Douglas Todd: Remarkably popular book on baby boomers distorted by politicians

2023/09/02 Leave a comment

More on some of the false or at least misleading demographic arguments underlying current government immigration policies and organizations like the Century Initiative:

Daniel Stoffman was co-author of one of the most popular books written in Canada.

Boom, Bust and Echo: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Shift sold more than 300,000 copies after it was published in 1996, with a followup in 2000. Stoffman, who died this summer in Vancouver, shared the royalties equally with University of Toronto economist David Foot.

The theme of Boom, Bust and Echo was that “demographics explains two thirds of almost everything.”

Stoffman and Foot maintained the baby-boomer bulge of Canadians, born between 1947 and 1966, would have a huge impact on trends in real estate, the stock market, eating habits, health care, and leisure activities, including, for instance, the future of birdwatching.

But an odd thing happened largely because of this best-selling book. Its spotlight on Canada’s baby-boom cohort of almost 10 million people has often been misinterpreted, if not distorted, by corporate leaders and federal politicians. That did not please Stoffman, a journalist, author and secular Jew who described himself as a “radical centrist.”

Stoffman, who once worked as a reporter at The Vancouver Sun and edited the University of B.C. student newspaper, The Ubyssey, wrote 13 books before he died in Vancouver at age 78 on July 3. They included profiles of Canadian Tire, Barrick Gold, Boston Pizza and McCain Foods, plus The Money Machine, an unusually readable look at the mutual fund industry.

But the more risky book for Stoffman, in contrast to the crowd-pleasing Boom, Bust and Echo, was the one he wrote to challenge business leaders and politicians who maintain, to this day, that aging baby boomers are the No. 1 reason Canada needs one of the highest immigration rates in the world.

Most commentators, scholars and journalists have only recently been catching up with some of Stoffman’s analysis in his book Who Gets In: What’s Wrong with Canada’s Immigration Program — and How to Fix It, which was a finalist for the Donner Prize in public policy.

Stoffman was pro-immigration. But in the early 2000s he wanted Canadians to think seriously about the complex, almost taboo subject. That’s what he did after winning an Atkinson Fellowship from his liberal newspaper, The Toronto Star, to write a groundbreaking series on it.

Today, more mainstream voices are joining Stoffman in questioning the platitudes streaming out of Ottawa, particularly from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is currently justifying increasing Ottawa’s immigration target to a record 500,000 this year, double the 250,000 when the Liberals came to power.

Stoffman also anticipated the questions pundits are now raising about the federal Liberals’ related migration decisions to allow the number of foreign students and other non-permanent residents to reach almost two million, a figure CIBC’s Benjamin Tal cited this week. That compares to about half a million when Trudeau was first elected.

Former immigration minister Ahmed Hussen, echoing Trudeau’s talking points about the need to welcome immigrants, foreign students and guest workers to “grow our economy,” often justified his approach by referring to what he characterized as the baby boom problem.

“The question is: Why do we need immigration? Well, five million Canadians are set to retire by 2035. And we have fewer people working to support seniors and retirees,” he said, echoing similar remarks by other immigration ministers about the high costs of public health care for the elderly.

Stoffman’s book, Who Gets In, laid out some of the counter arguments economists are making today, which is that high in-migration can never replace an aging workforce.

The main reason is that immigrants also age. The baby boom generation is now aged 56 to 77, a cohort that includes millions of immigrants.

The second reason is many immigrants bring dependants. That is especially true under the Liberals, who quadrupled the number of parents and grandparents that could be sponsored.

The University of B.C.’s David Green and McMaster’s Byron Spencer, both economists, have their own unique way of responding to the supposed dilemma of aging baby boomers. Wryly, they say, the only conceivable way high immigration could offset Canada’s retiring workforce would be if every newcomer was a 15-year-old orphan. That’s because it would take 50 years for the teens to reach retirement age and, as orphans, they would not seek to bring in parents or grandparents.

Stoffman maintained there are two main reasons corporate leaders lobby Ottawa to keep immigration levels high, roughly triple per capita those in the U.S.

“I think the main purpose of Canada’s high immigration policy is to lower wages — and inflate real estate values,” he said in 2015.

The authors of Boom, Bust and Echo were aware, decades ago, of the two dangers. They recognized hiking immigration rates does indeed, as the politicians boast, increase the country’s overall GDP. But it also tends to lower GDP per capita, especially for low-skilled workers.

Stoffman said struggling immigrants best understood this downward pressure because they were the ones most likely to come to him after his speeches to express their worries.

In recent years, economists like Don Wright, former head of the B.C. government’s civil service, Mikal Skuterud of the University of Waterloo, and the B.C. Business Council’s David Williams have been strongly making the argument about lagging wages.

And a host of housing analysts, such as Steve Saretsky, John Pasalis and Ben Rabidoux, have also been warning about how high in-migration, including by foreign students and guest workers, puts intense pressure on rent and housing prices, which are at crisis levels in Vancouver and Toronto.

Stoffman was among the first to argue that Canada could deal with the societal costs of a large baby boom (which once made up 31 per cent of the population, but is now down to 23 per cent) by increasing productivity through innovation. Alas, in recent years productivity has fallen.

Another way is to offer incentives for Canadians to stay longer in the workforce, which the baby boom is doing. Canada could also encourage more people to have children, he said, particularly by providing better and cheaper daycare.

What would be an optimum number of permanent residents coming to Canada, leaving aside guest workers and foreign students? Eight years ago, Stoffman suggested a balanced number for Canada would be about 150,000 new immigrants annually.

Stoffman said he understood why right-wing people — “who think wage inflation is worse than income equality, and don’t want to see cab drivers and cleaning ladies earn more” — would promote “apocalyptic visions” about the need for higher in-migration targets.

“But it’s weird,” he wrote in Who Gets In, “that so many Canadians, who pride themselves on their social consciences and progressive politics, hurl nasty names at those who call for a more limited immigration program.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Remarkably popular book on baby boomers distorted by politicians

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Près de dix ans d’attente pour qu’un réfugié obtienne sa résidence permanente au Québec

2023/09/02 Leave a comment

Of note:

Les seuils d’immigration proposés par le gouvernement Legault menacent de faire exploser les délais des futurs résidents permanents dans la catégorie humanitaire. Tandis que s’amorceront dans moins de deux semaines les consultations publiques en immigration, Le Devoir a appris que le nombre de dossiers est tel qu’au rythme où vont les admissions au Québec, il faudra près de dix ans à un réfugié reconnu et à ses personnes à charge pour obtenir la résidence permanente.

