Canada is curbing immigration — but this lawyer says newcomers still drive our economy – Toronto Star

2023/11/13 Leave a comment

I rely more on labour economists like Mikal Skuterud than immigration lawyers for assessing impact of immigration on the economy, particularly productivity and GDP per capita growth:

The engine driving Canada’s economic growth isn’t cars, crude or softwood lumber — it’s immigration. In spite of lagging productivity compared with other economic superpowers, like the United States or China, Canada has propped up its aging labour force with newcomers.

Last year, Canada’s population grew by nearly one million people, according to Statistics Canada. Almost all of them were newcomers: refugees fleeing persecution, post-secondary students in pursuit of a Canadian diploma and job experience, farm workers with the country’s agricultural temporary foreign worker program.

Just last summer, months after U.S. tech giants like Meta and Amazon were laying off thousands of qualified tech professionals, then-immigration minister Sean Fraser launched a program to give U.S. H1-B visa holders a shot at Canadian work permits. Within 48 hours, 10,000 applications had been submitted.

But Ottawa appears to be tapping the brakes on its ambitious immigration targets. Earlier this month, the federal government announced it would “stabilize” immigration levels at 500,000 per year starting in 2026, despite years of continually raising its target. Meanwhile, Northern College, an Ontario post-secondary institution, has revoked around 700 acceptance letters from international students over the past year due to what it described as a lack of local jobs and housing.

These decisions come in the face of stubbornly high housing and food costs affecting everyone living on Canadian soil: permanent residents, citizens and undocumented alike. Stephen Green, managing partner at immigration law firm Green and Spiegel, spoke to the Star about the current economic — and educational — landscape for immigrants from his Toronto office earlier this week:

There is an argument that amid competition for housing and jobs in Canada, immigration at our current level is unsustainable. Do you buy this argument?

I don’t buy that at all. First, unlike some countries like the U.S., where they have a lottery system based on country of origin, we have a really rigorous and thought-out selection system based on “human capital.” They look at a newcomer’s age, their education, whether they’ve worked or studied in Canada, whether they have family in Canada, whether they can speak English and French — that sort of stuff. We’re selecting immigrants based on a model that economists and various policy experts have said are considered very important factors.

I think the only major issue is that a lot of people in their forties have a very difficult time immigrating to Canada because of the point system. An applicant’s age is about 30 per cent of it. So if you are 45 years old, you run a really successful business outside of Canada and you want to come here, you’re going to have a tough time. But I don’t buy the notion about jobs. Even at my firm, we’ve been trying to find some skilled workers for over two years. We can’t find people. And I’m hearing from the construction industry that there are no workers. We have a really serious problem finding carpenters and plumbers — and these are the people who are supposedly going to help us with our housing crisis.

So how do those folks fare in Canada’s immigration system?

It’s very difficult for them under the point system. A lot of those skilled workers don’t speak great English and don’t have a great education. The trades have a very difficult time immigrating, and the government has always known that, and they’ve struggled to try to make the system better. But the real problem is that the provinces are responsible for licensing, and the feds are responsible for bringing people in. There are situations where you may have a carpenter that will make it through the immigration system, but then they can’t get their licence as a carpenter.

Look at doctors. Look at nurses. We make it so difficult for these people to get the proper licence. You can’t tell me that a doctor that’s graduated from Harvard and wants to practise in Canada — or a pharmacist from Europe — has to go through a horrendous licensing process. It’s wrong, and that was really holding up the ability of individuals that immigrate to our country to really perform their professions.

During the first years of the pandemic, there was some talk about getting more doctors from abroad into Canada’s health-care system. It sounds like the issues haven’t improved.

It’s a little better. They’re moving way too slow. It’s interesting, on the medical side — it costs the province more money to license more doctors. And the doctors want to protect their turf a bit. But I think Canadians have had it. You have people that can’t find family doctors, that can’t find specialists, and they’re saying there’s no reason why doctors should go through such craziness to get licensed.

International students have gotten a lot of attention from the federal government recently. First there was last summer’s acceptance letter scam, then Northern College’s recent revocation of 700 international student acceptances. Can you explain what’s going on?

Former immigration minister Jason Kenney once said foreign students were the best future immigrants to Canada. Why? They pay for their own education. It’s a funny word — but they become Canadianized much easier than other immigrants. Our foreign students fund my kids. They pay $40,000 to $50,000 a year to go to the University of Toronto, when Canadian-born students pay $7,000 to $8,000. But the federal government only let foreign students go to schools that have been designated “learning institutions” — by provinces. And the provinces have failed Canadians by designating far too many that don’t deserve it.

