average monthly population growth in 2023 of 79,000. Yet this time, it didn’t translate into significant growth in the labor force.
The employment rate — the proportion of the working-age population with jobs — continued to trend lower. It fell 0.2 percentage points to 61.6% in December, the fifth decline in the past six months, and down from its recent high of 62.5% in January 2023.

 

[darwink]

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.

Alberta doesn’t have this problem in comparison.

 

[CBBarnett]

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.

Also relevant, the provinces also helped place additional financial pressure on universities and colleges by failing to fund them adequately and cutting their budgets. It helped force their need to find alternative sources of revenues to sustain themselves - international students being one area that proved very lucrative.

Had the provinces done their jobs better, the incentive would have been reduced to need international students to the degree that some colleges have tried, particularly in Ontario. But that's not convenient politically - much more useful to convert a provincial funding and mis-management issue into a federal immigration one. Health care has many similarities - provinces are always trying to find ways to blame Ottawa for political reasons, to obscure the reality that they have often mis-manage their own portfolios.

 

[DougB]

Also relevant, the provinces also helped place additional financial pressure on universities and colleges by failing to fund them adequately and cutting their budgets. It helped force their need to find alternative sources of revenues to sustain themselves - international students being one area that proved very lucrative.

Had the provinces done their jobs better, the incentive would have been reduced to need international students to the degree that some colleges have tried, particularly in Ontario. But that's not convenient politically - much more useful to convert a provincial funding and mis-management issue into a federal immigration one. Health care has many similarities - provinces are always trying to find ways to blame Ottawa for political reasons, to obscure the reality that they have often mis-manage their own portfolios.

Easy solution is to deregulate tuition.

 

[darwink]

Easy solution is to deregulate tuition.

Funny thing is it was Doug Ford that really turned the screws by cutting then freezing tuition, undoing the system of raising tuition but raising near universal student grants.

The focus of the student movement on tuition not NET tuition let Doug Ford snow job them.

 

[trtcttc]

Also relevant, the provinces also helped place additional financial pressure on universities and colleges by failing to fund them adequately and cutting their budgets. It helped force their need to find alternative sources of revenues to sustain themselves - international students being one area that proved very lucrative.

Had the provinces done their jobs better, the incentive would have been reduced to need international students to the degree that some colleges have tried, particularly in Ontario. But that's not convenient politically - much more useful to convert a provincial funding and mis-management issue into a federal immigration one. Health care has many similarities - provinces are always trying to find ways to blame Ottawa for political reasons, to obscure the reality that they have often mis-manage their own portfolios.

I'm sorry but that is not the root of the problem at all. The University of Toronto accepting 7000 international students out of 64,000 is not a problem, many of them are probably masters and PHD students. With proper funding, maybe they accept 5000, again not a huge difference.

The problems on the list are Conestoga college, Centennial, Seneca, "University of Canada West", etc. For example, Conestoga ended the year with a $106 million surplus, which is not just operating, but with capital cost allocated already. There is no reason why a college needs to run such a huge surplus on the back of international students. I grew up in Vancouver and I have never heard of University of Canada West. A quick Google search shows they're bought by Global University Systems in 2014. GUS is a for-profit education system with "1,100 independent education agents and 500 staff in it's sales and marketing divisions recruiting students from more than 175 countries." They also own esteemed education institutions like "Toronto School of Management", est. 2017, "Canadian College of Technology and Business" , est. 2021, "The University of Niagara Falls Canada", est. 2022.

The provinces are to blame, for approving some institution when they are obviously backdoor immigration scams. However, I don't think they really have control over schools like Conestoga. It was a normal polytechnic like SAIT, and offered real accredited programs. Then they ramped up international students teaching the same curriculum, which makes it hard to un-accredit them. The federal government is to blame, for having this loophole and not noticing spiking international student numbers until now. You'd think someone would have seen a chart, where it goes from a few thousand to 100k and think "hmm.. maybe we should look into that".

 

[darwink]

I don't think they really have control over schools like Conestoga

The provincial government appoints 5 members to the board of Conestoga, and only the members appointed by the provincial government are allowed to be Chair or Vice-Chair of the Board.

It is arms length, but the province provides a huge amount of the budget and exercises effective control of the board (appointing more than 20% of the board).

