Poll finds more than half of Canadians want fewer immigrants than … – The Globe and Mail

2023/09/13 Leave a comment

Worrisome but not surprising given all the articles and commentary regarding the impacts on housing, healthcare and infrastructure. All reflecting policy and political failings:

More than half of Canadians want the federal government to accept fewer immigrants than it is planning for in 2023, a new poll shows – a rise from one in three in March.

…

Source: Poll finds more than half of Canadians want fewer immigrants than … – The Globe and Mail

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Canadian government won’t rule out changing immigration targets to address housing challenges, Fraser says

2023/09/12 Leave a comment

Odd that former minister of immigration is signalling possible changes rather than the current immigration minister. Whether deliberate strategy for the minister who was responsible for increases to take some of the possible heat over high immigration levels, or simply that he now understands (better late than never) the linkages between immigration levels and housing pressures.

Will only know whether this is just a series of trial balloons or a significant pivot with the release of the immigration levels plan later this fall:

Canada’s housing minister says the federal government isn’t ruling out changes to its ambitious immigration targets, but maintains the country should also focus on what it can do to increase housing supply when it comes to addressing current housing challenges.

“When we look to the future of immigration levels planning, we want to maintain ambition and immigration, but we want to better align our immigration policies with the absorptive capacity of communities that includes housing, that includes health care, that includes infrastructure,” Sean Fraser said in an interview on CTV’s Question Period with Vassy Kapelos on Sunday.

Fraser said he believes the federal government has “some work to do” with its temporary immigration programs, which currently operate on the basis of demand in an “uncapped way,” but doesn’t “necessarily” need to reduce the number of newcomers who become permanent residents each year. It’s common for almost half of those individuals to already be in Canada as temporary residents, he noted.

Before making any changes, however, Fraser said the federal government would have to consult with other levels of government — since deciding which institutions take in international students is within the purview of provincial governments — as well as institutions that have “a duty to play part of a role in housing the people who come here.”

He also stressed that conversations around addressing the country’s housing crisis should not solely revolve around immigration.

“It’s important that when we’re looking at the answer to our housing challenges, we also focus on what we can do to increase the supply,” the minister said.

“I think it’s essential that we remember that immigration remains one of Canada’s strongest competitive advantages in the global economy.”

Fraser introduced Canada’s ambitious immigration targets in November 2022 when he was the federal immigration minister, with a goal of bringing in 465,000 permanent residents in 2023, 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025.

At the time, he said the move was necessary to ensure Canada’s economic prosperity, by helping businesses find workers to fill in labour gaps and to attract the skills required in key sectors including health care, skilled trades, manufacturing and technology.

Academics, commercial banks, opposition politicians and policy thinkers, however, have been warning the federal government the country’s high-growth immigration strategy is exacerbating Canada’s housing crisis.

In a July report, economists from TD estimated that if the current immigration strategy continues, Canada’s housing shortfall could widen by about half a million units in just two years’ time.

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation has estimated the country needs to build 3.5 million more homes by 2030 than it is currently on track for, to help achieve some semblance of housing affordability.

Fraser previously said putting a cap on the number of international students permitted to study in this country is one of the solutions the federal government is discussing when it comes to addressing housing affordability and rental availability.

But when speaking with Kapelos on Sunday, he said his preference is to continue to welcome “significant numbers” of international students “because the program is good for Canada, both in the short term and the long term when you create a pipeline of potential new citizens.”

Fraser said the federal government, along with its provincial and institutional partners, have to ensure that international students — many of whom have reported struggles to find affordable and adequate housing in Canada — are supported and communities have the capacity to “absorb them” when they arrive here.

“If we were going to shift the way that we operate, to set a target or to align the numbers with the housing capacity, it’s a monumental change in the way that Canada does immigration,” Fraser said.

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. But it does mean if we’re seeking to make a permanent change to the way that Canada’s immigration laws operate, we have to do it right.”

Welcoming people to Canada who are making a productive contribution to the country’s economy is “essential,” Fraser said, adding he doesn’t “want to lose that.”