As for the fraudulent letters — the issue is that post-secondary institutions have asked for help finding students in foreign countries, and there is no compliance on them. I was in Chandigarh in India recently. It would blow your mind. Massive billboards by immigration consultants promising to get students into schools. The problem is that the Canadian government knows about it, but they can’t enforce anything because it’s happening in a foreign country. The foreign country can’t do anything.

What’s made it worse is that the Canadian government lifted a requirement that immigration consultants be permanent residents or citizens. Now, if I’m living in India, I can take an online course to become an immigration consultant and the college regulating immigration consultants can’t go after me.

Do you think more institutions will start reneging on international student acceptances, as Northern College has done?

I don’t know. But I hope the provinces will look at those institutions and make them understand what they did to these students. You have to understand that in places like Chandigarh, the parents of these students are selling everything possible to make their child’s life better than theirs. If you get accepted to this college that you mentioned and you’ve got your plane ticket, you’ve booked everything — and they say sorry, you can’t come? I mean, that’s bad.

Have you noticed an increasing reluctance by international students to come to Canada?

Our government has made some statements against certain countries in the Parliament of Canada, and I think it has tremendously affected the way they look at Canada now. So we’ll have to see how the government is going to manage that. I think, regardless of whatever India may or may not have done, I think there were different ways to handle that.

We depend on immigration for economic growth. If Canada decided to flatten or even lower immigration targets, what kind of effect do you think that would have on our economy?

It would be disastrous. Here’s something that most Canadians don’t have a clue about. Do you know what a fellow in a hospital is?

No, I don’t.

That’s someone who is an expert in their area of medicine from abroad, or even in Canada. Our medical system relies so heavily on these doctors from abroad, but we pay them 70 per cent less than what a doctor in Canada makes. Five years ago, the Saudi government pulled 800 fellows home after a dispute with us, and the Canadian government worried the medical system would crash.

Immigration is so important to Canada. It is a very emotional area of the law because, a lot of the time, people don’t understand the effects. They make decisions based on what they think is happening — that an immigrant is taking their job, or that temporary agriculture workers get paid less than Canadians. They aren’t.

Temporary foreign workers are tied to specific employers, and it can be very difficult for them to report labour violations. Is the federal government trying to change that?

On the one hand, the government has a compliance regime that puts a lot of stress on workers — on the other hand, they have to ensure there is an employer-employee relationship, and ensure there are parameters on what workers will do. It’s a difficult balance, and the government is aware of that. They’ve heard those concerns. Like all of us, they want to make the system better. But some people take advantage of it, and we have to look at how to prevent abuses. Maybe, for now, a restricted work permit is the best way to prevent the abuses in our system.

Source: Canada is curbing immigration — but this lawyer says newcomers still drive our economy – Toronto Star

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The Census Bureau sees an older, more diverse America in 2100 in three immigration scenarios

2023/11/11 Leave a comment

Of note:

By the end of the century, the U.S. population will be declining without substantial immigration, older adults will outnumber children and white, non- Hispanic residents will account for less than 50% of the population, according to projections released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. 

The population projections offer a glimpse of what the nation may look like at the turn of the next century, though a forecast decades into the future can’t predict the unexpected like a global pandemic. 

The projections can help the U.S. prepare for change, from anticipating the demands of health care for seniors to providing insight into the number of schools that need to be built over the coming decades, said Paul Ong, a public affairs professor at UCLA.

“As most demographers realize, population projection is not an inevitable destiny, just a glimpse into a possible future,” Ong said. “Seeing that possibility also opens up opportunities for action.”

Population changes due to births and deaths, which are more predictable, and immigration, which is more uncertain. Because of that, the Census Bureau offers three different projections through 2100 based on high, medium and low immigration.

Under the low-immigration scenario, the U.S. population shrinks to 319 million people by 2100 from the current population of 333 million residents. It grows to 365 million people at the end of the century under the medium immigration scenario and to 435 million residents with high immigration. In each immigration scenario, the country is on track to become older and more diverse. 

Americans of college age and younger are already part of a majority-minority cohort.

Aliana Mediratta, a 20-year-old student at Washington University in St. Louis, welcomes a future with a more diverse population and believes immigration “is great for our society and our economy.”

But that optimism is tempered by existential worries that things seem to be getting worse, including climate change and gun violence.

“I feel like I have to be optimistic about the future since, if I’m pessimistic, it disables me from doing things that I want to do, that are hard, but morally right to do,” Mediratta said.

Here’s a look at how the U.S. population is expected to change through 2100, using the medium immigration scenario.

2020s

By 2029, older adults will outnumber children, with 71 million U.S. residents aged 65 and older and 69 million residents under age 18.

The numeric superiority of seniors will mean fewer workers. Combined with children, they’ll represent 40% of the population. Only around 60% of the population that is of working age — between 18 and 64 — will be paying the bulk of taxes for Social Security and Medicare.

