Moffatt: Canada is failing the grade on housing. Fixing that starts with international students, but it shouldn’t end there

Good overview of issues and needed steps. Perhaps overly optimistic regarding possibility of “doing it all:”

Beyond individual policies, though, what Canada needs most are co-ordination and alignment between our housing and population growth policies, as well as robust population forecasts to plan our needs not just in housing, but in schools, hospitals and other public infrastructure, too. Capping yearly non-permanent resident growth, in the same way that the country caps immigration, is essential for this planning. Canada may have been caught off-guard by how quickly our population has grown in the past two years, but this failure to forecast cannot happen again, as it doesn’t just affect our housing market – it puts Canada’s entire immigration system in disrepute with Canadians.

The good news is that we have a chance to do it all: simultaneously solve Canada’s housing crisis, grow our population, address the climate challenge and have a flourishing high-education system. We can build enough housing for existing residents and the newcomers who contribute so much to Canada’s economic and cultural vibrancy. And the vision to attract the best and brightest to the country to offset the effects of an aging population is sound, too: Integrating the higher-education system into the immigration system to give newcomers Canadian credentials and experiences is fantastic and should not be abandoned. But to achieve this, we need public policies that meet the ambition of our vision to ensure that everyone in Canada, regardless of how long they have been here, has a safe and secure place to call home. A reactionary cap from one level of government, while necessary, cannot be the limit.

Source: Canada is failing the grade on housing. Fixing that starts with international students, but it shouldn’t end there