Source: Canadian government won’t rule out changing immigration targets to … – CTV News

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LILLEY: As StatsCan shows immigration soaring, is it time for pause?

2023/09/11 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see whether the increased discussion of the linkages between immigration and housing pressures (not just in right wing media) will have an impact on the Conservatives being public about any reservations they have regarding current levels of permanent and temporary migrants:

Have we reached an immigration tipping point in Canada? Figures released by Statistics Canada on Friday definitely point in that direction.

In releasing the latest employment figures, StatsCan said we are bringing in people faster than we are creating jobs.

“Employment rose by 40,000 (+0.2%) in August. This increase in employment was outpaced by population growth (+103,000; +0.3%) and the employment rate — the proportion of the population aged 15 and older who are employed—fell 0.1 percentage points to 61.9%,” the report said.

That figure of 103,000 in a month is only the working age population of people 15 and older. It doesn’t include young children. Still, bringing in 103,000 in a month is the equivalent of adding Pickering in Ontario, Lethbridge in Alberta or Kamloops in British Columbia.

Since the beginning of the year, StatsCan says we have averaged 81,000 newcomers aged 15 and older per month. That will equate to just over one million new people this year if the trend continues.

“Given this pace of population growth, employment growth of approximately 50,000 per month is required for the employment rate to remain constant,” the report said.

This level of growth is double what Canada was experiencing between 2017-2019 and before the pandemic effectively closed borders.

So, can we create 50,000 jobs per month so that employment keeps pace with immigration?

In the last 12 months we’ve been over the 50,000 jobs mark four times, lost jobs in two of those months and for the other six, didn’t hit the mark. If we continue to bringin in an average of 81,000 working aged people per month but don’t create at least 50,000 new jobs, then the unemployment rate will go up.

A report from StatsCan issued on August 1 looked at this issue of immigration and employment and found that for the most part, employment has kept up with immigration. That was before this latest increase though and with each increase it becomes more difficult to manage.

Over the last several years we have gone from bringing in between 250,000 to 300,000 new permanent residents each year — people who are immigrating to settle here — to more than 430,000 permanent residents in 2022. The government’s goal is to lift that to 500,000 new permanent residents a year by 2025, a mark they will easily hit.

We have gone from a few hundred thousand international students studying in Canada each year to more than 800,000 last year and estimates of more than 900,000 this year. None of this takes into account the thousands of people claiming asylum in Canada each month or the hundreds of thousands of temporary foreign workers.

A recent CIBC report suggested that Canada’s population count could be off by one million thanks to an undercounting of non-permanent residents, mostly temporary foreign workers.

We have a housing crisis driven by more demand than supply and the ever-increasing population, especially among foreign students, is adding to that. This week we saw a story of international students in North Bay living in tents because of the lack of housing options available.

For the most part, Canadians have been supportive of high levels of immigration. All the major political parties have supported policies of increased immigration.

The current levels, though, unprecedented in our lifetime, could change all of that and result in calls to slow things down.

We don’t have enough housing for the people already in the country, never mind adding a new city per month, but we are also told we need the new arrivals to fill the jobs to build the houses. Our health care system is regularly at a tipping point without enough doctors and nurses to deal with the population already here, but we are also told that we need newcomers to fill the jobs in health care.

Yet, when they get here, we won’t have proper housing, health care, education for their children or infrastructure for the communities they settle in.

It is quite a conundrum.

Is any of this good for the country, or good for the people who are coming here, quite possibly on the false notion that Canada is a country that still functions properly?

Perhaps now is a time to hit pause, perhaps slow the intake until we have a handle on the situation and are sure we can absorb this many people so quickly.

Source: LILLEY: As StatsCan shows immigration soaring, is it time for pause?

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@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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Watt: The Liberals tied immigration to housing: they need to prove it can work

2023/08/21 Leave a comment

But given the time lags involved in building new houses, even assuming the federal government provides funding, most municipal zoning restrictions are relaxed and service fees reduced where appropriate, any concrete results in terms of “shovels in the ground” will take a few years.