2030s

“Natural increase” in the U.S. will go negative in 2038, meaning deaths outpacing births due to an aging population and declines in fertility. The Census projects 13,000 more deaths than births in the U.S., and that shortfall grows to 1.2 million more deaths than births by 2100.

2050s

By 2050, the share of the U.S. population that is white and not Hispanic will be under 50% for the first time.

Currently, 58.9% of U.S. residents are white and not Hispanic. By 2050, Hispanic residents will account for a quarter of the U.S. population, up from 19.1% today. African Americans will make up 14.4% of the population, up from 13.6% currently. Asians will account for 8.6% of the population, up from 6.2% today.

Also in the 2050s, Asians will surpass Hispanics as the largest group of immigrants by race or ethnicity.

2060s

The increasing diversity of the nation will be most noticeable in children. By the 2060s, non-Hispanic white children will be a third of the population under age 18, compared to under half currently.

2080s

Under that medium immigration scenario, the U.S. population peaks at more than 369 million residents in 2081. After that, the Census Bureau predicts a slight population decline, with deaths outpacing births and immigration. 

2090s

By the end of the 2090s, the foreign population will make up almost 19.5% of U.S. residents, the highest share since the Census Bureau started keeping track in 1850. The highest rate previously was 14.8% in 1890. It currently is 13.9%.

FOREIGN BORN AND IMMIGRATION

Experts say that predicting immigration trends is more difficult than in the past when migration was tightly linked to the pull of economic opportunity in the U.S. 

When immigration is instead driven by the push of climate change, social tensions exacerbated by authoritarian rulers and gangs, as well as fluctuating anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S., it is harder to predict, said Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

“In the past we would say we get immigration from economics, and you can make some reasonable projections,” Pastor said. “Now, we have these push pressures for people to come to the U.S., and we have a further racialized reaction to migration, we have a much wider band or error, or the potential to make mistakes.”

RELIABILITY

How reliable will the numbers be, especially as race and ethnic definitions change, and immigration levels are hard to predict?

While there is an extreme level of uncertainty projecting almost eight decades into the future, it is a good starting point, said Ong, the UCLA professor.

“Over 80 years, birth and death rates, fertility rates and migration rates can be changed through policies, programs and resources,” Ong said.

Mediratta, the college student, imagines that 20-year-olds like her two centuries ago were also concerned about the future, but they didn’t have TikTok or Instagram to amplify their worries. 

“It seems like things are bad all the time,” Mediratta said. “I feel that things were probably bad all the time 200 years ago, but nobody could tell everyone about it.”

Source: The Census Bureau sees an older, more diverse America in 2100 in three immigration scenarios

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Ontario to ban Canadian work experience requirement in job postings

2023/11/11 Leave a comment

Significant:

Ontario plans to ban employers from requiring Canadian work experience in job postings or application forms.

Labour Minister David Piccini says newcomers deserve a meaningful chance to contribute in their respective fields, and this change would stop employers from screening out certain workers before the interview process.

Piccini says the new rule will be contained in legislation with a slew of labour law changes he will introduce on Tuesday, including requiring employers to disclose salary ranges in job postings and boosting benefits for injured workers.

Two years ago, the Ontario government passed a law prohibiting certain non-health professions from requiring Canadian work experience for licensing.

The new legislation would also increase the number of international students in Ontario eligible to apply to the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program by revising eligibility requirements for one-year college graduate certificate programs.

As well, it would change how regulated professions such as accounting, architecture and geoscience use third-party organizations to assess international qualifications, which the government says would improve oversight and accountability.

Source: Ontario to ban Canadian work experience requirement in job postings

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Les cibles fédérales d’immigration francophone sont «nettement insuffisantes», selon l’Assemblée nationale

2023/11/11 Leave a comment

No surprise. But given that Quebec sets its levels, bit churlish to complain when RoC does the same:

Les nouvelles cibles fédérales d’immigration francophone sont « nettement insuffisantes pour favoriser l’essor du français au Canada », selon les élus du Québec.

L’Assemblée nationale a adopté mercredi à l’unanimité une motion demandant que la cible pour l’année prochaine, qui s’élève à 6 %, « soit portée à 12 % » en « solidarité avec l’ensemble des communautés francophones au Canada ainsi qu’avec la Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada (FCFA) ».

Contacté par Le Devoir, le ministre fédéral de l’Immigration, Marc Miller, n’a pas souhaité réagir.

Il a annoncé début novembre que sa cible d’immigration francophone hors Québec passerait à 6 % en 2024, puis à 7 % en 2025 et 8 % en 2026. Il dit avoir été « ambitieux avec ces nouvelles cibles », car Ottawa n’a atteint pour la première fois qu’en 2022 — « de peine et de misère » — sa cible d’immigration précédente, fixée à 4,4 % en 2003.