Selon les données d’Immigration Canada, quelque 30 000 réfugiés reconnus vivant au Québec — soit des demandeurs d’asile à qui le gouvernement fédéral a donné le statut de « personnes à protéger », ce nombre comprenant leurs personnes à charge se trouvant à l’étranger — attendaient ce précieux sésame en date du 8 août. Or, la planification pluriannuelle soumise par la ministre de l’Immigration, Christine Fréchette, propose d’accueillir, pour chacune des quatre prochaines années, environ 3550 personnes dans la catégorie « réfugiés reconnus sur place ». Cette catégorie comprend les demandeurs d’asile arrivés au Québec notamment par voie terrestre, maritime et aérienne.

Une règle de trois montre qu’il faudra huit ans et demi pour écouler ces dossiers, sans compter que des milliers de nouveaux réfugiés reconnus vont venir ajouter le leur sur la pile. Rien qu’en 2022, 60 000 demandes d’asile de personnes vivant au Québec ont été déposées. Ces demandes ne seront toutefois pas toutes acceptées.

« Je suis abasourdie, même si les chiffres ne me surprennent pas tant que ça parce qu’il y a eu une hausse des demandes d’asile », a déclaré Stéphanie Valois, présidente de l’Association québécoise des avocats et avocates en droit de l’immigration. « Mais ce qui me surprend c’est quand on met [ce nombre] en parallèle avec les objectifs d’admission dans la planification du Québec. Il y a un décalage complet avec la réalité. »

« Le Québec se met la tête dans le sable », a déploré pour sa part Stephan Reichhold, directeur de la Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes. « Ces délais sont rattachés à des souffrances majeures pour les familles qui sont séparées et reconnues comme réfugiées. Qu’elles se fassent traiter comme ça, c’est absolument inacceptable. » Selon lui, le message qu’on leur envoie est clair : « Mieux vaut pour ces personnes déménager en Ontario ! »

Sans la résidence permanente, les réfugiés reconnus ne peuvent pas étudier, avoir accès aux garderies et occuper certains emplois, explique Me Valois. « Et pour la réunification familiale, c’est une catastrophe », dit-elle, en rappelant que, si les réfugiés reconnus sur place sont en sécurité au Québec, ce n’est pas toujours le cas de leurs proches. « J’ai beaucoup de clients du Soudan, et c’est la guerre là-bas. Même si le réfugié soudanais qu’on reconnaît comme personne à protéger se trouve ici, les membres de sa famille, eux, peuvent être bloqués à l’étranger dans une situation de danger. Ils ne peuvent pas attendre tout ce temps. »

Les partis d’opposition, choqués

Ces données sur le nombre de dossiers font réagir les partis d’opposition. Le député de Québec solidaire et porte-parole en matière d’immigration, Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, se dit « atterré » et « choqué » de constater que le plan de la ministre Fréchette maintiendra dans la précarité « sans raison apparente et pour des délais excessifs » les personnes parmi les plus vulnérables qui travaillent et sont déjà intégrées.

« Cela confirme l’incompétence du ministère, qui présente, année après année, des plans incomplets et sans crédibilité. La ministre Fréchette vient malheureusement de nous confirmer que son arrivée n’a rien changé à ce niveau. »

Pour le député libéral de Nelligan, Monsef Derraji, l’immigration dite « humanitaire » est aussi économique. « Ce n’est pas de la charité. C’est une catégorie qu’on s’est donnée, car on est très accueillant comme peuple au Québec », soutient-il. « Le nombre de demandes a augmenté depuis l’arrivée de la CAQ au pouvoir et, pour moi, on ne peut pas faire fi de ça. »

Il estime d’ailleurs que la consultation publique qui s’amorce passe à côté de débats importants. « C’est l’occasion en or de parler de la capacité d’accueil, on a l’occasion de parler des travailleurs étrangers et on ne le fait pas. C’est la même chose pour les personnes de la catégorie humanitaire, on n’en parle pas. »

Le co-porte-parole du Parti québécois en immigration, Stéphane Handfield, rejette pour sa part la faute sur Ottawa. « Il faut aborder la question en fonction de notre capacité d’accueil [langue, logement, école, médecin, etc.], ce que le gouvernement fédéral n’a certainement pas fait dans les dernières années. Il s’agit ici de personnes vulnérables, qui, dans bien des cas, sont séparées des membres de leur famille depuis de nombreuses années en raison de la lenteur du système d’immigration fédéral. »

Des cibles souvent dépassées

Rappelons que, dans le plan d’immigration, les cibles proposées par le gouvernement sont souvent dépassées, car ce sont des indicateurs. En 2021 et en 2022, par exemple, il était prévu d’accueillir entre 2500 et 2800 réfugiés reconnus sur place, y compris leurs personnes à charge, mais en réalité, plus de 5600 personnes ont été admises dans cette catégorie en 2021 et quelque 4000 en 2022. Environ deux fois plus.

En plus du nombre croissant de demandes d’asile, cela peut aussi s’expliquer par un rééquilibrage dans la foulée de la pandémie. En 2019, soit tout juste avant la pandémie, le nombre de personnes admises dans la catégorie « réfugiés reconnus sur place » avait été fidèle à la prévision. En 2018, la prévision a été légèrement dépassée.

Mentionnons que, dans la catégorie de l’immigration humanitaire, les « réfugiés sélectionnés à l’étranger », dont font partie les réfugiés parrainés au privé par des petits groupes d’individus ou des organismes, ne sont pas aussi nombreux à attendre. Selon les chiffres d’Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada, le nombre est d’environ 2000 personnes.

Suscitant un engouement certain, les consultations publiques sur la planification de l’immigration au Québec pour la période 2024-2027 s’amorceront le 12 septembre prochain. Un nombre record de plus de 70 intervenants et organismes seront entendus.

Source: Près de dix ans d’attente pour qu’un réfugié obtienne sa résidence permanente au Québec

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , ,

ICYMI: Star editorial – An influx of international students is straining the system. But don’t blame the students.