In other words, after the election. The federal and provincial (save Quebec) government fixation on increasing immigration, temporary and permanent, while largely ignoring the impact on housing, healthcare and infrastructure, will deservedly come back to haunt the Liberal government if no change occurs to planned permanent immigration levels and unrestricted temporary migration (students and workers):

The revamped Liberal cabinet retreats to Prince Edward Island this week while their party languishes in polling and the Conservatives surge. Underestimate Trudeau at your peril, perhaps, but something seems to have become particularly challenging.

While it is difficult to put your finger on just what that something is, it has become clear that much of that something is Canada’s housing crisis.

Apart from the PM himself, perhaps no one feels the heat on the way to Charlottetown more than Sean Fraser, the new housing minister. Fraser got this job because the Liberals have embarked on a strategy to tie immigration (Fraser previously led this portfolio) inexorably to housing, supposedly using newly arrived skilled labour to build the houses we desperately need.

All well and good, but it doesn’t seem Canadians are having any of it. The problem is, most Canadians aren’t convinced this works — and with house prices swelling, interest rates rising, and immigration continuing exponentially, I fear by combining these issues so closely the Liberals risk sparking a major backlash against their record-setting immigration plans.

Fraser has outlined his answer to the conundrum: add more supply through incentives to local governments and increase immigration rates to, in part, provide the labour required for this.

The new housing minister tackles this after the prime minister bluntly argued, “housing isn’t a primary federal responsibility.” On cleanup duty, Fraser later stated the federal government should be more active in developing and enacting housing policy, as it once was.

This, of course, is the right approach. Nevertheless, Fraser’s major challenge will be convincing Canadians that high immigration levels are good when many can’t afford homes.

This week, videos of Canadians tearily lamenting the cost of living went viral. The narrative that, after eight years in office, this government has left many — the very ones they promised to fight for — behind is beginning to set like cement.

Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has taken the government to task on housing with brutal effectiveness. He has managed to own this rhetorical stance while still supporting immigration — making the disconnect between the Liberal’s immigration policy and inaction on housing even harder to ignore.

Under Fraser’s oversight, immigration increased exponentially but integration remained plagued with accreditation issues and failed to correspond with housing supply: the national housing strategy has only resulted in just over 100,000 homes. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation determined 5.8 million more are needed over the next decade. In 2022, our population grew by over a million.

The Bank of Canada also acknowledged recently that immigration drives up housing demand. As the problem becomes more acute, this is where people will focus — not on the “mirage of economic prosperity” immigration otherwise contributes to.

The Liberals, if they are to have any hope of winning the next election, must convince Canadians immigration is in their near-term interests and that it will result in more houses being built. That’s a tall order when voters are being priced out of even the remotest dream of owning a home. It’s a disconnect that also dissuades immigrants from wanting to come here in the first place.

By failing to acknowledge this and rectify the integration issues in our immigration system so newcomers can positively contribute to the housing supply, the Liberals risk allowing the social cohesion they so value to fray. And when that starts, the uniquely Canadian support for significant levels of immigration will fray with it.

That would be a terrible shame. No one needs a lecture on the fundamental role immigration has played in our past and the crucial role it will play in our future — much less that it is simply right.

What isn’t right is an approach to this issue driven by complacency and inaction rather than by a fundamental commitment — not just to policy statements but to actually building new homes.

Source: The Liberals tied immigration to housing: they need to prove it can work

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SHEPHERD: Poilievre repeatedly refuses to offer his own immigration target numbers

2023/08/19 Leave a comment

Don’t normally post articles from “True” North but of interest that they are criticizing Conservative leader for not commenting or engaging on immigration targets.

Personally, I have some sympathy for his refusing to comment given that any reduction might well be portrayed as anti-immigration or even racist by the Liberals and NDP (which or course it would not be as I have argued elsewhere):

Immigration Minister Marc Miller hinted recently that he may soon announce an increase in Canada’s immigration targets. The usually outspoken Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre seemingly has nothing to say about that.