Mais la FCFA n’est pas du même avis. Elle réclame depuis plus d’un an, tout comme d’autres associations francophones du pays, une cible progressive commençant à 12 % en 2024 et allant jusqu’à 20 % en 2036, ce qui permettrait à terme de rétablir le poids démographique de la francophonie hors Québec à 4,4 %.

Depuis la modernisation en juin de la Loi canadienne sur les langues officielles, le gouvernement fédéral doit rétablir le poids démographique des communautés francophones en situation minoritaire à ce qu’il était en 1971, soit 6,1 %.

« Une cible de 6 %, ça nous maintient dans le déclin. À 8 %, on est à peu près dans la stabilité, mais certainement pas dans la croissance », avait déclaré par voie de communiqué la présidente de la FCFA, Liane Roy.

La motion a été déposée sans préavis par le libéral Monsef Derraji, conjointement avec le chef du Parti québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, le solidaire Guillaume Cliche-Rivard et les députés indépendants Frédéric Beauchemin et Marie-Claude Nichols.

Source: Les cibles fédérales d’immigration francophone sont «nettement insuffisantes», selon l’Assemblée nationale

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Canada: Quebec Immigrant Investor Program to Reopen in January with Some Stricter Eligibility Requirements

2023/11/11 Leave a comment

Sigh, in the past, backdoor entry to Vancouver and other cities in English Canada:

  • The Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration will officially reopen Quebec’s Immigrant Investor Program (QIIP) on January 1, 2024, with changes to criteria and requirements.

  • Key changes include stricter French language requirements, residence requirements and financial contributions in Quebec, and a new Work Permit step.

  • On the other hand, the program will ease some measures such as eliminating quotas and relaxing the applicant selection process.

  • The QIIP program will offer foreign investors an additional pathway to permanent residence in Quebec.

Source: Canada: Quebec Immigrant Investor Program to Reopen in January … – Fragomen

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Do you know what Canadians think about immigration? 

2023/11/10 Leave a comment

Nice breakdown on relative immigration category priorities and related analysis:

If you follow the news, you’ll have seen coverage of our new report on attitudes toward immigration in Canada. Our Focus Canada survey (in partnership with Century Initiative) included a wider range of questions than most – not all of which could fit into the initial coverage. Here’s one that should not get overlooked.

For the first time,* this year’s survey asked about six different categories of immigration as follows:

Each year, Canada accepts immigrants under different categories. Please tell me whether you personally believe the government should place a high priority, a medium priority or a low priority on accepting each of the following categories of immigrants?

Here are the overall results:

The public is most likely to prioritize skilled workers (whether those with specialized skills in high demand, or new permanent residents arriving with a good education). This may not seem surprising, but that’s precisely the point: it’s now widely accepted that our economy needs more skilled workers than we can produce at home. Theoretically, it would have been possible for people to see highly skilled immigrants as rivals who threaten to take away the best jobs from Canadian-born workers. But this is not the case. This type of immigration is seen as a win-win and not a zero-sum scenario.

Read the full survey report

The next striking finding is that refugees are fairly high up on the list of top priorities (while not quite as popular as skilled immigrants, a majority of Canadians say that accepting refugees should be a high priority). It remains the case that many Canadians continue to value the humanitarian goals of our immigration system, and not just the economic ones.

Next comes family reunification. It’s worth noting that there is a significant gender gap on both this item and the previous one about refugees. Women are significantly more likely than men to say that the government should place a high priority on bringing in family members of current residents, and accepting refugees.

Last on the list of high priorities are two types of temporary immigrants: lower-skilled workers and students – something that’s notable at a time when these categories are the ones that have seen the most unexpected increases. Personally, I was surprised to see international students at the bottom of the list; I wonder if the heads of universities and colleges are too.

So much for the high priorities; it’s just as interesting the look at the results the other way around. Relatively few Canadians think any of these six types of immigrants should actually be a low priority. The highest figures come in the cases of lower skilled temporary workers (22%) and students (20%) – but even here, only about one in five say the government should place a low priority on accepting these categories of immigrants.

The continuing openness of Canadians to immigration becomes even more apparent if we count up how many of each of the six categories mentioned in the survey are seen as high or low priorities. The count of high priorities has a nice normal distribution: most people are in the middle (66% name two, three or four high priority types of immigrant) and relatively few people are at either end of the spectrum (16% name zero or one high priorities, and 17% name five or six).

The picture is very different when we count low priorities. One in two Canadians do not answer “low priority” for any of the six categories of immigrant. Four in five (81%) name no more than one. Only three percent list at least four of the six categories as low priorities. In a survey of 2,002 Canadians, a grand total of three people (0.1%) think all six categories should be a low priority for the government.

