“Without those skilled workers coming from outside Canada, we absolutely cannot build the homes and meet the demand that exists currently today,” Miller said, as reported by Global News.
But if the federal government’s plan to bring in almost 1.5 million immigrants to Canada between now and 2025 is already contributing to the housing shortage and raising the cost of housing, how will bringing in more immigrants solve it?
As TD Bank warned recently: “Continuing with a high-growth immigration strategy could widen the housing shortfall by about a half-million units within just two years. Recent government policies to accelerate construction are unlikely to offer a stop-gap due to the short time period and the natural lags in adjusting supply.”
The National Bank of Canada cautioned: “The federal government’s decision to open the immigration floodgates during the most aggressive monetary tightening cycle in a generation has created a record imbalance between housing and demand … As housing affordability pressures continue to mount across the country, we believe Ottawa should consider revising its immigration targets to allow supply to catch up with demand.”
BMO (Bank of Montreal) reported “heightened immigration flows designed to ease labour supply pressure immediately add to the housing demand they are trying to meet … The infrastructure in place and the industry’s ability to build clearly can’t support unchecked levels of demand, so the affordability conundrum continues.”
It’s true there is a shortage of workers in the construction industry and Miller recently announced a plan to encourage skilled trade workers to immigrate to Canada, but the federal government can’t guarantee how many immigrants will end up in the construction trades.
Given the fact most immigrants end up in cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary, the feds should be consulting with provincial and municipal governments about the number of immigrants they can reasonably absorb.
This as opposed to obsessing about reaching a target of almost 1.5 million immigrants by 2025.
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 