“Whether we revise them upwards or not is something that I have to look at,” Miller said earlier this month. “But certainly, I don’t think we’re in any position of wanting to lower them by any stretch of the imagination.”

Officially, Canada plans to bring in 465,000 permanent residents this year, 485,000 next year, and 500,000 by 2025.

But don’t be fooled: we also invite in hundreds of thousands of additional residents every year, such as temporary foreign workers and international students, so our population actually grew by 1.05 million in 2022 even though we have a below-replacement fertility rate of 1.40 births per Canadian woman.

Canada’s exorbitantly high immigration numbers are straining the housing supply, the healthcare system, and social services such as food banks.

Many journalists, myself included, have been asking Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre what his immigration targets would look like if he becomes prime minister.

In a July press conference for ethnic media, blogger Darshan Maharaja asked Poilievre whether reducing immigration targets could help relieve the demand side of Canada’s housing crunch.

“In order for housing to become affordable at current rates of immigration we need to build six million homes by 2030,” Poilievre answered. “Right now we’re on track to build about 1.4 million homes. So we have to choose, either we’re going to build more homes or we’re going to have a big problem.”

“We gotta build, we gotta build now,” Poilievre said.

When I asked Poilievre’s office whether he would keep Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s immigration targets, and what he thinks about immigration minister Marc Miller possibly increasing the targets this fall, I received no answers to my questions and was instead sent a link to a CPAC video.

“My common sense policy on immigration will be driven by the number of vacancies that private sector employers want to fill, the number of charities that want to sponsor refugees, and the families that want to reunite quickly with loved ones,” Poilievre stated in the video during a stop in Ottawa.

“What’s wrong with the 500,000 target in your mind?” another journalist asks Poilievre.

“I think what’s wrong is Justin Trudeau’s incompetence… I’ll make sure we have housing and healthcare so that when people come here they have a roof overhead and care when they need it.”

People who would have been hesitant to say it out loud even a year ago are now admitting it: our high immigration levels make it more difficult for Canadians to house themselves.

Even individuals with full-time employment can’t keep up with the average rent of $2,000 per month ($3,000 in Vancouver), and end up living out of their vehicles at highway rest stops.

Immigration is now becoming a ballot issue for voters who historically may have only ever expressed support for our system. According to a poll commissioned by Bloomberg News, 68% of Canadians believe Trudeau’s immigration targets negatively impact the housing market.

So, yes, Poilievre should be offering up a quantitative figure to let us know where he really stands on the matter, instead of always deflecting with calls to ‘build, build, build.’

Until he does, we can only conclude that the Conservative party does, in fact, agree with Trudeau’s immigration targets.

With no opposition or critique of Trudeau’s immigration levels from any political party in the House of Commons, there will be no acknowledgment that Canada’s immigration plan actually does not work to counteract an aging population and workforce. Because immigrants themselves age and most come with dependents, parents, and grandparents, immigration does notultimately address the problem of replacing retirees.

Deeper questions arise once you know these facts: do our high immigration targets exist solely so that banks have an endless supply of debtors, landlords an endless supply of renters, and corporations an endless supply of workers who are less aware or assertive of their rights?

I await Poilievre’s answers and numbers.

Source: SHEPHERD: Poilievre repeatedly refuses to offer his own immigration target numbers

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Sun editorial: High immigration fuels housing shortage

2023/08/14 Leave a comment

As it appears from Minister Miller’s initial public comments that the government has no intention to revise or freeze current and planned levels, they risk being labelled, correctly, as being pro-immigration ideologues and oblivious to reality.
There is enough concern about the impact of permanent and temporary migration across most of the political spectrum that this presents a major political risk to the Liberals in 2025.
The weakness, or course, is that all the provinces want more immigration save for Quebec and are thus equally complicit to the Liberal government: 
Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller has responded to repeated economic warnings the Trudeau government’s high-intake immigration policies are contributing to Canada’s housing shortage with a turn of phrase that doesn’t address the problem.
He said Friday we need more immigrants to build more housing.