This is important context for interpreting the main headline from the survey, which is that there has been a big jump in the past year in the proportion of Canadians who agree there is currently too much immigration (from 27% in 2022 to 44% in 2023). This is certainly an expression of anxiety about the current state of the economy in general, and housing availability and affordability in particular. But it’s not an expression of growing opposition to the idea of Canada as a country that welcomes immigrants.

To back up this interpretation, consider the following additional findings:

  • First, a majority of those who agree that there is too much immigration to Canada nonetheless say that the government should place a highpriority on accepting each of the two categories of skilled immigrants mentioned in the survey. 
  • Second, and more generally, 91 percent of those who agree that there is too much immigration to Canada nonetheless say that the government should place a high priority on accepting at least one of the six categories of immigrants mentioned in the survey. 
  • Finally, only 14 percent of those who agree that there is too much immigration to Canada say that the government should place a lowpriority on accepting at least three of the six categories of immigrants mentioned in the survey. 

In other words, while a lot of Canadians have concerns about the details of current immigrant policy, very few think it’s time to raise the drawbridge.

Source: Do you know what Canadians think about immigration?

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Un premier observatoire sur l’immigration francophone au Canada

2023/11/10 Leave a comment

Small change compared to the CERC grant of close to $100 million…

Le premier observatoire en immigration francophone au Canada a été inauguré mercredi. Examinant un sujet souvent politisé, l’organisme cherchera à favoriser le développement de connaissances et à « avoir une portée sur le milieu gouvernemental, communautaire et universitaire ».

L’observatoire « contribuera aux efforts menés par le Canada pour favoriser l’accueil et l’intégration des immigrants francophones », a déclaré par voie de communiqué le ministre canadien de l’Immigration, Marc Miller, soulignant que « l’immigration francophone joue un rôle clé pour soutenir la vitalité et la croissance des communautés francophones hors Québec ».

M. Miller a également annoncé un investissement de près de 85 000 $ auprès de l’Université de l’Ontario français (UOF) pour la « mise en place » de cet observatoire, dont la cérémonie d’inauguration a eu lieu en fin d’après-midi au Centre francophone de Toronto.

« Là, on a un financement d’Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada [IRCC] pour le démarrage. On espère que le financement va se poursuivre au fil des ans pour pouvoir assurer la viabilité de cette initiative », indiquait plus tôt au Devoir la professeure de l’UOF qui a mené le projet, Linda Cardinal.

Dans les 20 dernières années, plusieurs initiatives de recherche s’intéressant à l’immigration francophone se sont essoufflées par manque de financement ou de structure institutionnelle, explique-t-elle.

Les membres de l’Observatoire en immigration francophone sont encore en train d’en « confirmer » les objectifs, mais l’organisme compte notamment organiser des ateliers éducatifs, ainsi que produire et « mettre en valeur » des données, explique Mme Cardinal.

Une première activité aura lieu dès jeudi, se réjouit-elle. Il s’agit d’une « école d’automne », au cours de laquelle 25 doctorants, professeurs, représentants de groupes communautaires et fonctionnaires seront « initiés à la statistique linguistique, en particulier en matière d’immigration ». Des recherches porteront également sur la perception qu’ont les immigrants de la francophonie au Canada, ainsi que sur la « notion d’accueil ».

« Politisation » de l’immigration

L’observatoire espère aussi participer aux discussions sur la mise en oeuvre de la nouvelle politique en immigration francophone d’Ottawa. Depuis la réforme de la Loi sur les langues officielles, IRCC doit « adopter une politique en matière d’immigration francophone visant à favoriser l’épanouissement des minorités francophones au Canada, notamment en assurant le rétablissement et l’accroissement de leur poids démographique ».

C’est dans cette lignée qu’ont été présentées les nouvelles cibles d’immigration francophone hors Québec, qui passeront de 4,4 % actuellement à 6 % en 2024, 7 % en 2025, puis 8 % en 2026. Des taux « ambitieux », selon le ministre Miller, mais qui ne suffiront pas à « renverser le déclin de la francophonie », si l’on écoute la Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, qui réclame une hausse progressive commençant à 12 % en 2024 et allant jusqu’à 20 % en 2036.

Un sondage publié fin octobre indique toutefois que l’appui aux cibles d’immigration actuelles est en chute libre : 44 % des Canadiens affirment que « le Canada accueille trop d’immigrants », soit une croissance record de 17 points par rapport à 2022.

« Ces statistiques, c’est un portrait du moment. […] Ce qu’on entend, c’est des gens qui politisent la question de l’immigration parce qu’il y a des élections qui s’en viennent. Il y a des enjeux réels dans les services sociaux, en matière de logement, mais ces enjeux existaient avant les débats sur l’immigration », explique-t-elle.