2023/09/02 Leave a comment

Good editorial, making the necessary linkages between the various responsibilities behind the “lucrative” incentive that has brought us to where we are today. And whether it is caps or “systematically manag[ing] international student intake, the net result will have to be fewer but higher quality international students:

It must once have seemed like a simple matter. Invite international students to attend Canadian universities and colleges and in the process gain a lucrative source of revenue to help fund those systems.

Now, however, it has become something of a Gordian knot. With about 900,000 international students expected to enter Canada this year, landing in the middle of a persistent housing crisis, tackling one element of this issue exacerbates a problem elsewhere.

The students often feel gouged, lack adequate supports, are subject to exploitation and can end up in dire or unsafe circumstances.

The issue demonstrates how inter-connected this challenge is, affecting not just education and housing, but also employment and immigration policy. There are many vested interests and not all of them put a priority on the students.

The post-secondary system has become economically dependent on these students because of the higher tuition they pay. In Ontario they accounted for 30 per cent of college enrolment in 2021 but 68 per cent of tuition.

So, too, have employers, many of them in the service sector who rely on student labour. Earlier this year the federal government temporarily eliminated the 20-hour-a-week limit on work by international students.

Meanwhile, many students are attracted to Canada by the prospect of gaining permanent residence through acquiring a Canadian education and work permit — a fast track exploited by some.

In all, it is a knotty problem not easily untangled. Cutting it will involve some pain and no small jurisdictional wrangling.

At the federal cabinet retreat in Charlottetown last week, Housing Minister Sean Fraser floated the notion of a cap on foreign students. But what at first blush might seem the easiest solution would merely bring its own set of problems, not least of which would be rationing international students among schools and effectively creating financial boons for some and crises for others.

Some schools have already objected to the idea of a cap, saying that building more student housing is a better way to ease demands for rental accommodation.

Part of the solution must involve schools doing a better job to ensure the well-being of the students whose tuition money they happily accept. As Fraser said, if schools are going to recruit record numbers of international students, they are going to have to do a better job of housing them.

The immigration department has said the federal government will need to have discussions with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over education, about the pressure on cash-strapped post-secondary institutions to use international students as cash cows.

As well, Fraser said, attention must be paid by provinces to separating legitimate educational institutions from the exploitative private schools that have sprung up to cash in on international students. The partnerships between public and private colleges to to educate international students and then provide access to a postgraduate work permit is overdue for closer scrutiny.

But there will be no quick fix. The problem is sufficiently complex to require a set of solutions.

They suggested a process to more systematically manage international student intake and to reset expectations of applicants about their ability to come to Canada and what a student visa promises.

Governments and schools must take responsibility for recruiters they contract who have marketed the international student program as an easy pathway to immigration.

“It is an ecosystem in Canada that is very lucrative and it’s come with some perverse effects: some fraud in the system, some people taking advantage of what is seen as a backdoor entry into Canada, but also pressure in a number of areas – one of those is housing,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller told CBC’s The House.

But it is a problem largely of our own making, born of that word “lucrative.” It is a discredit to Canada, to the provinces responsible for education, to employers, to post-secondary institutions themselves that happily take their money, that students aren’t better supported.

Source: An influx of international students is straining the system. But don’t blame the students.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

This Canadian province [Saskatchewan] wants to pick immigrants based on their nation. Is that fair, or a ‘slippery slope’?

2023/09/01 Leave a comment

Slippery slope. Would be helpful to see more solid evidence behind the selection of the countries.

But more fundamentally, goes against more than 50 years since race-based criteria were abandoned (7 of the 8 countries are in Europe) and other country-based programs generally are for refugees or leaving for political reasons (e.g., Ukraine, Hong Kong).

No real issue with recruitment missions and events in specific countries as that has been a long-time practice in Canada. The issue is limiting access to draws:

In a first-of-its-kind pilot project, Saskatchewan is picking skilled immigrants based on their country of residence, raising eyebrows for deviating from Canada’s selection system that has otherwise been open to all regardless of race and nationality.

In August, the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program created six draws with the goal of inviting 542 skilled immigrants in dozens of occupational backgrounds to settle in the province as permanent residents.

The catch is only those who are living in one of these eight countries can qualify: Czechia, Germany, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.

While officials say the draws are designed to target immigrants based on their likelihood to succeed and stay in the province, experts fear this might mark the beginning of a return to Canada’s ethnocentric immigration selection approach of the past.

“This is a slippery slope that undoes the progress we’ve had with bringing in a points system,” says University of Western Ontario political sociologist Howard Ramos, who studies social justice and equity.

“What is very unique here is they’re being as explicit as they are in terms of saying, ‘We want people from these countries.’”

Until the late 1960s, said Ramos, Canada had an immigration system that welcomed immigrants from countries that were “culturally similar” to Canada, to exclude Chinese, South Asian and non-European migrants.

Then the so-called points system was introduced in 1967, awarding points to immigration applicants based on objective and measurable attributes such as educational achievements, work experience, language proficiency and employment skills.

“Canada was a world leader at bringing in a points system, a merit-based, human-capital, skills-based system,” said Ramos. “And the slippery slope of these kinds of draws goes again to pricing specific countries over skills alone.”

The most populous provinces — Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta — all enjoy an immigrant retention rate of higher than 80 per cent. However, the rest of Canada struggles to keep their newcomers despite the provincial nominee program meant to let them pick their own.

The country-specific pilot is an attempt by Saskatchewan to devote its limited resources to target newcomers who are most likely to stay, provincial officials say.

According to Statistics Canada, only 64 per cent of newcomers who settled in Saskatchewan between 2016 and 2020 ended up staying. Among those who came under the skilled workers and skilled trades categories in 2019, only 43 per cent of them remained.

Inspired by the settlement success of the five flights of displaced Ukrainians who arrived in the province in the past year, officials came up with the pilot project with employers, professional regulators, industry associations and community-based partners.

In picking the select countries, they looked at labour-pool characteristics, language ability, history of successful recruitment and retention of newcomers from different countries, as well as the job opportunities available in the province.

One other key element they considered was the credential compatibility of migrants from those countries. For instance, long-haul truck drivers in Poland, Ukraine and Germany are quickly recognized by provincial officials to work in Saskatchewan.