“Without those skilled workers coming from outside Canada, we absolutely cannot build the homes and meet the demand that exists currently today,” Miller said, as reported by Global News.

But if the federal government’s plan to bring in almost 1.5 million immigrants to Canada between now and 2025 is already contributing to the housing shortage and raising the cost of housing, how will bringing in more immigrants solve it?

As TD Bank warned recently: “Continuing with a high-growth immigration strategy could widen the housing shortfall by about a half-million units within just two years. Recent government policies to accelerate construction are unlikely to offer a stop-gap due to the short time period and the natural lags in adjusting supply.”

The National Bank of Canada cautioned: “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 … As housing affordability pressures continue to mount across the country, we believe Ottawa should consider revising its immigration targets to allow supply to catch up with demand.”

BMO (Bank of Montreal) reported “heightened immigration flows designed to ease labour supply pressure immediately add to the housing demand they are trying to meet … The infrastructure in place and the industry’s ability to build clearly can’t support unchecked levels of demand, so the affordability conundrum continues.”

It’s true there is a shortage of workers in the construction industry and Miller recently announced a plan to encourage skilled trade workers to immigrate to Canada, but the federal government can’t guarantee how many immigrants will end up in the construction trades.

Given the fact most immigrants end up in cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary, the feds should be consulting with provincial and municipal governments about the number of immigrants they can reasonably absorb.

This as opposed to obsessing about reaching a target of almost 1.5 million immigrants by 2025.

Source: EDITORIAL: High immigration fuels housing shortage

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Griffith: Canada badly needs an immigration reset 

2023/08/10 Leave a comment

My latest, hoping to provoke a more concrete discussion on what a reset needs and what it would mean:

The government has largely ignored the impact of high levels of immigration on housing availability and affordability, health care and infrastructure. Belated recognition that current policies are not working to the benefit of all Canadians may be the reason behind the appointment of a new minister of Immigration, Marc Miller, and the reassignment of  the former minister of Immigration, Sean Fraser, to housing and infrastructure.

Minister Fraser arguably will have to deal with some of the mess he and the government created with the large increases in both permanent and temporary residents, pushing up housing costs and burdening existing infrastructure. Minister Miller will likely be more attuned to concerns about immigration given that he is from Quebec and thus more familiar with immigration critiques regarding the demographic impact on Quebec.

Moreover, the nature of conversations has changed. When, some two years ago I wrote an article for Policy Options entitled Increasing immigration to boost population? Not so fast, there were few voices questioning the government’s planned expansion of immigration. Now, there are almost weekly commentaries and reports, ranging from the banks to economists, the International Monetary Fund and others, noting deteriorating productivity, housing availability and affordability, stress on health care and infrastructure. Even the major boosters of increased immigration have shifted their messaging to “growing well” or even calling for a pause in increases.

While immigration is not solely responsible for the increase in housing costs, the link is being seen and could lead to newcomers being the scapegoats for poor policy decisions. The significant drop in support for the Liberal government may reflect this very personal issue to Canadians.

While at Immigration, Fraser was able to increase levels easily, whereas as housing and infrastructure minister, he will be confronted with the real time lags, making it impossible to show concrete results before the 2025 election. So it’s not a matter of “better communications” but rather of complex delivery with a wide range of government and private sector actors.

Miller, depending on his mandate letter, has an opportunity to reset or at least adjust  immigration policies and programs to take account of recent commentary and realities. He will not be able to ignore these issues even if his initial comments confirm planned increases. The annual plan on the number of immigrants this fall provides an opportunity for a reset should the government choose to do so.

Given that a complete pivot to a more evidence-based approach is unlikely, here are some modest suggestions that make sense from an immigration and economic perspective that may be politically sellable.

To start with, the plan should be broadened to include plans for temporary residents levels rather than just permanent residents levels, given that some 60 per cent of all new residents are temporary workers and students, many of whom transition to permanent residency.

Given time lags in building housing, increasing the capacity of the health-care system and addressing infrastructure gaps, the government should freeze 2023 levels of 465,000 for the next few years. More ambitiously, the government could reduce future levels to the lower 2024 range of 410,000.