Mais il n’y a « personne au Canada qui dit qu’il est contre l’immigration », ajoute-t-elle. « Un observatoire comme le nôtre pourrait contribuer [au débat] de façon à mieux faire comprendre la situation […] à distance de la politisation. »

Plusieurs consultations

Celle qui est aussi vice-rectrice adjointe à la recherche de l’établissement inauguré en 2021 affirme que, depuis sa création, l’UOF souhaitait faire de la question de l’immigration l’« un de ses créneaux d’excellence ».

Pour mener à bien le projet, Mme Cardinal a consulté des chercheurs afin de « connaître leurs priorités ». « L’idée, c’était d’héberger cette initiative à l’UOF, mais avec une portée pancanadienne », ajoute-t-elle. L’Université d’Ottawa, l’Université Simon Fraser, l’Université de Moncton et la Chaire d’excellence en recherche du Canada sur la migration et l’intégration, à l’Université métropolitaine de Toronto, sont ainsi des partenaires de l’observatoire.

« En recherche, il faut toujours travailler en collaboration pour avoir un impact et pour susciter l’adhésion — et aussi pour s’assurer qu’en francophonie canadienne, notamment, on crée une relève, soutient-elle. On responsabilise nos universités à l’importance du thème de l’immigration. Depuis les années 2000, l’immigration fait partie de la redéfinition même de ce qu’est la francophonie en contexte minoritaire. »

Les travaux de l’observatoire porteront surtout sur l’immigration francophone en contexte minoritaire. Or, le Québec sera « une base de comparaison très intéressante », indique Mme Cardinal. Et l’Ontario a aussi « des choses à dire au Québec, notamment sur la notion d’accueil. […] On espère que le Québec va s’intéresser à nous ».

Source: Un premier observatoire sur l’immigration francophone au Canada

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Globe editorial: Canada’s prosperity problem points to a lower-wage future

2023/11/10 Leave a comment

Money quote:

In 1993, Canada’s real GDP per capita was 106 per cent of the OECD average. The C.D. Howe Institute forecasts that in 2024 Canada will be just 89 per cent of the average of advanced economies. Canada has also fallen compared with the United States: In 2023, this country’s GDP per capita is forecast to be less than three-quarters that of the U.S. (Those statistics are relatively generous to Canada, since the institute has adjusted them for domestic purchasing power.)

Source: Canada’s prosperity problem points to a lower-wage future

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Douglas Todd: The Wild West in B.C. housing is mostly over, but the devastation goes on

2023/11/09 Leave a comment

The naïveté of political leaders at all levels of government. Fortunately, Canada shut down its immigrant investor program but inexplicably, Quebec maintains its program despite it largely being a backdoor entry to elsewhere in Canada. David Ley’s latest book and analysis featured:

The New York Times told the world about B.C.’s unusually grim housing crisis last decade when it ran articles with headlines such as the “Housing Frenzy that Even Owners Want to End” and “The Wild West of Canadian Political Cash,” which looked at developers’ outsized influence on governments.

Those years of out-of-control, largely unregulated property investments, which caused drastic unaffordability in Metro Vancouver, are captured in bold, and sometimes painful, detail in a new book by David Ley, a University of B.C. geography professor emeritus.

His immaculately researched book, Housing Booms in Gateway Cities, looks into how the unparalleled movement of transnational capital and people into cosmopolitan Vancouver, Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore and London led to skyrocketing housing prices and rents.

Ley’s extensive sections on the Vancouver region add up to a cautionary tale. He outlines the dark consequences of the blind faith that Canadian and B.C. governments put in libertarian, growth-at-any-cost ideology.

The book comes with three propositions: That financial deregulation has made housing a bigger investment than ever, that “gateway” cities are especially attractive to foreign capital and exaggerated prices, and that local wage earners are being left behind.

“Conventional housing market explanations are no longer adequate in gateway cities where ‘fundamentals’ must be rescaled to include immigration, offshore investors and the role of the global real estate industry,” Ley says

While the geographer looks at how times have changed in recent years, with housing becoming more regulated, at least in B.C., it’s crucial to follow Ley’s analysis of the political decisions that contributed to Metro Vancouver (and Victoria) ending up in this sorry mess. A recent Angus Reid poll found “three quarters of Vancouver tenants could not afford to buy, or never expected to be able to buy, a home.”

A significant part of the problem goes back at least a decade, to when the federal and B.C. governments were desperate to attract foreign capital. Politicians of all stripes were jetting off on Asia-Pacific trade missions, while Ottawa ramped up an immigration scheme that eagerly welcomed rich people — in a way that especially affected Metro Vancouver.

The business immigration program, by which the wealthiest could gain entry by “investing” in Canada, brought 200,000 people to Vancouver alone, says Ley. They had tens of billions of dollars to pump into the economy, with the heftiest portion channelled into the “asset” of housing.

