Some of our southern neighbours have probably heard about the various systemic economic and political issues Canada is having right now. In the last 3 years, Canada has almost the same absolute rate of immigration (so total number of visas) as the United States, which is… 11 times our size. The actual rate of population change due to immigration in Canada is approx 2.25 percent annually, whereas the same number in the United States is about… .28. Why is Canada so manically determined to increase/change the composition of its population?
I would suggest that flooding Canada with immigrants (almost all of which are from two regions, SEA and India, which are not really refugee hotspots) was done with two main goals: 1, to artificially increase the number of new home buyers (huh? More on this in a second), and 2, to create a voting block which will always favour the Liberals.
Addressing the first, in Canada the single largest factor determine whether we are in a growing or shrinking economy is the status of the housing market. When housing is booming, the economy of the nation as a whole does well; when housing is in the dust, Canada usually has a mild recession. Since 2016, which is when the current Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, came to power, the value of the average home in Canada has more than doubled; actually that stat is from a couple of years ago and as a Vancouver resident I can say things are still trending upwards, albeit not at the same speed (the provincial government made a bunch of laws to try and cool the market, basically).
Now if you are a home owner or someone who is a little financially savvy, you will know that doubling a house’s price in 7 years is… well it’s very fortunate for the person owning the house, let’s put it that way; for the housing market as a whole, debatable. And it’s certainly unsustainable, the actual logistics of buying a house in Canada (excepting a few cheaper markets) are nightmarish right now; let’s say you want to buy in metro Vancouver… well you’re looking at 1.2 million$ average prices and potentially a bunch of measures that will further increase the difficulty of you getting a mortgage; at one point you had to prove you had double the initial required down payment for a house before you could be approved for a loan; this seems like a really bad way to try make housing more accessible to ordinary people but believe it or not that’s how this type of law was introduced. I think the only feasible way most people can buy is with inheritance money/help from their family… a young couple living in a big city just isn’t going to save up 150,000$ unless they are both doctors (even if they are both doctors, they will probably spend it on a yellow range rover).
But wait, this sounds bad, why would the Liberals allow this to occur? Because it keeps the housing market in a permanent froth, and hides underlying weaknesses in the economy. Canada does not have powerhouse states like California, New York, Texas, etc… to drive the national economy. As mentioned, the single largest factor in the national economy of Canada is the housing market; it is at least somewhat fair to say that the economic trajectory of the entire country is traced by the housing market. Adding 1 million plus new residents each year (with about half of those, 500,000 or so, being permanent residents, and the remaining 500,000-800,000+ being temporary Visas) means that this sector always has new demands to service and will likely continue to expand robustly as long as these numbers are roughly the same. Thus you are basically guaranteeing relatively sunny macro-economic conditions by setting these targets as they have a tendency to cover up the warts from an otherwise very mediocre economy.
Also worth noting, is that greater than two thirds of all houses owned in Canada are clear title; meaning their is no mortgage and that the house is 100% paid off by its owners. So for these people, having their house price double means, well, it means hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars added to their personal wealth, which I do think was a partial motivating factor in this chain of events.
To address the second point: In Canada there are three major political parties, the Liberals (somewhat equivalent to the Democrats), the Conservatives (Republicans, duh) and the NDP (New Democrat Party; even more liberal than the Liberals). I would hazard a guess that almost all non-white immigrants vote Liberal or NDP and that, like in the US with regards to republicans, almost all Conservative voters are white. Again, like the United States, these distinctions are quite broad, not on the order of a percent here or there. By importing huge numbers of overwhelmingly non-white voters, the Liberals (and also indirectly the NDP) are securing themselves a permanent voting base in future elections.
So, what is there to actually do? If you are concerned by this type of stuff and the overall direction Canada is taking, you might want to consider donating a little monthly to the Conservatives. Like it or not they are the only organized force of political resistance to all the Liberal/NDP bullshit; obviously you should go vote when it’s time but I’m talking about being a bit more proactive than that.
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