The current open-ended levels on temporary residents (students and workers) should be replaced by hard ranges based on 2023 levels for similar reasons. Furthermore, the government needs to consider seriously the introduction of a cap-and-trade system for temporary residents to reduce the numbers over time to address weak productivity, as the University of Waterloo’s Mikal Skuterud has suggested.

Lastly, the government needs to take steps to further broaden the plan to include the impacts of immigration on housing, health care and infrastructure, including measures to address these impacts, rather than as a discrete program.

Miller’s mandate letter will indicate the extent to which this is possible. But these changes would not necessarily be perceived as divisive or xenophobic given that the impacts on housing, health care and infrastructure affect everyone, immigrants and Canadian-born alike. Failure to pivot to a more comprehensive approach that incorporates these considerations into immigration programs will not only worsen the quality of lives of Canadians but may prove politically damaging to a government long-in-the-tooth and losing popular support.

Source: Griffith: Canada badly needs an immigration reset

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William Watson: In 2023 is it possible to have a reasoned discussion of immigration?

2023/08/09 Leave a comment

Good commentary, but ducking the numbers question:

Marc Miller just finished five years as a federal minister working on Indigenous issues. Now, ironically, he’s minister of immigration, encouraging an influx of new Canadians many Indigenous Canadians think hasn’t served them so well.

He’s better off than the person he’s replacing, however, rising Liberal star Sean Fraser. After 21 months at immigration, Fraser is off to housing, infrastructure and communities to work on the big headaches caused for, ahem, housing, infrastructure and communities by the record number of immigrants he let in. It’s just desserts of a sort you don’t often see in politics — even if the prime minister’s recent disavowal of federal responsibility for housing, motivated more by hot-potato politics than respectful regard for the constitutional division of powers, may let Fraser off the sharpest of those three hooks.

Minister Miller says he’ll listen to arguments about whether current immigration targets are correct. The official target has been bumped up to 500,000 a year from 400,000, though in 2022 we hit 1.2 million — the only target Ottawa has bested in recent years.

But the minister will only listen so much. Attack lines are at the ready. As he said shortly after taking his new office: “In every wave of migration that Canada has had, there has been a segment of folks that have blamed immigrants for taking houses, taking jobs, you name it. Those are people that don’t necessarily have the best interest of immigrants at heart and we have to call that out when we see it and we won’t hesitate to do that.” No one who has watched the prime minister drive wedge after wedge into Canadian policy debates over the last eight years has the slightest doubt the Liberals will do that. People who would like to debate the immigration targets may well be anti-immigrant, Miller’s statement suggests, which is but one step of slippery logic away from the R-word: racis

In this day and age, of course, we never actually discuss a policy issue: we look for the slightest doctrinal misstep in our ideological adversaries’ arguments and pounce, self-righteously claiming the moral high ground while accusing our opponents of having fallen into an ethical ditch.

Immigration seems an area where informed and informative debate will be especially difficult. So kudos to TD Economics for recently issuing a short study of the issue: “Balancing Canada’s pop in population,” by Beata Caranci, James Orlando and Rishi Sondhi. At a time when big banks seem to specialize in serving up politically correct pablum, this piece raises hard questions about how desirable a big boost in immigration is.

Nobody opposes some level of immigration. The question is: how much? In theory, there is an optimal level where the benefits brought by the next new member of our society just offset the costs he or she imposes. In theory, both short-run and long-run costs and benefits can be considered. In theory, they can even be discounted by an appropriate interest rate. Policy should hit that sweet spot and not go beyond it.

In practice, the optimal level is very hard to calculate. People will disagree — perfectly reasonably — on what, and how big, the benefits and costs are, how they may change as more people come, and what the discount rate should be. (Do you know what interest rates will be 10 years from now?) On the whole, I think the TD Economics folks are too optimistic about our ability to discover this right “balance,” but they do us all a great service by describing some of the costs of high rates of immigration.

