Todd: In Canada, ‘housing nationalism’ shouldn’t be an epithet

2025/04/04 Leave a comment

Important reminder and lesson:

…The story of this type of Canadian nationalism, which aims to make it possible for young, working Canadians to have a chance at affordable housing, is spelled out in a new study by B.C. housing experts Joshua Gordon, David Ley and Andy Yan. 

Gordon is with the digital society lab at McMaster University, Ley is author of Housing Booms in Gateway Cities and Yan is director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program.

They rebut big players in the Canadian development industry and their allies, whom they dub the “growth machine.”

These powerful forces are often guilty of “playing the race card” as an “ideological tactic” to stop the public from realizing how offshore capital and wealthy immigrants have contributed to astronomical house prices in Canada, say the authors.

The trio’s paper, Crafting the Narrative: Wealth migration, growth machines and the politics of housing affordability in Vancouver, is published in The Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. It is a direct response to a 2023 article by two prominent B.C. researchers that was published in the same journal.

In their article, University of B.C. professor Nathanael Lauster and Vancouver statistician Jens von Bergmann defended investment of offshore capital in Canadian housing, arguing that opposition to the phenomenon is a baseless “moral panic” in the guise of “housing nationalism,” a movement they deem to be a “hammer in search of nails.”

Lauster and von Bergmann argued in their 2023 paper, which echoed the views of many in the development industry, that such economic nationalism “blames and penalizes the foreign” and, specifically, is “anti-Chinese.”

In addition to their high profiles as commentators in the media, Lauster and von Bergmann were key players in the legal attempt to force the repeal of B.C.’s foreign-buyers tax, which failed. B.C. Appeal Court judges concluded in 2019 the tax didn’t promote racism or reinforce “racial stereotypes” about people from Asia.

The new paper by Gordon, Ley and Yan compiles data showing foreign capital has indeed been a dramatic factor in raising B.C. housing values, a fact they say is often “celebrated behind closed doors by the real estate industry.”

Their paper frequently quotes business speeches by Vancouver condo marketer Bob Rennie, including when he told an audience of developers that buyers from Mainland China were at one point responsible for 90 per cent of the homes sold for more than $2 million on the west side of Vancouver.

The tremendous volume of high-end housing purchases by non-Canadians was confirmed in a 2015 study by Yan. This new paper provides further context. It notes how what was happening to Metro Vancouver was also occurring at the same time in the U.S., which, unlike Canada, keeps track of foreign investment in property.

The U.S., between 2015 and 2018, experienced a six-times surge in the volume of housing purchases made by buyers from China. The multi-billions of dollars were much more geographically spread around than in Canada, however, where the money was concentrated in Vancouver and Toronto.

While acknowledging that some people can indeed be xenophobic, Gordon, Ley and Yan say there is no evidence of that in regard to opposition to excessive foreign capital in Canadian housing. Polls, they say, show popular resistance to these global flows of capital came from across ethnic groups, including people of Chinese ancestry.

The scholars also provide evidence that B.C. residents’ grassroots opposition to “foreign ownership” — a term in which they include “satellite families” who earn most of their money outside of the country, where it’s not subject to Canadian taxation — has come largely from centrist and left-wing people.

They explain how B.C.’s foreign-buyers tax, and the speculation and vacancy tax, have been moderately successful in curbing house-price inflation.

Before the two taxes were introduced in 2016 and 2018 the west side of Vancouver had seen detached house prices jump by 67 per cent between 2014 and 2016. Prices in the same two-year period spiked by a “remarkable” 84 per cent in Richmond.

After the two taxes came into effect, the price of houses in the same parts of the city, which had drawn the most interest from foreign buyers and rich investor immigrants, fell by about one-fifth.

Reflecting on political philosophy, the authors take exception to Lauster and von Bergmann’s claim that opposition to such price jumps came from “reactionaries,” a term normally used to describe right-wing people who oppose progress or reform.

Their article says protective policies like the foreign buyers and speculation taxes have instead had “egalitarian effects, generating tax revenue from landowners, property developers and wealthy buyers that helped support government spending on lower-income individuals, including affordable housing.”