Under accounting rules Conestoga would count as a controlled organization to the point of requiring consolidation of its financial statements into the parent's.

 

[gsunnyg]

Alberta doesn’t have this problem in comparison.

Still, some international student restrictions would help slow down overall migration into Calgary. Living in the NE, I've seen a dramatic rise in the international student population here and it has contributed partly to rents skyrocketing. A 1 bedroom basement is now going for $1200 bucks in some places, the majority are student renters. I have cousins in BC looking to grab more property in Calgary for the sole purpose of renting it out and profiting from the high demand from Indian students. Again being in the heart of the immigrant hub, the ground reality is a lot different. I've seen a lot of change over the past 10 years.

I mean, if SAIT and UofC alone are admitting approximately 7,100 international students every 16 months, are we constructing 4,700 housing units every 16 months to accommodate them, considering the 1.5 people per unit rule, in addition to accounting for our other sources of population growth?

 

[gsunnyg]

The labour shortage has been drastically overstated that people regularly believe it as a justification for our current immigration levels. In a healthy economy of close to full employment, when someone leaves a job, gets laid off, graduates school, it takes time for them to train for a new job, relocate to where there is a job, etc. Companies have been led to believe they can have labour whenever they need and if they have difficulty hiring, we got a shortage. That is just the nature of a functioning economy. We have labour shortage in specific fields, for example, Alberta is in desperate need of anesthesiologist. The immigration levels are not helping fill that shortage. The skill is very specialized that the hospitals have specific recruiting teams that try to recruit individuals to fill those roles. If Tim Hortons is claiming a labour shortage (they are one of the largest TFW program users), they should pay people more, automate more of their production, provide other incentives (education training fund, franchise ownership share, etc.) to fill those roles.

Here is a little tidbit from the Dec 2023 employment report, note the section that immigration "didn't translate into significant growth in the labour force". Essentially immigrants simply added to demand without any increase in the labour force. We have a continually decreasing employment rate, which results in a higher dependency ratio, exactly the thing immigration is supposed to fix? The labour market is complex, when you bring in so many new people, there's a lot of unintended consequences. I am for immigration, but it needs to be considered and adjusted in small increments to see the impact, versus test out the highest population increase in the developed world and let's cross our fingers it's going to work out.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

www.bloomberg.com

The population aged 15 and older grew by 74,000 in December, on par with average monthly population growth in 2023 of 79,000. Yet this time, it didn’t translate into significant growth in the labor force.
The employment rate — the proportion of the working-age population with jobs — continued to trend lower. It fell 0.2 percentage points to 61.6% in December, the fifth decline in the past six months, and down from its recent high of 62.5% in January 2023.

The labour shortage was the biggest crap sold to us to fuel the immigration crisis. What a lot of employers want is to fill manual labour jobs with cheap labour. I've seen this firsthand in construction. Hiring temporary labour from Mexico and paying them cash or near minimum wage. What all this cheap labour has done is suppress wage growth which is taught in a simple labour economics class but completely denied by our federal government as they love discussing only the GDP benefits and tax base growth associated with immigration. I mean if automation is such a threat, then why not just let automation take over all these fast-food, trucking, uber, etc. related jobs if no Canadian wants to do them? On top of that, higher-skilled job shortages in industries like engineering, nursing, etc. are not being satisfied through immigration because most immigrants coming in either don't meet the skills requirement or are forced to go through years of upgrading to challenge their credentials.

Again, the whole immigration system is a complete joke but the federal government either plays dumb or they might actually be dumb. I watched Justin Trudeau's interview on a Punjabi radio show last year, where he was challenged for fuelling the housing crisis by bringing in too many immigrants, and his rebuttal to that was he disagreed because he believed that immigration would also bring in carpenters to build our homes and the whole thing, in theory, would balance out...I guess just like the budget. The whole answer had me cringing knowing well that we're not bringing in enough carpenters and the international students aren't coming in droves to enroll in carpentry school to just go freeze outside in Canada.