For instance, if the inflow stays high, we may need 500,000 more housing units (i.e., homes) over the next two years — which seems a task well beyond the capacity of our politico/builders/planners complex. As for health care, the OECD ranked us 31st among 34 member-countries in acute care hospital beds per capita in 2019 — and we’re rapidly raising the number of our capitas without commensurate increases in beds.

There’s also some doubt as to whether immigration is serving the econo-strategic purpose governments have laid out for it, which is to provide young, skilled and therefore high-earning labour that can pay enough taxes to finance the health care and retirement incomes of us older folk. But 40 per cent of people in the rapidly expanding temporary foreign worker program work in agriculture, forestry and fishing, and another 15 per cent in accommodation and food. Those are important jobs which, increasingly, people born here won’t do. But they aren’t the tax bonanzas we locals are looking for.

Immigration may even raise interest rates. Eventually it increases the economy’s capacity but in the short run it boosts demand, which is the last thing we need as we fight inflation. To make sure that doesn’t get out of control, the Bank of Canada may have to keep interest rates 50 basis points higher than if immigration rates were lower. Which hardly helps us build new housing or infrastructure.

Every one of those points is debatable, of course. So let’s have the debate. And don’t anyone use the R-word.

Source: William Watson: In 2023 is it possible to have a reasoned discussion of immigration?

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Laying down routes: Here’s what transit in the GTA needs to keep up with Canada’s population boom

2023/07/05 Leave a comment

Another example of the disfunctionality in immigration, not planning and implementing for the effects of the large number of immigrants and temporary residents:

Like most immigrants to Canada, when Srikeit Tadepalli first came to Toronto from Mumbai, India, in February, he had a laundry list of things to do to get settled: get his social insurance number and his permanent residency card, apply for OHIP, look for a job and a place to live, and get to know the city.

Arriving in Toronto in the middle of winter without a car, Tadepalli was grateful for Toronto’s well-connected and accessible transit system. But particularly in the beginning, he had trouble navigating it.

“For such a developed transit system, there is very little communication directed towards newcomers about how to get around using transit in the city,” Tadepalli said. “Basic stuff, like: What is a PRESTO card? Where do I get a PRESTO card? … Even to this day, I sometimes struggle with it.”

Tadepalli is just one of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who come to Canada each year, a number that continues to grow, with the federal government pledging last year to welcome 1.5 million more people by 2025. If trends continue, most of these people will settle in Toronto and surrounding municipalities, where immigrants already make up around half of the population.

Even with all of its challenges, Toronto’s transit system is among the best in the world, with several big projects underway promising to make the GTA even more connected. Still, new immigrants and transportation experts say there is more the city can be doing to help newcomers get around: from small tweaks, like better communication targeted at newcomers, to expanding surface transit with a focus on the suburbs. Also crucial to support a growing population will be shoring up the TTC’s finances, with current shortfalls threatening the transit system’s ability to operate with adequate service and maintain a state of good repair.

Tadepalli said basic instructional videos targeted at newcomers about how to use the TTC would have gone a long way when he first arrived. In his first few days in the city, Tadepalli said he got on the streetcar assuming he could pay for his fare on board, then was told he had to come back with exact change or a loaded PRESTO card. He ended up relying on independent YouTubers to show him the ropes.

The TTC is always looking to improve, spokesperson Stuart Green said in a statement, adding the transit agency is creating an “enhanced wayfinding strategy” to make navigating the system simpler. On maps and signage, the TTC uses words, symbols, colours and numbers to help all customers, Green added. The TTC’s website also has a Google translate function which can translate to over 100 languages.

Transportation is one of the most critical aspects of Canada’s infrastructure for newcomers. It serves as a gateway for economic participation, getting people to school or work, gives immigrants access to important services such as health care and language lessons, and allows people to travel to enjoy different aspects of city life.

Already people in Canada’s densest city are finding it harder than ever to get around, especially in a downtown core paralyzed by construction. Toronto’s traffic congestion ranks among the worst in the world. It’s taking almost as long to travel by car as it did before the pandemic, even with fewer vehicles on the road, according to city data.