“We want to ensure that they remain in Saskatchewan and that the program is being used for genuine intent to contribute to the community growth that we’re experiencing in this province,” said the province’s deputy immigration minister, Richelle Bourgoin.

“We want to ensure that the very precious nominations that we have under our provincial nominee program are allocated to individuals who want to live and work in Saskatchewan.”

The federal government sets quotas for the number of provincial nomination spots each year and Saskatchewan is eligible to submit up to 7,250 in 2023.

Normally, provincial immigration officials will create a draw and invite applicants from a pool of existing candidates — who have expressed interest in permanent residence in the province and meet the relevant points thresholds — to apply for permanent residence.

However, in this pilot, Saskatchewan officials have created the draws before they have the talent pool. They expect to find their applicants in recruitment missions in Europe in late September and in India in October, where employers will meet candidates and invite them to enter the pool.

Bourgoin said employers have expressed the value of face-to-face recruitment opportunities, where provincial immigration officials, industry leaders and community partners can also be on hand to address questions and make personalized support for prospects.

Twenty employers have signed up for the mission in Poland, with more than 200 jobs to fill in 40-plus occupations including agriculture, construction, transportation, industrial manufacturing, engineering, project management and hospitality.

The intent to create the draws in advance, said Bourgoin, is to let potential applicants start preparing for an application and compiling all the necessary documents, and perhaps initiating the credential-assessment process from abroad.

While the approach may help build a stronger attachment between the newcomers and the local community, and meet the need for immigrant retention, Saskatoon immigration lawyer Chris Veeman said that’s a departure from the objective of the points system.

“It appears that there’s a preference for certain countries and there’s the question of an appearance of bias in terms of European countries,” he said.

“When you’re looking at, ‘Oh, who is going to stay in Saskatchewan? Who’s more likely to fit in here?’ Maybe that makes sense. But I don’t know that was the way the program was originally set up.”

Veeman assumed the province has already had the federal immigration department’s blessing in adopting country of residence as a criterion.

“They’re OK with provinces doing recruiting missions to meet their specific needs,” he said. “The fact that there’s these missions to certain countries is already a preference on the part of the province. They’re not going everywhere to look for people. They’re only going to certain places.”

Ramos suggested that giving this extra opportunity to European immigrants whose countries have bigger and deeper-rooted communities in Saskatchewan might help sustain those communities, while denying less-established and smaller African and Asian communities the same support.

In an email to the Star, the federal immigration department said provinces and territories are responsible for the design, management and evaluation of their respective provincial nominee programs, though Ottawa does review new streams to ensure they align with national policy and the law.

Bourgoin said the country-specific draws are by no means exclusionary because there are other draws that are open to all candidates. This year alone, the province has nominated applicants from 116 countries.

“This is one tool in a very large tool box. And we are in a position with a growing economy, a very low unemployment rate (so we use) all of the tools we have available to us,” she explained.

“In this case, we are looking to test a theory that we think might yield positive results for not only our communities but our labour market.”

The province will evaluate the pilot upon its completion in December. Successful recruits will be issued a work permit to come here while their permanent residence applications are in process.

Source: This Canadian province wants to pick immigrants based on their nation. Is that fair, or a ‘slippery slope’?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

@charlesadler: Affordable housing — or else

2023/09/01 Leave a comment

Another voice jointing the chorus:

“I think we need to do some serious thinking here.” — Housing Minister Sean Fraser discussing the idea of putting a cap on the number of foreign students in Canada, Aug. 21 in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

Let’s begin with a fact of life that most Canadians are unaware of — about 800,000 foreign students are now living in Canada.

The minister for housing revealed the number. The key reason is university economics.

Tuition for foreign students is substantially higher than it is for Canadian citizens. And universities are always looking for money.

There is no easier place to find it than young people around the world seeking a university education in Canada.

Most of these students are not living in university campus housing. There isn’t nearly enough of that housing stock available. So they compete for mostly rental housing with millions of Canadian citizens.

Eight hundred thousand is the kind of number that is forcing the housing minister and his government to do some “serious thinking” about limiting the number of foreign students Canada admits every year. There is no doubt the government is also revisiting its immigration targets.

The government plans to bring in an estimated 500,000 immigrants every year. But if we continue to have a dearth of housing in this country, we have to take seriously the idea of bringing in fewer people.

It’s axiomatic that politics cannot change the math.

But the math can and does change politics.

The most credible information on housing statistics comes from the federal Crown corporation known as the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). CMHC figures say the country will need to build nearly six million new housing units in Canada in the next seven years to accommodate our population growth. One out of three will be rentals.

There is a multitude of reasons we may not hit those targets.

Ironically, one of those reasons might be any decision to slow down immigration. Canada’s construction trades rely heavily on immigrant workers.

The sad truth is many countries do a good job of encouraging their citizens to take up various trades. Canada is not one of them. But if we continue to have more newcomers than places where we can house them, we will continue to have a housing crisis in this country.

In some cities, rents are becoming outrageously expensive. As is always the case in conversations about the price of shelter in Winnipeg, we have it good relative to places like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, the three cities that have been largely responsible for electing the last three Liberal governments. But relatively good is not the same as actually good.

While the housing picture is murky, especially in Canada’s largest population centres, the politics could not be clearer.

Justin Trudeau’s government will be evicted by the voters two years from now unless steps are taken to reduce the growth in the price of homes and rent.

There is no point in pretending that housing is a one-size-fits-all issue.

We need different kinds of new housing for different people. For low-income people, we must build new government or co-op housing at affordable prices. The same goes for seniors who rely exclusively on their pension income to be involved in the housing market. The government has the means to create its own market for people without means, whether they are old or young.

The same goes for student housing. It’s no mystery where the students are. They’re on campus. And so apartment units have to be built close to campuses and rented out at rates that are lower than the free market in buildings that aren’t competing for the free market.

They’re owned by government agencies created for the needs of students, working-class families and low-income seniors.

Can the government do this in Canada? Of course they can. There is nothing I am suggesting that governments calling themselves liberal democracies or social democracies aren’t doing in many parts of the world.

After the Second World War, it made sense for the federal government to build housing across Canada for veterans returning home to young families. We’re in a cost of living war right now.

