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> Europe can (and does to some degree) solve this issue the same way we do here in Canada: high immigration rates. > It has downsides […] The main downside yo

> Europe can (and does to some degree) solve this issue the same way we do here in Canada: high immigration rates. > It has downsides […] The main downside you have to counter is building enough housing, which Canada is not. The federal government (AFAICT) sets immigration targets/numbers without consulting the provinces and municipalities to see what they can handle. The US (pop. 330M) brings in 1M immigrants in the last few years, while in Canada (pop. 40M): > In 2022, Canada welcomed 437,180 immigrants and the number of non-permanent residents increased by a net 607,782 people. Both figures are the highest levels on record and reflect "higher immigration targets and a record-breaking year for the processing of immigration applications," StatsCan said. * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-record-population-growth-migration-1.6787428 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-record-population-grow...

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
So. The narrative here in Canada has shifted to blaming immigration for housing woes. While there might be something to it, it smells suspiciously like shifting the blame away from monetary/fiscal/legislative policy. 20 years of low rates (federal concern), and an under-regulated real estate market (provincial concern). Notably not all parts of Canada have this problem, despite having high immigration rates. Immigration is still high to, e.g. Edmonton, and employment rates are good, etc. but housing affordability there is "fine" (relatively, for now). I think you started to touch on the problem here, which is the dysfunction of our federal/provincial relations. Political trends right now want to blame Trudeau (I don't like him either, but whatever), so they're pointing the finger at immigration. But the provinces (esp Ontario and BC) have failed to accommodate the immigration rates by building housing and densifying. Now that they're caught with their pants down here in Ontario their answer is to pave over farmland and build more low-density McMansions, which, well, it's blatant vote buying and corruption because the people in those 905-belt houses vote Tory and the developers contribute to the PC party. That and building public housing is something people in western G7 countries have become disturbingly allergic to. The last time we had housing crisis at this level, that was one way out of the problem: we built massive rental towers all over the place, along with public housing projects. In large part what we have here is a powerful baby boomer electorate that has up until now felt itself benefited by skyrocketing real estate prices. The increases in their home values allowed them to ignore their pathetic retirement savings. It was an "Eat The Young" mentality that just assumed "Number Goes Up" forever on real estate prices. And governments -- both prov and fed -- were perfectly willing to just keep feeding that fire. It's also not fair to point at 2022 immigration numbers, when 2020/2021 had far lower immigration rates, due to COVID. The temporary foreign worker program was effectively suspended, and immigration rates were low. So the numbers spiked afterwards for a bunch of causes, partially recovery from that, partially policy, and partially refugees from the war in Ukraine.
- throw0101c 3y ago
  > So. The narrative here in Canada has shifted to blaming immigration for housing woes. While there might be something to it, it smells suspiciously like shifting the blame away from monetary/fiscal/legislative policy. There are multiple things that need to look at, but we've had similar policies for decades on most other fronts, but the inflection point in prices started around 2015 which is coïncidentally when immigrations numbers—especially foreign student visa—kicked into a higher gear. Mike Moffatt has done a lot of interesting research on this that's worth checking out. * https://mikepmoffatt.medium.com https://mikepmoffatt.medium.com * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Moffatt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Moffatt Good discussion on TVO from April: * https://www.tvo.org/video/is-canada-doing-immigration-wrong https://www.tvo.org/video/is-canada-doing-immigration-wrong > But the provinces (esp Ontario and BC) have failed to accommodate the immigration rates by building housing and densifying. If provinces are only able to build at a rate of X units per year, why are we bringing in (e.g.) 2X the number of people? Yes, we should be building more units, but one of the factors in determining how many folks to bring in is being able to house them. If we can build only build X units in 2023 then we should only bring in X. If we get to X+Y units in 2024, then that's how many people can be brought in. You don't allow in X+Y (or 2X) people and hope that the units will magically appear. There is no wand that can be waved to suddenly get more framers, plumbers, electricians, inspectors, urban planner, and capital. If folks are told "in year 202X we are planning to bring in X people", they can plan for it: but that's not what is happening. Right now it's "here are X people, deal with it, it's your responsibility".
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    If provinces are only able to build at a rate of X units per year, why are we bringing in (e.g.) 2X the number of people But this was my point. Because the health/survival of the Canadian economies requires that rate of immigration, that's what we do. But its on the provinces, not the feds, to manage housing & municipal issues. But there's a deep conflict of interest about how this is managed. Too many voters, real estate agents, developers, and contractors see benefit from rising housing prices, donors and voters for both parties. What do you think would happen at the ballot boxes if a provincial government started building mass tracts of rental housing -- like governments did in the 50s in the post-war baby boom when we last had a serious housing crisis? Housing prices and rents would plummet, and landowners, developers, and upper middle class homeowners would be coming after the party in power with pitchforks. Likewise, if immigration were to be throttled tomorrow, annual GDP growth would flatline and we'd be in recession and labour shortage territory. And the gov't that did this would also be punished. When I see pundits on the TV about real estate prices: it's almost always some joker of a real estate agent or mortgage broker, not a real economist. It's like asking a wolf why the flock of sheep is thinning out. Picking 2015 as an inflection point seems ridiculously partisan. I'm 50 next year. I've lived through both Conservative and Liberal governments. They've both made the same mistakes on this file, and they both suck. Housing has been precipitously rising since the end of the 90s. It was already in double-digit growth rates in Toronto and unaffordable for working class people when my wife and I bought our first house in 2005. The reality is that the most serious "inflection point" was 2008, when US (and most global) housing prices collapsed and stabilized, while Canada's continued to grow exponentially. Trudeau was not Prime Minister then. For better or for worse we have a federal system, and the provinces play the role of managing housing stock and municipal affairs, not the feds.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