Meanwhile, the city cut TTC service and hiked fares this year to make up for lagging ridership on the transit system, which faces a $366-million operating shortfall this year. Unless the provincial and federal governments step up, the TTC will not have enough money to run the system at current levels or replace aging trains and buses.

When newcomers first come to Canada, they are more likely to rely on public transit, cycling and walking than established immigrants and Canadian-born people, said Valerie Preston, professor of urban social geography at York University. That means that expanding and investing in the TTC and regional transit, as well as building walkable, mixed-use neighbourhoods, will be essential for supporting more immigration.

“If we’re going to have half a million people arrive every year, and we’re also trying to meet our climate goals, those people need to be able to live in places where they can either use transit, and it’s efficient to use transit, or they can walk to and from work,” Preston said.

It’s not all bad. Toronto is beginning to invest in public transit after several decades of neglect. The 15.5-kilometre Ontario Line subway, when complete in about a decade, will run from Exhibition Place to the Ontario Science Centre through the heart of downtown, bringing 227,500 more people within walking distance to transit, according to Metrolinx, the provincial agency overseeing the project.

While locals are quick to complain about the TTC, which can be unreliable and crowded, many who come here marvel at the efficiency of the system.

“The connection, from buses, to GO trains, to trams, everything is very, I would say, flawless,” said Akbar Siddiqui, who came to the city one month ago from Mumbai and lives with his wife in Etobicoke. “I come from a country where the transportation network is a little flawed. There are a lot of delays. Everything is very congested primarily because in India, back in Mumbai, there are a lot of people, in a relatively small area.”

Still, Toronto is not where it needs to be to move a growing population, said longtime transit watcher and blogger Steve Munro.

“We have to stop assuming that building a couple of subway lines will solve our transportation problems.” As the city becomes more populated, and living downtown becomes less affordable, people are increasingly being pushed further from the city, meaning the demand for transit is becoming more diffuse, Munro said.

In 2021, the distant suburbs (30 minutes or more from downtown) of Canada’s three biggest cities — Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal — grew at a faster rate than the urban fringe or suburbs closer to the core, according to StatCan.

Newly elected mayor Olivia Chow has promised to invest in transit and active transportation, including by reversing recent TTC cuts and creating a dedicated busway in Scarborough. But the TTC is facing a significant money crunch that cannot be solved at the city level alone. The TTC relies on the farebox to fund about two-thirds of its operating costs, and ridership is currently just 74 per cent of what it was before the pandemic. On top of this year’s $366-million deficit, the transit agency anticipates an “operating pressure” next year as high as $600 million, according to a recent CEO report to city council.

The TTC is also short on money to maintain, and invest in, capital. The TTC recently cancelled a Request for Proposals for new subway trains because it did not get the funding it needed from the provincial and federal governments. The trains it had intended to replace are currently between 24 and 27 years old, with an intended life of 30 years.

“The combined operating and capital investments required to sustain the level and quality of transit service required to support Canada’s largest city cannot be supported solely through expenditure reductions, or revenue streams currently available to the TTC,” the recent CEO report warned. Ottawa announced in April that it would chip in $349 million to help the TTC buy more electric buses, but no new money to help run them.

“We need to really think about how we’re going to move hundreds of thousands more people with the same amount of road space,” said Steve Farber, transportation geographer and spatial analyst at the University of Toronto. Farber and Munro agree that the best way to accommodate a growing population over the short term is to invest in the city’s bus network, and to give those buses the right of way, so that more people can move more efficiently.

“We have to think about making transit a more desirable option for a much larger number of potential trips,” Farber said. “So, in the short run, get buses moving faster and more frequent everywhere. I think that will move the needle quite a lot.”

Tadepalli said even with its shortcomings, the TTC has been a lifeline for him since he got to the city, and continuing to invest in it will be crucial for future immigrants to thrive.

“Without affordable, accessible and clear information about transit, a lot of immigrants tend to not engage with the city and to stay home.”

Source: Laying down routes: Here’s what transit in the GTA needs to keep up with Canada’s population boom

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