And for the government of the day, on this day and this year and next year and the year after that, it’s a political war for hearts and minds that it cannot afford to lose. The next election hinges on it.

More importantly, a less stressful quality of life for millions of Canadians, requires it.

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster.

Source: Affordable housing — or else

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‘Culling’ bad actors capitalizing on tuition fees more effective than capping student visas in bid to fix housing crisis: immigration lawyer

2023/08/31 Leave a comment

Good long read. Insights from Nanos particularly of interest as well as suggestions by immigration lawyer Betsy Kane, albeit hard to implement given the various interests involved:

As politicians trade shots over who is to blame for Canada’s housing crisis, immigration lawyer Betsy Kane says “the finger-pointing” should be aimed at the schools actively recruiting “anyone and everyone who has the money to get here” without ensuring an adequate supply of student housing. Rather than capping the number of student visas, she says the government should instead tighten the criteria under which institutions are permitted to host them.  

However, NDP housing and immigration critic Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.) says a cap would simply be more of the Liberals “tinkering around the edges” of the housing crisis, and “if they want to point fingers, they should look at themselves in the mirror,” and admit that their current housing strategy is, at best, inefficient, and, at worst, a failure.

On Aug. 21, during the Liberals’ cabinet retreat in Prince Edward Island, Housing Minister Sean Fraser (Central Nova, N.S.) suggested the federal government may need to consider a cap on its international student program, which has seen “explosive growth” since the Liberals took office in 2015. 

Currently, there are more than 807,000 international students with study permits in Canada, up from 352,330 in 2015.

“There are good private institutions out there, and separating the wheat from the chaff is going to be a big focus of the work that I try to do with [Immigration Minister Marc] Miller,” Fraser said, adding that “when you see some of these institutions that have five, six times as many students enrolled as they have spaces for them in the building … you’ve got to start to ask yourself some pretty tough questions.”

In an interview with CBC’s The House later that week, Immigration Minister Marc Miller (Ville-Marie–Le Sud-Ouest–Île-des-Soeurs, Que.) said Canada is on track to host around 900,000 international students this year, and while he did not commit to Fraser’s suggestion, he said a cap was not “the only solution to this.” 

Miller also cast blame on a number of “illegitimate actors” exploiting the system, and while he declined to “name and shame,” he said many of those actors were within the private market.

While Fraser cautioned against blaming newcomers for “housing challenges that have been several decades in the making,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, Ont.) accused the Liberals of doing just that.

“[Prime Minister Justin Trudeau] thinks if you’re afraid of your neighbours, you might forget that you can’t pay your rent. This is what demagogues do,” Poilievre said at an Aug. 23 press conference on Parliament Hill. “He wants Canadians to forget all that and blame immigrants. He wants to divide people to distract from his failings.”

Kane, vice-president of government relations with the Canadian Immigration Lawyer Association, told The Hill Times it was “a bit unfair” to blame the high number of international students for putting pressure on the housing market.

“What we’re seeing is the result of colleges and universities leveraging the International Student Program in order to capitalize on the tuition that they’re able to charge,” Kane said. “As Minister Fraser said, we need to cut ‘the wheat from the chaff’ and figure out which institutions aren’t attempting to deliver high-quality education but rather to capitalize on the higher tuition fees.”

Kane said the government could reduce the number of students in other ways, including narrowing the eligibility or designating so-called “trusted educational institutions” that can demonstrate they are delivering programming that can translate to valuable labour market skills and job opportunities.

“By culling the number of institutions and increasing the financial wherewithal students must demonstrate to qualify, you’re in essence capping the number without capping all international students,” Kane explained, adding that the government could also look to tighten further the criteria for which programs of study are eligible to receive applications by international students.

“We don’t necessarily need more international graduates with a one- or two-year business administration diploma,” Kane said. “But we do need graduates in the trades and transportation.”

Additionally, Kane said those institutions should have a greater responsibility to ensure that there is sufficient housing to accommodate students, pointing to similar responsibilities imposed on employers looking to bring in temporary foreign workers. 

Kane also noted that a cap on international students and the Liberals’ targets for new permanent residents were “two different sides of the [immigration] coin.”

“There’s always a risk of a backlash to any type of newcomer … but many of the cohort of individuals being selected as permanent residents are already here as workers and students who can demonstrate that their education, language skills, and work experience will translate into helping our economy,” Kane explained. “So what the government is saying is that in favour of letting us achieve our overall permanent immigration goals, we may have to limit the intake of our temporary residents.”

‘Collision’ between increased immigration and housing market stress ‘a major risk’ for Liberals, says pollster Nanos

While a plurality of Canadians have historically supported greater immigration, Nik Nanos, CEO and chief data scientist for Nanos Research, said that a recent survey conducted by Nanos between July 30 and Aug. 3 for Bloomberg News suggests a majority of Canadians believe increasing the annual immigration targets from 465,000 in 2023 to 500,000 by 2025 would have a negative (42 per cent) or somewhat negative (26 per cent) impact on housing prices. Only one in five believe it will have a positive (eight per cent) or somewhat positive impact (12 per cent).

“Canadians are not against immigration, but they do understand that when you bring over [400,000] to 500,000 new people into the country every year, they have to live someplace,” Nanos told The Hill Times, comparing the immigration targets to adding the population of cities like Kitchener, Ont., every year.

“These are pretty significant numbers,” Nanos continued, adding that the average Canadian doesn’t need to be an expert on immigration or housing to know that those newcomers are going to put more pressure on the market.

According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Canada needs to build 5.8 million new homes by 2030 to tackle housing affordability. The current pace of building puts the country on track to construct just 2.3 million homes by then.

“I think the collision of increasing the number of immigrants and the stress on housing is a major risk for the Liberals,” Nanos said, adding that the Liberals are primarily responsible for putting the two issues on their current path.

“The Liberals created this policy, so they have to take responsibility for the repercussions in terms of pressure on housing and other social welfare programs,” Nanos continued. “They need to work with the provinces and municipalities in order for this policy of bringing in more newcomers to work well and to have the least amount of disruption.”