 

[darwink]

Still, some international student restrictions would help slow down overall migration into Calgary. Living in the NE, I've seen a dramatic rise in the international student population here and it has contributed partly to rents skyrocketing. A 1 bedroom basement is now going for $1200 bucks in some places, the majority are student renters. I have cousins in BC looking to grab more property in Calgary for the sole purpose of renting it out and profiting from the high demand from Indian students. Again being in the heart of the immigrant hub, the ground reality is a lot different. I've seen a lot of change over the past 10 years.

I mean, if SAIT and UofC alone are admitting approximately 7,100 international students every 16 months, are we constructing 4,700 housing units every 16 months to accommodate them, considering the 1.5 people per unit rule, in addition to accounting for our other sources of population growth?

Have to remember that international students either role over (leave and are replaced) or they become PRs after a work permit. And it isn’t that number every year. UCalgary’s would be turning over every 5 years on average.

That there are more further from the university might just be higher demand (due to other factors) raising prices close to the institutions, not growth from the international students themselves.

Of course, there could be an explosion of store front ‘colleges’ that many of us aren’t aware of.

 

[Red Star]

The labour shortage was the biggest crap sold to us to fuel the immigration crisis. What a lot of employers want is to fill manual labour jobs with cheap labour. I've seen this firsthand in construction. Hiring temporary labour from Mexico and paying them cash or near minimum wage. What all this cheap labour has done is suppress wage growth which is taught in a simple labour economics class but completely denied by our federal government as they love discussing only the GDP benefits and tax base growth associated with immigration. I mean if automation is such a threat, then why not just let automation take over all these fast-food, trucking, uber, etc. related jobs if no Canadian wants to do them? On top of that, higher-skilled job shortages in industries like engineering, nursing, etc. are not being satisfied through immigration because most immigrants coming in either don't meet the skills requirement or are forced to go through years of upgrading to challenge their credentials.

Again, the whole immigration system is a complete joke but the federal government either plays dumb or they might actually be dumb. I watched Justin Trudeau's interview on a Punjabi radio show last year, where he was challenged for fuelling the housing crisis by bringing in too many immigrants, and his rebuttal to that was he disagreed because he believed that immigration would also bring in carpenters to build our homes and the whole thing, in theory, would balance out...I guess just like the budget. The whole answer had me cringing knowing well that we're not bringing in enough carpenters and the international students aren't coming in droves to enroll in carpentry school to just go freeze outside in Canada.

Whenever you read a news article commenting on how a certain industry can't find labor or fill positions, just insert "for minimum wage" at the end of the sentence.

 

[Red Star]

Have to remember that international students either role over (leave and are replaced) or they become PRs after a work permit. And it isn’t that number every year. UCalgary’s would be turning over every 5 years on average.

That there are more further from the university might just be higher demand (due to other factors) raising prices close to the institutions, not growth from the international students themselves.

Of course, there could be an explosion of store front ‘colleges’ that many of us aren’t aware of.

Private institutions are the main place you see "no shows", meaning foreigners who come into Canada on a study permit but don't actually attend.

Immigration Minister urged to crack down on international student ‘no shows’ at colleges

Statscan report finds about 19 per cent of international students with study permits from 2019 had no record of being enrolled at a college or university in Canada

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[gsunnyg]

Have to remember that international students either role over (leave and are replaced) or they become PRs after a work permit. And it isn’t that number every year. UCalgary’s would be turning over every 5 years on average.

That there are more further from the university might just be higher demand (due to other factors) raising prices close to the institutions, not growth from the international students themselves.

Of course, there could be an explosion of store front ‘colleges’ that many of us aren’t aware of.

There are. There's a college near the Timmies on 32nd and Barlow NE filled with Int. students acquiring Business Admin diplomas. I still think all post-secondaries need to cut back intake into programs that don't meet the skills requirements required in our country. SAIT should be shifting more seat intake into programs like carpentry and transitioning away from programs like human resources and business admin where there's so much demand.
As I've said, the ground reality isn't always the same as the numbers show. I've visually seen the student population explode here in the NE. Every other Indian household in the NE with an available secondary suite has it rented out to students. Many are still illegal suites that don't appear in the stats.

 

[adamyyc]

I think this will be the first of a few announcements on immigration in the coming weeks/months.

Ottawa announces two-year cap on international student visas — The Globe and Mail

It will restrict the number of permits by more than one-third, Immigration Minister Marc Miller says

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