So. The narrative here in Canada has shifted to blaming immigration for housing woes. While there might be something to it, it smells suspiciously like shifting the blame away from monetary/fiscal/legislative policy. 20 years of low rates (federal concern), and an under-regulated real estate market (provincial concern). Notably not all parts of Canada have this problem, despite having high immigration rates. Immigration is still high to, e.g. Edmonton, and employment rates are good, etc. but housing affordability there is "fine" (relatively, for now). I think you started to touch on the problem here, which is the dysfunction of our federal/provincial relations. Political trends right now want to blame Trudeau (I don't like him either, but whatever), so they're pointing the finger at immigration. But the provinces (esp Ontario and BC) have failed to accommodate the immigration rates by building housing and densifying. Now that they're caught with their pants down here in Ontario their answer is to pave over farmland and build more low-density McMansions, which, well, it's blatant vote buying and corruption because the people in those 905-belt houses vote Tory and the developers contribute to the PC party. That and building public housing is something people in western G7 countries have become disturbingly allergic to. The last time we had housing crisis at this level, that was one way out of the problem: we built massive rental towers all over the place, along with public housing projects. In large part what we have here is a powerful baby boomer electorate that has up until now felt itself benefited by skyrocketing real estate prices. The increases in their home values allowed them to ignore their pathetic retirement savings. It was an "Eat The Young" mentality that just assumed "Number Goes Up" forever on real estate prices. And governments -- both prov and fed -- were perfectly willing to just keep feeding that fire. It's also not fair to point at 2022 immigration numbers, when 2020/2021 had far lower immigration rates, due to COVID. The temporary foreign worker program was effectively suspended, and immigration rates were low. So the numbers spiked afterwards for a bunch of causes, partially recovery from that, partially policy, and partially refugees from the war in Ukraine.

throw0101c 3y ago
> So. The narrative here in Canada has shifted to blaming immigration for housing woes. While there might be something to it, it smells suspiciously like shifting the blame away from monetary/fiscal/legislative policy. There are multiple things that need to look at, but we've had similar policies for decades on most other fronts, but the inflection point in prices started around 2015 which is coïncidentally when immigrations numbers—especially foreign student visa—kicked into a higher gear. Mike Moffatt has done a lot of interesting research on this that's worth checking out. * https://mikepmoffatt.medium.com https://mikepmoffatt.medium.com * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Moffatt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Moffatt Good discussion on TVO from April: * https://www.tvo.org/video/is-canada-doing-immigration-wrong https://www.tvo.org/video/is-canada-doing-immigration-wrong > But the provinces (esp Ontario and BC) have failed to accommodate the immigration rates by building housing and densifying. If provinces are only able to build at a rate of X units per year, why are we bringing in (e.g.) 2X the number of people? Yes, we should be building more units, but one of the factors in determining how many folks to bring in is being able to house them. If we can build only build X units in 2023 then we should only bring in X. If we get to X+Y units in 2024, then that's how many people can be brought in. You don't allow in X+Y (or 2X) people and hope that the units will magically appear. There is no wand that can be waved to suddenly get more framers, plumbers, electricians, inspectors, urban planner, and capital. If folks are told "in year 202X we are planning to bring in X people", they can plan for it: but that's not what is happening. Right now it's "here are X people, deal with it, it's your responsibility".
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  If provinces are only able to build at a rate of X units per year, why are we bringing in (e.g.) 2X the number of people But this was my point. Because the health/survival of the Canadian economies requires that rate of immigration, that's what we do. But its on the provinces, not the feds, to manage housing & municipal issues. But there's a deep conflict of interest about how this is managed. Too many voters, real estate agents, developers, and contractors see benefit from rising housing prices, donors and voters for both parties. What do you think would happen at the ballot boxes if a provincial government started building mass tracts of rental housing -- like governments did in the 50s in the post-war baby boom when we last had a serious housing crisis? Housing prices and rents would plummet, and landowners, developers, and upper middle class homeowners would be coming after the party in power with pitchforks. Likewise, if immigration were to be throttled tomorrow, annual GDP growth would flatline and we'd be in recession and labour shortage territory. And the gov't that did this would also be punished. When I see pundits on the TV about real estate prices: it's almost always some joker of a real estate agent or mortgage broker, not a real economist. It's like asking a wolf why the flock of sheep is thinning out. Picking 2015 as an inflection point seems ridiculously partisan. I'm 50 next year. I've lived through both Conservative and Liberal governments. They've both made the same mistakes on this file, and they both suck. Housing has been precipitously rising since the end of the 90s. It was already in double-digit growth rates in Toronto and unaffordable for working class people when my wife and I bought our first house in 2005. The reality is that the most serious "inflection point" was 2008, when US (and most global) housing prices collapsed and stabilized, while Canada's continued to grow exponentially. Trudeau was not Prime Minister then. For better or for worse we have a federal system, and the provinces play the role of managing housing stock and municipal affairs, not the feds.