The authors, including Ley, a UBC geography professor emeritus who this week publicly endorsed the candidacy of TEAM’s Colleen Hardwick in Vancouver’s April 5 byelection, recommend a novel idea for governments to go further in limiting foreign wealth in B.C. housing.

“More aggressive action is possible,” they say, “such as property surtaxes that can be offset by income tax paid, with exemptions for seniors, which would more comprehensively tax foreign-capital-based home ownership.”

The authors readily acknowledge the “growth machine” opposes such policy ideas: It would rather continue to “instrumentalize charges of racism to support neo-liberal agendas” and maximize profits.

The trouble, suggest the authors, is that such name-calling taints legitimate debate about housing and the nature of healthy nationalism.

Source: In Canada, ‘housing nationalism’ shouldn’t be an epithet

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

Immigrants and visible minorities also have biases, national poll finds

2025/04/03 Leave a comment

No real surprise here, people are people, same pattern has existed even before my time at the multiculturalism program, many years ago under the Harper government:

Immigrants and visible minorities have negative views of other groups in Canada at similar, and sometimes higher, rates as the general Canadian population, a new survey has found.

The poll by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies challenges the conventional view that prejudice in Canada follows a simple “majority vs. minority” pattern, revealing that negative sentiment is more widespread and complex. The survey, which was conducted ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21, suggests that prejudice exists across multiple demographic groups and varies by factors such as age, language and immigration status.

Jack Jedwab, president and CEO of the Association for Canadian Studies, says these results challenge how policy-makers and the public discuss discrimination.

“Too often, we assume that those who experience prejudice do not express it themselves, but the data show a more complicated reality,” he said. “If we truly want to address discrimination, we need to move beyond the idea that prejudice is always about a dominant majority versus a marginalized minority.”

The survey found that overall, Arab Canadians face the highest levels of negative sentiment, with 26 per cent of respondents reporting unfavourable views of them. Black Canadians were viewed the least negatively at 11 per cent, while 14 per cent expressed negative views of Jewish and Indigenous Canadians, and 15 per cent for Chinese Canadians.

The results also highlight that while racial and religious minorities continue to be the primary targets of prejudice, negative sentiment is not limited to one group expressing bias toward another. It is expressed across multiple ethnic and racial groups.

Twenty-two per cent of visible minorities and 20 per cent of immigrants held negative views of Jewish Canadians, compared to 11 per cent of “not visible minorities” and 12 per cent of non-immigrants.

Seventeen per cent of visible minorities and 15 per cent of immigrants expressed negative views of Indigenous people, compared to 14 per cent each for not visible minorities and non-immigrants.

For Black people, 19 per cent of visible minorities and 16 per cent of immigrants expressed negative views, compared to nine per cent of not visible minorities and 10 per cent of non-immigrants.

Chinese people were viewed negatively by 19 per cent each of visible minorities and immigrants, compared to 11 per cent of not visible minorities and 14 per cent of non-immigrants.

Arabs were the only group viewed similarly by the four categories. For immigrants and not visible minorities, 27 per cent had unfavourable views and it was one per cent lower for not immigrants and visible minorities.

Additionally, 26 per cent of South Asians held negative views of Arabs, while the same percentage of Arabs expressed negative views of South Asians.

Jedwab said these findings demonstrate that prejudice is not limited to one group targeting another, but rather exists in complex, intersecting ways across Canadian society.

“Social tensions are often framed as ‘them vs. us,’ assuming that people instinctively know who ‘them’ and ‘us’ refer to,” he said. “But the reality is much more complicated.”

The study also examined views on religion and found Islam is viewed significantly more negatively than Christianity and Judaism. Nearly half of respondents (49 per cent) reported a negative view of Islam, compared to 27 per cent for Christianity and 25 per cent for Judaism.

The study found a strong link between religious prejudice and ethnic bias.

A majority of Canadians who hold very negative views of Islam also hold negative views of Arab Canadians (62 per cent). The same is true for Jews. Of those who hold very negative views of the religion, 65 per cent have negative views of Jews.

