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"Obviously, Canada needs better housing and immigration policy, but I’d call those pretty minor and resolvable problems for a country that is doing so well." A

"Obviously, Canada needs better housing and immigration policy, but I’d call those pretty minor and resolvable problems for a country that is doing so well." And your solutions are...?

VancouverMan 3y ago
Those two problems are directly linked, and can be solved together to a great extent. The first step is to stop pretty much all immigration into Canada for the time being. This puts a halt to the unsupportable increases in demand for housing and other resources. The second step is to have all of the "temporary foreign workers", the foreign "students", and the "refugees" promptly return home. This frees up some of the existing supply of such resources. Some people will claim that doing such things would be economically-disruptive. It will be, and that's necessary at this point. That leads to the third step: remove the various government-imposed restrictions and controls on rentals, wages, and so forth. After the severe economic distortions that have been introduced by awful government policies over the past several decades, the economy will need to readjust to a natural balance again. There may be some short-term pain, but it would put Canada into a far healthier position economically and socially over the long run.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  This sounds like a horrible idea... Kick out the foreigners is not something I would expect to hear on HN.
  - morkalork 3y ago
    Between backlash to the Century Initiative and the looming climate refugee crisis, I'm not surprised. Canada is set to take a hard right swing towards populism and its gonna be wild and ugly.
    - ChumpGPT 3y ago
      That is the danger. Remember when 300 Sri Lankan's showed up on the West Coast? People were demanding they be sent back out to sea and some were calling on sinking the vessel. What happens when 30k show up everyday fleeing climate change, hunger, poverty and war crashing ships on Canadian shores? It is the worst scenario but a possible one.
      - VancouverMan 3y ago
        Given Canada's location, geography, and its present borders, the only places where legitimate refugees could potentially come from are quite limited: the United States, St Pierre and Miquelon, Greenland, and possibly Iceland. At the current time, there's generally no legitimate reason for people from those places to be seeking asylum in Canada. Legitimate refugees will be seeking immediate safety far closer their points of origin, rather than ending up in Canada, of all places. Sri Lanka, to use your example, is over 12000 km (7500 miles) away from Canada, in either direction. At the time of the incident you mention, there were numerous safer countries that were much, much, much closer to Sri Lanka than Canada was. Those are the countries where those people should have ended up, if they were truly seeking immediate safety as legitimate refugees.
        morkalork 3y ago
        >no legitimate reason for people from those places to be seeking asylum in Canada >there were numerous safer countries that were much, much, much closer >Those are the countries where those people should have ended up >legitimate refugees Yeah, I expect to hear these talking points a lot more in the future. Not that I'm one of those open-borders wingnuts, just pointing out the inevitable slide towards populism in the face of crushing economic and ecological realities.
        VancouverMan 3y ago
        Those aren't "talking points". They're merely facts, and they're independent of politics.
- itsoktocry 3y ago
  >This puts a halt to the unsupportable increases in demand for housing and other resources. What happens when the prices of homes (where most people's entire retirement savings are held) stop increasing, or heaven forbid, fall? What happens to the real estate and construction sector (which is a massive portion of our economy)? How do we support our social services with no population growth? We're in a catch 22, that's the issue.
  - VancouverMan 3y ago
    I think we first need to acknowledge what those situations you describe actually are: they're artificial, government-created economic distortions. There's no inherent, natural, or real economic basis to them. They're examples of inefficiently-allocated resources. Artificially propping up existing economic distortions and inefficiencies just makes the situation even worse in the long run, by creating even more distortions and inefficiency. If a home's nominal value does not match its real value, we should expect the price to drop. This may not be good for the homeowner(s) involved, of course, but it shouldn't be considered any different than any other poor investment. Industries that exist primarily due to artificial economic distortions shouldn't be expected to survive, at least not in their present form. They're a burden on the real economy. Social services also shouldn't be so necessary in a healthy economy. They're a brute-force (and ultimately unsuccessful) way that government tries to counteract some of the economic distortions and inefficiencies that government itself has introduced, typically through earlier market interference. I don't see there being a "catch 22" here. It's simple what will have to happen at some point: the economic distortions and inefficiency will need to be undone, and those who made poor investment decisions will feel it the most.
    - JimtheCoder 3y ago
      You mentioned in your other post about we need to stop immigration and send the temporary visa holders home. Isn't doing this introducing more economic distortions?
- Jack000 3y ago
  The foreign buyers tax, the empty home tax, and now the total ban on foreign buyers introduced this year has had zero effect on home prices. It's time to stop blaming foreigners. The solution is to build more and more quickly.
dangus 3y ago
Build housing. Encourage up-sizing of existing developments. You don’t even have to make the policy from scratch, you can just copy what Tokyo does. (Tokyo has had completely flat housing pricing adjusted for inflation despite urban growth over the past few decades).