‘Pointing fingers’ at newcomers, students no substitute for effective housing strategy, says NDP MP Kwan

Kwan called the apparent “change in tune” from Fraser since being sworn in “disconcerting.” While speaking to reporters outside Rideau Hall on July 26, Fraser “[urged] caution to anyone who believes the answer to our housing challenges is to close the door on newcomers.” Kwan said that trying to divert blame to any one group in need of housing is not the solution. 

“The problem is not new people; the problem is the government and a lack of programs and measures that need to be in place to provide housing to both Canadians and newcomers alike,” Kwan said. “Unless [the Liberals] face the music and admit what they are doing is deficient, and in some cases a complete failure, we’re going to keep having this problem.”

However, it is not just the current Liberal government that Kwan says bears responsibility for the current housing crisis, pointing to the actions of consecutive governments of both stripes in the early 1990s—first the Progressive Conservative government under Brian Mulroney and then Jean Chrétien’s Liberals—who began reducing spending on housing, and cut the federal co-operative housing program before eventually pulling the plug on building any new affordable housing units entirely.

Rather than capping the number of international students admitted into the country every year, Kwan said the government should require universities and colleges to provide affordable student housing.

“We know that international students pay exorbitant fees to apply and then pay a significant amount more in tuition fees,” Kwan said, noting the schools had come to rely on that source of income due to a lack of sufficient funding from the provinces.

Kwan said the federal government should play an equal partner with the provinces and schools in funding those student accommodations, and also suggested the Liberals could tie the number of permits an institution could receive to the number of homes they can actually provide.

However, Kwan said that would simply be more “tinkering around the edges” of the problem.

“What we need is the government to deliver on a real housing plan, and that means taking bold action to make real investments,” Kwan said, noting that the federal auditor general’s November 2022 report on the National Housing Strategy provided “riches of embarrassment.” 

She also pointed to testimony from CMHC president Romy Bowers at a Dec. 5, 2022, House Human Resources, Skills, and Social Development Committee meeting, where Bowers said the CMHC’s goal of all Canadians having a “home they can afford and [that] meets their needs” by 2030 is “aspirational.”

“It’s like our moonshot. It’s like our North Star that guides our activity. It’s likely that we’re not going to achieve it, but we feel that there’s a lot of value in trying for it,” Bowers told the committee.

Kwan said if that was Canada’s approach to homelessness and the housing crisis, “it isn’t a wonder that we’re failing.”

“[The NDP] is calling on the government to build more social housing, co-op housing, and community housing that once upon a time was built by the federal government, and we need to get back to doing that,” Kwan said, noting that building was only half of the solution. 

The second half would require increased efforts to safeguard the dwindling stock that Canada has left.

“Canada is losing low-cost rental housing stock to financialized landlords, buying up low-cost rental apartments only to subsequently reno- or demo-evict the current tenants,” Kwan explained, pointing to a recent study by Steve Pomeroy, a housing research consultant and senior research fellow in the Centre for Urban Research and Education at Carleton University. 

Pomeroy’s study found that while the National Housing Strategy included plans to build 16,000 new affordable units per year, four existing units were lost for every unit built. 

“We can’t build fast enough if that rate of loss is allowed to continue,” Kwan said. “We have to stop the bleeding.” 

The NDP is calling on the federal government to create an acquisition fund for non-profits to hold existing stock in a land trust in perpetuity, as well as a moratorium on acquiring those units by “financialized landlords.” Kwan said that Canada could follow the lead of nations like New Zealand that have introduced mortgage “escalators” that increase the required down payment on second and third homes, which would also have the added benefit of levelling the playing field for first-time home buyers.

“To fix the housing crisis, the right to housing needs to be principal, and the government needs to ensure they have a plan commensurate with that to deliver,” Kwan continued. “Minister Fraser said everything is on the table, and there’s no rock he won’t turn … how about tackling the hard stuff and not tinkering around the edges?”

Source: ‘Culling’ bad actors capitalizing on tuition fees more effective than capping student visas in bid to fix housing crisis: immigration lawyer

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A million more non-permanent residents live in Canada than official figures, ministers told

2023/08/31 2 Comments

Believe Mikal Skuterud signalled this earlier but heightens another impact on housing. And unlike the USA, Canada does not track visa overstays, a gap that should be filled:

A leading economist warned federal ministers at their cabinet retreat last week that there are around one million more non-permanent residents living in Canada, including foreign students, than government estimates suggest.

The warning came in a briefing from Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC Capital Markets. He told the Liberal government gathering in Charlottetown that the undercounting in the official statistics means Canada is underestimating the number of new homes required to meet the country’s increasing housing needs.

Mr. Tal said in an interview that the government estimate of the number of non-permanent residents in the country in 2021 was around one million. But his analysis found there were closer to two million. The main reason for the discrepancy, he said, is that the government is not counting people who remain in the country after their visas expire.

Mr. Tal said Statistics Canada assumes that temporary resident visa holders, including international students, leave the country 30 days after the expiries of their visas. “Their software, their coding, makes the assumption that 30 days after your visa expired you left the country, despite the fact you have not left the country,” he said.

He said a majority of temporary residents don’t leave in this timeframe, and many apply to extend their stays in Canada.

In a report on his findings, published Wednesday, Mr. Tal says “the practical implication of that undercounting is that the housing affordability crisis Canada is facing is actually worse than perceived, and calls for an even more urgent and aggressive policy action.”

The federal government has increased its immigration targets to historically high levels. It is now aiming to admit about 500,000 new permanent residents this year, and in each of the following two years. But those numbers don’t include foreign students on visas or people on temporary work permits.

There is currently no federal limit on the number of student visas issued each year. At last week’s cabinet retreat, Housing Minister Sean Fraser told reporters the government should consider a cap on the program, which he said has seen “explosive growth” and placed pressure on housing markets.

The high cost of renting and buying housing has become a fraught political issue. The federal Conservatives have argued that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals need to do more to address housing shortages.

Mr. Tal told The Globe and Mail that Statistics Canada’s practice of assuming holders of expired visas leave the country after 30 days accounts for only about 750,000 of the million or so non-permanent residents he estimates are absent from official numbers.

Another 250,000 – mostly international students – are missing from census data, he said. The most recent census forms said students should submit their information if they were living in their main residences. But they were told not to fill out the census if they return home to live with their parents during the year.