Large Vancouver property developers, along with those in London and Sydney, opened scores of sales offices in East Asia to serve business-class immigrants and other affluent transnationals. The director of marketing at Vancouver-based Westbank said, “China is now a big part of this business … right now I have a rule when we talk about projects, if the Chinese market doesn’t want it, I have no interest in it.”

Royal Pacific Realty, specializing in China and Asia-Pacific investors, grew to 1,200 staff, notes Ley. And Macdonald Realty acknowledged 21 per cent of sales of Vancouver properties worth $1 to $3 million went to purchasers from mainland China. In 2016, the B.C. dwellings of investor-immigrants from China were valued on average at $3.3 million, over twice the value of Canadian-born residents.

While the federal Conservatives shut down the investor-class immigration program in 2014, the doggedly free-market B.C. Liberals, especially the minister responsible for housing, Rich Coleman, remained gung-ho on funnelling more offshore cash to the housing industry.

Coleman, Ley writes, went so far as to make “the remarkable claim” that Vancouver prices were “pretty reasonable,” even though they were far more unaffordable than even pricey London and Singapore. Coleman also refused to publish figures on foreign investment, adding he had no control over it.

Meanwhile, the B.C. Liberals chose condo marketer Bob Rennie as their chief fundraiser, welcoming tens of millions of dollars in donations from the development industry, far more than from any other sector.

According to Ley, when the NDP defeated the economically libertarian B.C. Liberals in 2016, it was largely because of housing.

The trouble is, the damage from that era carries on to this day.

As Ron Butler, the Vancouver-raised president of one of Canada’s largest mortgage companies, says: “The most important thing to understand about foreign capital is it never goes back.” No matter if the money comes from China, Iran or the Middle East, Butler says, once here “it just sloshes around,” mostly in real estate.

Seven years ago the NDP began bringing in regulations, such as the speculation and vacancy tax, to restrict housing demand, foreign and domestic. The NDP also drastically reduced the ability of developers, including from offshore, to donate to political parties.

For a few years after 2017, the NDP’s regulations helped to cool prices, says Ley, whose earlier book was titled Millionaire Migrants.

But then, in 2020, with almost bizarre effect, COVID-19 hit. With interest rates hitting rock bottom and Ottawa printing new stimulus money, Ley says house prices again heated up. The NDP’s relatively mild tax interventions to reduce investor demand weren’t strong enough. Prices are again stratospheric.

Still, in recent years, federal, provincial and municipal governments are at least starting to share some common ideas, Ley says.

They’re recognizing investors are overwhelming wage earners in the housing market. They are recognizing that “in major cities, real-estate investment has become global” and that a “freewheeling” market is vulnerable to tax fraud and money laundering. They also recognize that new housing and rental “supply” must be affordable, and that “taxation is one appropriate vehicle to manage speculative demand.”

As a result, in some ways, the libertarian Wild West housing days are over, at least in B.C., which has been more proactive in regulating housing than the Liberals in Ottawa.

Even though higher interest rates are slowing down the market, Demographia continues to rank Vancouver the most unaffordable city in North America. And with all that transnational cash still sloshing around, investors have come to own almost half of the condos in Vancouver.

Metro Vancouver’s housing market is so abnormal, so unequal, that a recent Angus Reid poll found two-thirds of regional respondents defying conventional consumer thinking and not wanting house prices to rise.

Those respondents included many homeowners who actually want prices to fall, even though it goes against their own financial self-interest. Such homeowners don’t want to see a younger generation unfairly locked out of decent shelter.

Source: Douglas Todd: The Wild West in B.C. housing is mostly over, but the devastation goes on

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Why are so many new immigrants leaving Canada? – CTV News

2023/11/09 Leave a comment

Some of the personal stories behind those leaving:

Immigrants to Canada are increasingly leaving this country for opportunities elsewhere, according to a study conducted by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship and the Conference Board of Canada.

In fact, the number of immigrants who left Canada rose by 31 per cent above the national average in 2017 and 2019.

According to the study, factors that influence onward migration include economic integration, a sense of belonging, racism, homeownership, or a lack thereof, and economic opportunities in other countries, the report revealed.

Amid a crunch on affordable housing and other services, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced on Nov. 1 that the federal government intends to maintain its target of admitting 500,000 new permanent residents in 2026.

In the days since the announcement, dozens of people who came to Canada as immigrants have reached out to CTVNews.ca to explain why they’ve abandoned their efforts to build a life here, or are close to doing so.

Most respondents said the high cost of living and competition for jobs and affordable housing have driven them to look beyond Canada’s borders for better prospects.

