Olive: To address housing crisis, Canada needs to lower annual immigration intake
2024/04/13 Leave a comment
Late to the party, almost appears that it required PM Trudeau’s a Captain Renaud “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling [high levels of immigration] is going on in here!” for Olive to argue for reduced levels (and he largely ignores the major problem, the massive increase in temporary migration):
…So, we must address the demand side of the supply and demand imbalance.
Justin Trudeau has said as much. “We’ve seen a massive spike in temporary immigration,” the prime minister said in an April 2 press conference.
“(It) has grown at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb.”
And so, Ottawa has announced a 20 per cent reduction in new temporary residents — international students, temporary foreign workers and refugee claimants — over three years, to a still sizable two million.
Yet Ottawa is determined to further increase housing demand with its targets of 485,000 permanent residents in 2024, and 500,000 in each of 2025 and 2026.
That plan to add close to 1.5 million more permanent residents by 2026 follows the record population increase of 1.2 million in 2022-23.
Instead, Canada needs to lower annual immigration intake to about 300,000 permanent residents in each of the next few years. That was the level as recently as 2020.
The U.K., Australia and New Zealand, all coping with the same housing crisesas Canada after surges of newcomers, are each planning to reduce immigration levels.
Rishi Sunak, the British PM, has said U.K. immigration inflows are “far too high” after recent government reports that immigration soared to a record 745,000 in 2022.
Australia plans to cut its migrant intake by about 50 per cent over two years, after welcoming a record 510,000 immigrants in the year ending June 2023.
And New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said his country’s net immigration increase of 118,835 people in the year through September “doesn’t feel sustainable for New Zealand at all.”
U.S. immigration policy is already restrictive and would likely become more so in a second Trump presidency.
A new Canadian housing strategy would match immigration targets with realistic expectations of increased housing supply.
A meaningful reduction in newcomers for a few years would give us the chance to develop that balanced model — to determine what types of new housing we need and where to build it.
In time, we can carefully raise immigration levels again once we’re confident that newcomers and those already here will have an affordable, decent place to live.
Source: To address housing crisis, Canada needs to lower annual immigration intake
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 