Mr. Tal said the system was confusing for students, and that not all of them filled in the census, in some cases because they believed their main residences were abroad.

“This is why even Statistics Canada believes that the census continues to undercount NPRs with valid visas in Canada,” he said, using an abbreviation for non-permanent residents.

He said the shortfall in the census has implications for housing policy, because the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the federal Crown corporation responsible for housing, uses census data to make its forecasts, which are widely relied upon by planners throughout Canada.

“If your starting point is too low, your forecast will be far too low, resulting in a suboptimal planning process,” Mr. Tal said.

His report on the findings says its figures are conservative.

A briefing paper by Henry Lotin, the founder of Integrative Trade and Economics and a former federal economist, agrees with Mr. Tal’s findings. It says “upwards of one million persons are missing in the official population, largely due to expired visa holders remaining in Canada awaiting new visas.”

Statistics Canada should change its counting methodologies to include holders of expired visas, Mr. Lotin’s paper says.

Source: A million more non-permanent residents live in Canada than official figures, ministers told

Filed under Immigration

Beaudry: Au-delà des chiffres sur le français et les étudiants étrangers

2023/08/31 Leave a comment

Useful reminder that Quebec francisation policies are harder for PhD students:

Les étudiants étrangers font la manchette : on leur attribue divers maux de notre société, du déclin du français à la crise du logement. Mais plutôt qu’alimenter la guerre de chiffres que se livre différentes factions en matière d’immigration, ce texte relatera plutôt une belle histoire de volonté et de résilience.

En matière de francisation, la réalité des études supérieures contraste avec celle des études de premier cycle. À l’instar de plusieurs universités en Europe et ailleurs, la pression pour donner les cours et faire la recherche en anglais est très forte.

Bien que ce ne soit pas la mission de nos universités de franciser les étudiants allophones, rendre plus flexibles nos programmes d’études supérieures pour leur permettre de suivre de vrais cours de francisation est nécessaire, puisqu’avantageux pour tous. Mais cela prend du temps et de l’argent. Faire son doctorat et suivre des cours de francisation en même temps relève du parcours du combattant.

À Polytechnique, comme dans beaucoup d’autres institutions, le doctorat à temps partiel n’existe pas : il faut franchir à vive allure toutes les étapes dans les temps impartis. Si nous voulons contribuer à l’intégration des personnes étudiantes que nous accueillons et formons, nous devons repenser ces premières années des programmes d’études supérieures.

Ce temps supplémentaire exerce aussi une pression énorme sur les fonds de recherche des universitaires qui appuient ces personnes pendant une plus longue période d’études.

À Polytechnique, j’enseigne en français. Un de mes étudiants de doctorat dont le français se résumait à « bonjour » s’inquiétait de ne pas pouvoir suivre les cours et bien comprendre la matière. Pour les cours du trimestre d’hiver 2022, nous nous sommes donc tournés vers la technologie pour pallier son manque de compréhension du français. Il a installé une application sur son téléphone cellulaire qui traduit de façon simultanée la langue parlée. Une des oreillettes était placée sur mon bureau (elle servait alors de micro) et il avait l’autre dans l’oreille (où étaient diffusées mes paroles traduites en anglais). Le texte traduit en anglais défilait aussi sur son téléphone, avec un petit délai différent de celui de la voix en anglais. Ce n’était pas parfait, mais il estime que 60 % de la traduction était compréhensible et correcte. En plus de cet équipement mal synchronisé, il a traduit en anglais tous les documents et présentations de ses cours du trimestre.

À l’été 2022, je lui ai demandé pourquoi il n’était jamais disponible avant 14 h. J’ai déjà eu des étudiants lève-tard et des oiseaux de nuit, mais si tard, je trouvais cela curieux. Il m’a avoué candidement et un peu honteux que depuis novembre 2021, il était inscrit à temps plein aux cours de francisation pour les personnes immigrantes et qu’il devait être en classe de 8 h à 13 h, et ce, tous les jours de la semaine.

Me voyant bouche bée, il m’a expliqué que, pour comprendre la réalité des personnes immigrantes au Québec, de façon à bien cerner cette dimension de son sujet de recherche, il devait se mettre dans leurs souliers. Il faut dire que sa thèse porte sur le rôle de l’immigration qualifiée et des étudiants étrangers sur la collaboration internationale en science, technologie et innovation.

Depuis le début de ma carrière de professeure, certains de mes étudiants ont bien suivi quelques cours de français ici et là au cours de leurs études — avec des résultats très mitigés, pour être honnête. Mais personne ne s’était encore prêté à cet exercice intense en plus de ses études doctorales.

Nous avons dû planifier l’examen doctoral et la présentation de sa proposition de thèse, qu’il a réussi avec brio, entre deux modules de cours de francisation. Avec la permission de son école de francisation, il faisait une pause pour reprendre lors du prochain module (dont la durée est d’environ huit semaines). Au moment où j’écris ces lignes, il ne lui reste que deux modules de cours de francisation à terminer, mais toute mon équipe de recherche l’encourage, converse avec lui en français et est fière de ses progrès.

S’astreindre chaque jour à cinq heures de cours de français, en plus des devoirs à faire le soir, des présentations orales à préparer, sans compter les cours de la scolarité doctorale, les travaux et les articles à lire en préparation de la proposition de thèse, représente une tâche titanesque.

Serez-vous surpris d’apprendre que cet étudiant a non seulement réussi avec succès son examen doctoral et présenté sa proposition de thèse, mais qu’il a aussi remporté l’une des prestigieuses bourses Vanier que le Canada offre à des étudiants exceptionnels et déterminés ? Félicitations, Amirali !

Plutôt qu’être un handicap pour les universités francophones, ce début un peu plus lent des études doctorales devrait être considéré comme un avantage qui rend nos diplômés plus attrayants dans un milieu très compétitif. Autant nos étudiants et futurs diplômés, leur famille, leur société d’accueil et les universités francophones en bénéficient.

Donnons-nous les moyens de remplir cette mission sociétale correctement.

Source: Au-delà des chiffres sur le français et les étudiants étrangers

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Keller: How to fix a broken foreign student visa system? Send it back to school 

2023/08/30 Leave a comment

Yet more commentary from Keller, this time on international students. Valid criticisms but hard to see how any government, federal or provincial, would have the political courage to implement even if they should take significant steps in that direction, starting with caps and gradually eliminating the “visa mills” of the private colleges and the public institutions that work with them:

Marc Miller, the new federal immigration minister, gets it. Whether he plans to fix it; whether the Prime Minister’s Office is interested in fixing it; and whether the provinces will help all remain to be seen.

The “it” is Canada’s student visa program. Its defects and side effects have been getting a lot of attention, mostly in relation to housing prices. The fact that more than 800,000 visa students were in Canada last year, compared to fewer than 200,000 a decade and a half ago, is one of many contributors to a growing mismatch between housing demand and supply. It’s not discriminatory to point this out. It’s just math.

But in an interview last Saturday with CBC Radio’s The House, Mr. Miller said there are issues at stake that are bigger than housing. He’s right.

He described the international student recruitment system as an “ecosystem” that is “very lucrative” but has brought “some perverse effects: some fraud in the system, some people taking advantage of what is seen as a backdoor entry into Canada.”

He said that the larger issue is “the integrity of the system.”

Bingo. Canadians want an immigration system that benefits and enriches Canada. It’s become obvious that part of the student visa program, maybe even most of it, is no longer hitting the target or even aiming at it.

As I said in my last column, the Trudeau government broke the immigration system by enabling a massive shadow immigration stream of temporary foreign workers, many now coming through student visas. And Ottawa had help: from private industry lobbying for an all-you-can-eat buffet of minimum-wage labour; from educational institutions with dollar signs in their eyes; and from provincial governments that saw an opportunity to put their higher education budgets on a diet, with foreign student tuition making up the difference.

The leader on that last account has been Ontario. Between 2000 and 2022, its number of foreign students rose from 46,000 to 412,000. The rise under the Doug Ford government has been especially vertiginous, and particularly pronounced in the college sector. In 2016, fewer than 35,000 new student visas were issued to attend Ontario colleges. Last year, the number was more than 143,000.

A lot of those students are at suburban strip-mall academies or office park “campuses.” Some are run by private entrepreneurs. Others are the product of entrepreneurial arrangements between public colleges and private operators, with the former providing the credentials and latter just about everything else.

What is being sold in many cases is not world-class education, but the right to come to Canada, to work while enrolled, to continue working after graduation and to move up the line for citizenship.

And at around $15,000 a year for an Ontario college credential, that’s selling Canadian citizenship at fire sale prices.

The road to citizenship via higher education – genuine education, of a genuinely higher level – is a path our immigration system should always be eager to promote.

When a foreign graduate in, for example, engineering, is given a student visa to do a master’s degree at, say, the University of Alberta, and after their studies they choose to remain in Canada, this country wins.

Our student visa system is supposed to be a pipeline of people who are more educated and skilled than the average Canadian, making them likely to be more economically productive than the average Canadian.

The student visa system is not supposed to be a route to come here to flip burgers, stock shelves or deliver Instacart.

Canada should be maximizing the number of high-skill, high-wage immigrants, and minimizing the number of low-skill, low-wage immigrants. A sensibly run student visa system would be entirely about the former. Instead, a big chunk of it is now about the latter.

How to fix that?

The first thing Ottawa should do is cap the number of student visas. Mr. Miller said this year’s tally will be around 900,000. He should cap future intake well below that.

Next, create a system to prioritize who gets the limited supply of visas. Some in higher education have suggested that can’t be done, but every university and college has a system to do something similar, year after year. It’s called the admissions department. If there are only 500 places in the medical school, the school has to figure out who are the best 500 to admit.

A spokesman for Mr. Miller told me that the department is having “exploratory discussions” about creating a “trusted institutions” framework, which would look more favourably on educational institutions meeting a “higher standard” in areas such as “international student supports and outcomes.”

To govern is to choose. The highest quality and highest value programs should get the visas.

Some provinces will scream, notably Ontario. It underfunds public colleges relative to other provinces, by leaning heavily on foreign student tuition. But at Ontario colleges, foreign students are paying surprisingly low tuition fees. The price is generally far below university tuition. It can rise.

Ottawa should also end the right to work in Canada while in school. Or at least restrict it to high-wage work. Make it so that a Canadian education is the reason a foreign student is coming to Canada, not the pretext.

Source: How to fix a broken foreign student visa system? Send it back to school

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Sun Editorial: Federal policies made housing crisis inevitable

2023/08/30 Leave a comment

Recognizes role that provinces also play:

The way the Trudeau government talks about Canada’s affordable housing crisis, it’s as if the rapidly increasing number of international students and immigrants it’s admitting to Canada every year snuck up on it.

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals came to power in 2015, Canada accepted 352,325 international students.

This year, according to Immigration Minister Marc Miller, the number will be about 900,000.

Miller told CBC’s The House on Saturday this isn’t just contributing to Canada’s affordable housing crisis, but also creating problems with “the integrity of the system, that has mushroomed, ballooned in the past couple of years.”

Now add the fact that when the Liberals came to power in 2015, 271,845 immigrants became permanent residents of Canada.

The Trudeau government’s plan is to boost that number to 465,000 this year, 485,000 in 2024 and to 500,000 in 2025.

Three Canadian banks have warned the federal government’s policy is misguided.

TD Bank said “continuing with a high-growth immigration strategy could widen the housing shortfall by about a half-million units within just two years.”

National Bank of Canada said “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.”

BMO said “heightened immigration flows designed to ease labour supply pressure immediately add to the housing demand they are trying to meet.”

The Trudeau government says it’s wrong to blame international students — on whom it may be considering a cap on admissions — and immigrants for Canada’s housing crisis.

Of course they’re not to blame.

The government is to blame for increasing their numbers so rapidly, with no coherent plan to house them, consistent with Trudeau’s view that “housing isn’t a primary federal responsibility. It’s not something that we have direct carriage of.”

To be fair, provincial and municipal governments share responsibility for housing with the federal government, which also says we need high immigration levels because of our low domestic birth rate to bolster the economy, including having sufficient workers to build homes.

But what’s also true is that issues the federal government has direct carriage of — immigration and international students — are contributing to Canada’s affordable housing crisis.

Source: EDITORIAL: Federal policies made housing crisis inevitable

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