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The relatively generous immigration program is resulting in higher population growth than housing built spiking property prices. More and more of the Canadian

The relatively generous immigration program is resulting in higher population growth than housing built spiking property prices. More and more of the Canadian population over the last 20 years has been recent immigrants and entrepreneurship has cratered. It’s not evident to me at all Canadas immigrant friendly stance is helping with entrepreneurship and it’s fairly plausible that it’s having an adverse effect, although it’s also plausible that it has prevented the situation from being worse than it otherwise would have been, and additionally possible that tweaks to immigration might result in immigration being more of an engine of entrepreneurship than it is right now. To me, it seems to me that immigration is mostly motivated by politicians desperate to cover up the cost of their unwise deficit spending and liabilities by diffusing the cost across more people, as well as enriching the landed gentry with more rents. They couldn’t give two craps about helping recent immigrants start successful businesses, they want them to benefit their interests immediately, not incubate some far off benefit twenty years in the future.

KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
The talented ones just move south the moment they have the chance to. The bay area is full of grads from places like Waterloo and Toronto.
pj_mukh 3y ago
I hear this all the time. But everytime it’s complaints about too much demand, but never a complain about supply. Even though they are both similar political problems. I don’t want to speculate why. Immigrants have more than proven themselves to be good entrepreneurs once the shackles I mentioned above have been removed.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  Nobody complains about supply? News to me. Trudeau has been boasting about how his sizeable immigration increases will solve the housing crisis for months now with a greater supply of workers to address the “labour shortage”. The “labour shortage” being the biggest buzzword to complain about lack of supply. Meanwhile construction has been basically stagnant and even backsliding slightly according to statscan data while he has basically given a big shot of adrenaline to demand. Whereas a five year old could understand, if we literally just stopped all immigration tomorrow (this would have extremely bad consequences like causing an immediate recession and huge unemployment but hypothetically) housing prices would crater because Canadians don’t reproduce at anything close to replacement. But people go oh no no, the REAL solution to the problem is the thing causing the problem. Immigration I accept is a lesser evil to the alternative, but it’s certainly not the solution to the housing crisis. It’s just not.
  - pj_mukh 3y ago
    The federal government is (mostly) inconsequential on housing supply. Trudeau knows this and so has to do all kinds of other song and dances to distract. If we have a labor problem let’s import construction workers, fix zoning, build a large housing fund and construction department and mobilize it. Actually work the problem on a provincial and municipal level. As opposed to constantly kvetching about supply and trying to murder it (see: foreign buyers bans, airbnb bans and now the ever popular immigration stoppages). It’s all whack-a-mole band aids that are clearly not working. Solve the actual problem, and that’s supply, supply and supply.
    - z0r 3y ago
      I don't see how increasing demand solves supply problems. Surely there are multiple problems here, not just supply.
graypegg 3y ago
Birth-right citizen Canadians just aren’t having enough children to make that work in a modern economy requiring a big base of young workers. Sure we have enough housing to support our slowing aging/dying native-born population if we shut off immigration. That’s not actually an improvement at all. We agree that cost of living + housing costs are cratering entrepreneurship, and that the simple effect of supply (slow home building, restrictive zoning) and demand (more people/immigration) is at play. However, I think it’s not an option to slow down on either immigration or keep the current slow trickle of residence building as-is. We need BOTH faster, because we let this problem fester.

KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago

The talented ones just move south the moment they have the chance to. The bay area is full of grads from places like Waterloo and Toronto.

pj_mukh 3y ago

I hear this all the time. But everytime it’s complaints about too much demand, but never a complain about supply. Even though they are both similar political problems. I don’t want to speculate why. Immigrants have more than proven themselves to be good entrepreneurs once the shackles I mentioned above have been removed.

faeriechangling 3y ago
Nobody complains about supply? News to me. Trudeau has been boasting about how his sizeable immigration increases will solve the housing crisis for months now with a greater supply of workers to address the “labour shortage”. The “labour shortage” being the biggest buzzword to complain about lack of supply. Meanwhile construction has been basically stagnant and even backsliding slightly according to statscan data while he has basically given a big shot of adrenaline to demand. Whereas a five year old could understand, if we literally just stopped all immigration tomorrow (this would have extremely bad consequences like causing an immediate recession and huge unemployment but hypothetically) housing prices would crater because Canadians don’t reproduce at anything close to replacement. But people go oh no no, the REAL solution to the problem is the thing causing the problem. Immigration I accept is a lesser evil to the alternative, but it’s certainly not the solution to the housing crisis. It’s just not.
- pj_mukh 3y ago
  The federal government is (mostly) inconsequential on housing supply. Trudeau knows this and so has to do all kinds of other song and dances to distract. If we have a labor problem let’s import construction workers, fix zoning, build a large housing fund and construction department and mobilize it. Actually work the problem on a provincial and municipal level. As opposed to constantly kvetching about supply and trying to murder it (see: foreign buyers bans, airbnb bans and now the ever popular immigration stoppages). It’s all whack-a-mole band aids that are clearly not working. Solve the actual problem, and that’s supply, supply and supply.
  - z0r 3y ago
    I don't see how increasing demand solves supply problems. Surely there are multiple problems here, not just supply.

graypegg 3y ago

Birth-right citizen Canadians just aren’t having enough children to make that work in a modern economy requiring a big base of young workers. Sure we have enough housing to support our slowing aging/dying native-born population if we shut off immigration. That’s not actually an improvement at all. We agree that cost of living + housing costs are cratering entrepreneurship, and that the simple effect of supply (slow home building, restrictive zoning) and demand (more people/immigration) is at play. However, I think it’s not an option to slow down on either immigration or keep the current slow trickle of residence building as-is. We need BOTH faster, because we let this problem fester.