Jedwab warned that if policymakers and institutions continue relying on outdated assumptions about prejudice, efforts to promote equity and inclusion may be ineffective.

“As we grow more diverse, our approach to inclusion must also evolve,” he said. “Otherwise, terms like ‘diversity’ and ‘equity’ risk becoming empty slogans rather than meaningful commitments to social progress.

The online Leger poll surveyed 1,539 Canadians on March 1 and 2. A margin of error cannot be calculated for an online poll, but a probability sample of this size would yield a margin of error plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Source: Immigrants and visible minorities also have biases, national poll finds

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , ,

Trump threats open ‘floodgate’ of inquiries from U.S. physicians about moving north

2025/04/03 Leave a comment

“Floodgate” might be an exaggeration in a macro sense but still notable:

…Concerns over the political climate in the U.S. has opened a “floodgate” of inquiries about moving to Canada, according to recruiter Michelle Flynn. 

“The amount of interest has more than doubled over the last several months,” she told CBC. 

The COO of CanAm Physician Recruiting Inc., Flynn recruits U.S.-trained physicians to work in Canada and places Canadian specialists in roles in the U.S.

Lately though, she has struggled to get any Canadians interested in moving south. 

“I started a position for an [obstetrician-gynecologist] in the U.S. before President Trump was elected,” she said. “We since have had to scrap that idea totally. Nobody is going to the U.S.”

To deal with the influx of inquiries from American physicians wanting to come to Canada, Flynn said she is now conducting interviews five days a week, up from three days a week previously. 

“We’re getting 60-plus physicians coming to and registering on our website a month,” she said. 

Source: Trump threats open ‘floodgate’ of inquiries from U.S. physicians about moving north

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

More Canadians with Iranian backgrounds stopped from entering the U.S.

2025/04/03 Leave a comment

More evidence of bias and over-reach:

Canadian citizens born in Iran say they are routinely being stopped at the U.S. border and interrogated – and often not allowed to enter – as American authorities signal they are focusing their attention on preventing the entry of foreigners they characterize as a national-security threat.

Six Iranian Canadians have told The Globe and Mail that they have been prevented from entering the country on their Canadian passports since the election of Donald Trump. The Globe has also spoken to family members of Iranian Canadians who were stopped from entering the United States, as well as immigration lawyers contacted by Iranian-born Canadians who were turned away.

They said the treatment they receive at the border has become more aggressive, including being detained for hours for questioning, causing them to miss flights, as well as being fingerprinted.

Some said their luggage was rummaged through and their phones taken away, and that U.S. border agents asked them to provide their passcodes. One Canadian man with family in the U.S. who has travelled there without problems in the past said he was detained in a holding cell, handcuffed after hours of questioning, and turned back at a land border crossing on the way to visit his brother….

Source: More Canadians with Iranian backgrounds stopped from entering the U.S.

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Launch of immigration program for caregivers marred by website crash

2025/04/03 Leave a comment

Sigh…:

The rollout of a much-anticipated immigration program for nannies and personal support workers was marred by severe technical difficulties when it launched this week – resulting in many prospective applicants losing their only chance at obtaining Canadian permanent residency.

Scores of temporary residents working as caregivers who intended to apply for the Home Care Worker Immigration Pilot encountered error messages and faced challenges uploading documents to the application portal when it first opened on Monday morning. The website is run by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the federal immigration department.

For many, Monday morning was a critical time in their immigration journey: Ottawa had allocated just 2,750 spots each in two immigration streams that would grant permanent residency to child caregivers or home support workers already living and working in Canada. The system took applicants on a first-come, first-served basis…

Source: Launch of immigration program for caregivers marred by website crash

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

AFN: First Nations Voters can Decide the 2025 Federal Election Outcomes

2025/04/03 Leave a comment

Of interest. Not a bad way to encourage Indigenous peoples voting:

The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) has analyzed Census 2021 population data and Election
Canada’s voting results from the 2021 Canadian federal election and has highlighted 36 electoral
districts across Canada (“ridings”) where:


a. The representation of First Nations electors in a riding (%) was higher than the margin of
victory MOV for the winning candidate in 2021 1; or


b. First Nations electors represent at least 5% of electors in a riding and the difference
between the margin of victory [MOV] for the winning candidate in 2021 and the
representation of First Nations electors was less than 5%; or


c. The representation of First Nations electors in a riding is 10% or greater.