"Obviously, Canada needs better housing and immigration policy, but I’d call those pretty minor and resolvable problems for a country that is doing so well." And your solutions are...?

VancouverMan 3y ago

Those two problems are directly linked, and can be solved together to a great extent. The first step is to stop pretty much all immigration into Canada for the time being. This puts a halt to the unsupportable increases in demand for housing and other resources. The second step is to have all of the "temporary foreign workers", the foreign "students", and the "refugees" promptly return home. This frees up some of the existing supply of such resources. Some people will claim that doing such things would be economically-disruptive. It will be, and that's necessary at this point. That leads to the third step: remove the various government-imposed restrictions and controls on rentals, wages, and so forth. After the severe economic distortions that have been introduced by awful government policies over the past several decades, the economy will need to readjust to a natural balance again. There may be some short-term pain, but it would put Canada into a far healthier position economically and socially over the long run.

JimtheCoder 3y ago
This sounds like a horrible idea... Kick out the foreigners is not something I would expect to hear on HN.
- morkalork 3y ago
  Between backlash to the Century Initiative and the looming climate refugee crisis, I'm not surprised. Canada is set to take a hard right swing towards populism and its gonna be wild and ugly.
  - ChumpGPT 3y ago
    That is the danger. Remember when 300 Sri Lankan's showed up on the West Coast? People were demanding they be sent back out to sea and some were calling on sinking the vessel. What happens when 30k show up everyday fleeing climate change, hunger, poverty and war crashing ships on Canadian shores? It is the worst scenario but a possible one.
    - VancouverMan 3y ago
      Given Canada's location, geography, and its present borders, the only places where legitimate refugees could potentially come from are quite limited: the United States, St Pierre and Miquelon, Greenland, and possibly Iceland. At the current time, there's generally no legitimate reason for people from those places to be seeking asylum in Canada. Legitimate refugees will be seeking immediate safety far closer their points of origin, rather than ending up in Canada, of all places. Sri Lanka, to use your example, is over 12000 km (7500 miles) away from Canada, in either direction. At the time of the incident you mention, there were numerous safer countries that were much, much, much closer to Sri Lanka than Canada was. Those are the countries where those people should have ended up, if they were truly seeking immediate safety as legitimate refugees.
      - morkalork 3y ago
        >no legitimate reason for people from those places to be seeking asylum in Canada >there were numerous safer countries that were much, much, much closer >Those are the countries where those people should have ended up >legitimate refugees Yeah, I expect to hear these talking points a lot more in the future. Not that I'm one of those open-borders wingnuts, just pointing out the inevitable slide towards populism in the face of crushing economic and ecological realities.
        VancouverMan 3y ago
        Those aren't "talking points". They're merely facts, and they're independent of politics.
itsoktocry 3y ago
>This puts a halt to the unsupportable increases in demand for housing and other resources. What happens when the prices of homes (where most people's entire retirement savings are held) stop increasing, or heaven forbid, fall? What happens to the real estate and construction sector (which is a massive portion of our economy)? How do we support our social services with no population growth? We're in a catch 22, that's the issue.
- VancouverMan 3y ago
  I think we first need to acknowledge what those situations you describe actually are: they're artificial, government-created economic distortions. There's no inherent, natural, or real economic basis to them. They're examples of inefficiently-allocated resources. Artificially propping up existing economic distortions and inefficiencies just makes the situation even worse in the long run, by creating even more distortions and inefficiency. If a home's nominal value does not match its real value, we should expect the price to drop. This may not be good for the homeowner(s) involved, of course, but it shouldn't be considered any different than any other poor investment. Industries that exist primarily due to artificial economic distortions shouldn't be expected to survive, at least not in their present form. They're a burden on the real economy. Social services also shouldn't be so necessary in a healthy economy. They're a brute-force (and ultimately unsuccessful) way that government tries to counteract some of the economic distortions and inefficiencies that government itself has introduced, typically through earlier market interference. I don't see there being a "catch 22" here. It's simple what will have to happen at some point: the economic distortions and inefficiency will need to be undone, and those who made poor investment decisions will feel it the most.
  - JimtheCoder 3y ago
    You mentioned in your other post about we need to stop immigration and send the temporary visa holders home. Isn't doing this introducing more economic distortions?
Jack000 3y ago
The foreign buyers tax, the empty home tax, and now the total ban on foreign buyers introduced this year has had zero effect on home prices. It's time to stop blaming foreigners. The solution is to build more and more quickly.

dangus 3y ago

Build housing. Encourage up-sizing of existing developments. You don’t even have to make the policy from scratch, you can just copy what Tokyo does. (Tokyo has had completely flat housing pricing adjusted for inflation despite urban growth over the past few decades).