Julian Cristancho immigrated to Canada from Colombia in 2019, after briefly considering the U.S., and started an entry-level human resources job after completing a human resources degree in Ontario. The job paid $17 per hour – not a living wage in most Ontario cities at the time, according to the Ontario Living Wage Network – and he quit after two years to apply for something better.

“It took around 50 applications and countless hours tailoring resumes and cover letters just to get three initial interviews and not hearing back from those companies,” he wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca. In Cristancho’s experience, Canada’s immigration system works well at getting people into the country, but not at setting them up for success after they’ve invested some time here, he said.

Emilson Jose, from India, has lived in Canada for 10 years and has learned that many Canadians can’t afford to live close to where their jobs are located, meaning they spend dozens of hours commuting each month.

“So literally you will spend the majority of your time on roads which could be otherwise spent with your family,” he told CTVNews.ca in an email. From daycare to housing to daily household expenses, Jose has found that the cost of living in Canada can easily exceed a family’s income. He said he worries how much harder it will be for his children to attain homeownership decades from now.

“No matter how much you make, your take home pay is not even keeping up the expense. Families barely keep their head above water,” he said.

“After 10 years of hardship, I am now a proud Canadian citizen who doesn’t want to live in Canada anymore.”

Saikiran Yellavula came to Ontario with his family to study in 2019 after having practised dentistry in India for two years. Yellavula got a job in retail while studying health-care administration at Conestoga College, and in 2021, he and his family became permanent residents. For the past 16 months, Yellavula has worked fervently to land a job more suitable to his education and training, with no luck.

“I have applied for approximately 2,000 jobs in Toronto, but have received only one interview,” he told CTVNews.ca in an email. “The high cost of living, particularly the soaring grocery prices, combined with the current inflation…has made it incredibly difficult to make ends meet.”

On top of struggling to get by in a city known for having some of the highest living expenses in Canada, Yellavula and his family have found Canada’s cold climate hard on their physical and mental well-being.

“The combination of these factors has led to a deeply disheartening and depressing experience, not just for us but for many other immigrants facing similar circumstances,” Yellavula said. “Regrettably, these challenges have driven us, as well as several others we know, to contemplate leaving Canada for good. It pains us to consider leaving a country that we initially chose with hope and optimism for a better future.”

Shahrukh Al Islam, originally from Bangladesh, has been in Canada since 2011, when he moved here for school at 18 years old. He excelled at the University of Alberta and received several academic scholarships. Upon graduating, he landed a job with Amazon in Vancouver. However, Canada no longer holds the same appeal it once did for Al Islam, and he’s preparing to move south, where he believes he will earn more, and enjoy more spending power.

“(I) will be leaving Vancouver for Seattle soon,” he told CTVNews.ca in an email. “Tech salaries are higher, taxes are lower, houses are cheaper and USD is stronger.”

Bernard De Vaal and his wife moved to Canada from South Africa in 2018 and tried for five years to build a life here. De Vaal completed a post-graduate program in journalism and the couple had a baby. In 2019, the small family moved from Windsor, Ont. to Vancouver to try and settle into life in Canada.

For another four years, they struggled with social isolation, the high cost of living and the prospect of reaching old age without a sufficient retirement fund. They settled for an apartment that didn’t meet their needs, but which was all they could afford. Eventually, they gave up on Canada.

“My wife and daughter have since moved back to South Africa with me having to stay and work in Vancouver to pay off the debt we accumulated over the course of the last five years,” De Vaal told CTVNews.ca in an email.

“We feel extremely let down by the ‘Canadian’ dream. What we found is a withering, uncertain and anti-working class government, happy to sell promises it never intended on keeping.”

Other readers who contacted CTVNews.ca cited health-care woes and a hostile political landscape among their reasons for leaving Canada, though affordability was still a common thread.

Bianca Mtz and her partner moved to Canada from Europe when she was 29 and both secured well-paying jobs in Vancouver. Mtz came armed with a master’s degree and a PhD in engineering.

Despite their professional success, the two found it hard to cover the expenses of their small family.

“We found ourselves merely scraping by, unable to afford a home to raise our child,” Mtz said in an email to CTVNews.ca

Meanwhile, although they had chosen Canada over the United States for its health-care system, they were unable to secure a family doctor.

Compounding these issues, Mtz said, were daily headlines about political scandals, policy failures and pervasive social inequality. It was enough to convince Mtz and her partner to return to Europe.

“Confronted with a society where hard work did not seem to correlate with fair rewards, where health care and educational systems were compromised, and where government corruption was not an anomaly but a recurrent headline, our longing for Europe’s more accountable and equitable social systems intensified,” Mtz said.

“We are thus compelled to return to a society where taxes lead to tangible public services, healthcare is a given right, not a privilege and where schools are havens of learning, unmarred by the pervasive reach of politics.”

Source: Why are so many new immigrants leaving Canada? – CTV News

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

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