All parties should consider the role that First Nations priorities and electors will play in shaping
the outcomes of the upcoming April 2025 election. In this list, 14 seats are currently held by
Liberals, 13 by Conservatives, 7 by New Democrats, and 2 by the Bloc Quebecois

Source: First Nations Voters can Decide the 2025 Federal Election Outcomes

Filed under Aboriginal, Election 2025

Savoie: The election campaign is a chance to rethink Canada’s public sector

2025/04/01 1 Comment

It is, like so many issues. However, unlikely to gain traction given more pressing issues and few short-term political benefits in doing so:

…Canada’s underperforming public service is too big, too costly. It keeps growing in good and bad times at both the federal and provincial levels. Since 2020-21, the size of the federal public service, for example, has grown by 3.7 per cent annually, above the average growth rate of 1 per cent between 2007 and 2020 (the pre-COVID pandemic period). The IMF reports that the public sector in Canada accounts for 42.5 per cent of GDP. In the U.S., the figure is 36.3 per cent – and that was before Mr. Musk was let loose with his chainsaw.

Canadians know that they are not getting value for their money from the public sector, as public opinion surveys show. It’s time to finally deal with activities that have long passed their best-before date and to accept that our public sector managers have lost the ability to manage and, in particular, deal with non-performers. This is costly and saps the morale of many public sector workers who work hard in the public interest. What is often lost in the debate is that public sector managers want to perform at the top level; they don’t want to be handcuffed by overly demanding transparency requirements and the work of public sector unions.

These unions have a lot to answer for. The fact that 77 per cent of public sector workers in Canada belong to a union, compared to 15.5 per cent in the private sector, speaks to the problem. Their purpose is to promote the interest of their members, because that is what they are paid to do. They only need to push against political will, which is at times shaky, while private sector unions must push against unbending markets forces that are certain to become more difficult in the Trump era.

An election campaign provides the opportunity for a debate on the role of government and public sector unions, and to ask if the federal government still requires nearly 300 organizations. Canadians should also ask if the federal government has encroached too far in areas of provincial responsibilities because it has the spending power to do so. Time would be better spent debating these issues rather than reacting to every social media message or change of mind that comes out of the White House.

Source: The election campaign is a chance to rethink Canada’s public sector

Filed under Government Tagged with

Snyder: Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow

2025/04/01 Leave a comment

Good reminder (most of the US business, academic and other leaders failing the moment):

1. Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

2. Defend institutions. It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about — a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union — and take its side.

3. Beware the one-party state. The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multiple-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office.

4. Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

5. Remember professional ethics. When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.

6. Be wary of paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.

7. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.

8. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

9. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.

10. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

11. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.

12. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers, and understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.

13. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them. 

14. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware on a regular basis. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Tyrants seek the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have hooks.

15. Contribute to good causes. Be active in organizations, political or not, that express your own view of life. Pick a charity or two and set up autopay. Then you will have made a free choice that supports civil society and helps others to do good.

16. Learn from peers in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends in other countries. The present difficulties in the United States are an element of a larger trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.

17. Listen for dangerous words. Be alert to use of the words “extremism” and “terrorism.” Be alive to the fatal notions of “emergency” and “exception.” Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.

19. Be a patriot. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.

20. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.

Source: Snyder: Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow

Filed under Government, Trump administration Tagged with

Americans apply to revive Canadian citizenship to escape the U.S. under Trump

2025/04/01 Leave a comment

Still mainly anecdotal. Unfortunately, IRCC does not publish citizenship application data on open data

…Immigration consultants and lawyers say they have also had a surge in inquiries from “Lost Canadians” in the U.S. about moving to Canada.

Some “Lost Canadians” told The Globe they want to leave the country out of fear of being detained based on their race, while others said they don’t want to raise children in Mr. Trump’s America.

“In the past few weeks, we have received an increased number of inquiries from American citizens of various backgrounds asking about immigration to Canada, including Lost Canadians,” said Annie Beaudoin, an immigration consultant based in California who used to work for Ottawa’s federal Immigration Department.

Melissa Babel, founder of Babel Immigration law in Ontario, said on Thursday: “I’m getting a lot of calls from people who remember that their grandfather was Canadian – three yesterday.”…

Source: Americans apply to revive Canadian citizenship to escape the U.S. under Trump

Filed under Citizenship, Trump administration Tagged with ,

HESA: That Was The Quarter That Was, Winter 2025 [Trump administration]

2025/04/01 Leave a comment

ùMore on the impact of the Trump administration’s higher education policies:

…On top of this came attacks on institutional autonomy, which for the most part consisted of threats to defund any institution which continued activities deemed to be “DEI”, a term the Administration defined in terms so vague as to make it nearly impossible to comply. In the case of Columbia University, it also threatened to defund an institution due to its failure to combat “antisemitism”, which was an odd thing to demand given how many genuine antisemites seem to orbit the Trump regime (Columbia caved). And also there was the detention and potential deportation of hundreds of international students, mainly it seems for the crime of exercising free speech and freedom of assembly in such a way as to be critical of Israel. The cumulative impact of what has happened in US in the past seventy days will take years if not decades to reverse. Careers have been destroyed. Promising lines of research – such as those involving mRNA research – have simply been dropped. If one wanted to destroy America’s future prosperity and scientific pre-eminence, one could scarcely have done more than the Trump Administration has done. This will be to the good fortune of some individual institutions in other countries, but to the world as a whole – especially North America – the faltering of science and the economic progress that depends on it will lower economic growth potential for a decade or more to come.


There are, broadly, three aspects to the whole US story. The first is one of anti-scientism, a broad disdain for the idea that anyone other than those in power are permitted to say what the truth is. This is most obvious when looking at the policies of the Department of Health and the NIH around the non-promotion of vaccines, but it permeates the administration generally. There are no other parts of the world – for the moment – where we see anything similar. But the other two aspects her – attacks on institutional autonomy and academic freedom on the one hand, and reductions in the financial capabilities of universities on the other, do have echoes elsewhere.

With respect to state controls over institutional autonomy and academic freedom, the most obvious parallel case to the United States over the past three months is Georgia, where the controversial pro-Russian government sees universities as a centre of dissent and wishes to increase supervision over them and thereby limit autonomy.  India and Pakistan have also seen flare-ups over the past few months with respect to autonomy – mainly but not exclusively relating to government use of the power to name vice-chancellors – but this is less a “new shift” than the latest incidents in a long-running battle.


The other issue, of course, is overall university funding. The United States is certainly unique in the extent to which scientific research budgets are under attack. And it is unique in the sense that it seems to be the only country where individual institutions are being singled out for specific funding reductions in the manner of Columbia University. But it is not unique in the sense that universities are feeling the need for quick retrenchment.There two closest parallels are Argentina and the Netherlands. In the former, President Milei’s inflation-busting program involves reducing government spending to well below the rate of price growth. By some accounts, real transfers to universities are now down about 30% on last year, which has led to a series of strikes. In the latter, the still new-ish coalition government, elected in 2024, is still enacting both a series of cuts to university finances and imposing restrictions on teaching programs in English, which has the effect of reducing universities’ international student fee income. This too, is leading to strike action.

Among OECD countries, universities in France, already struggling to deal with last year’s reductions in funding, got hit with a new round of compressions in the February budget, and most are looking at deficits both this year and next. The anglosphere trio of the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia are also facing continuing struggles from the loss of international students stemming from a combination of tighter visa restrictions, reduced demand and greater international competition, but unlike the other examples cited, these financial challenges in the short-term stem from a loss of market income, not government income….

Source: That Was The Quarter That Was, Winter 2025

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →