Canada's Immigration plan is not viable in any version of reality - BMO

I am Groot · December 20, 2023

There was a time every major institution and every media organ was 100% behind immigration. It was the third rail. No one dared gainsay it. Not a single politician in English Canada ever dared suggest we lower it. Well, the universal love from the media and institutions went out the window this year. Now we just need the politicians to follow suit.

“Now, in the context of Canada’s affordability crisis, take a look at the accompanying chart and ask if supply is really to blame here,” says BMO economist Robert Kavcic.

Adding, “Despite many commendable efforts, in no version of reality can housing supply respond to an almost overnight tripling in the run-rate of new bodies. This is (still) the case of a demand curve running loose.”

The industry is currently pushed to the max trying to churn out 220k homes per year. That’s a significantly higher number than previous years, but still roughly a quarter of the amount that would be needed to accommodate the supply-side plan.

It’s easy to say, “we just need to build more houses.” However, demand for materials is already so high it’s inflationary. Trying to scale building, even if the skilled labor were available, would still require competing with global commodity markets for the materials needed, driving the cost of construction higher.

https://betterdwelling.com/canadas-immigration-plan-is-not-viable-in-any-version-of-reality-bmo/#google_vignette

Edited December 21, 2023 by I am Groot

eyeball · December 21, 2023

There's other facet of reality that says we also need to replace a labour force that's retiring even faster than immigrants can keep up with.

Obviously we need to attract house builders but probably doctors even moreso.

CdnFox · December 21, 2023

Here's the chart

CdnFox · December 21, 2023

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

There's other facet of reality that says we also need to replace a labour force that's retiring even faster than immigrants can keep up with.

Obviously we need to attract house builders but probably doctors even moreso.

Honestly we don't. Not as much as some would have you believe.

What we need is to improve productivity substantially, and to do that we have to convince business to invest.

And if we slow the rate of growth we also reduce pressure on most businesses. Grocery stores need to have less product on hand, home builders can build fewer homes than they would have had to, we won't need as many new doctors.

We need immigration, lets be clear. But we dont need anywhere near what we're seeing right now. We could easily cut that in half - tighten up the rules - encourage business to invest strongly in efficiency - and reap a much stronger long term benefit.

I am Groot · December 21, 2023

12 hours ago, eyeball said:

There's other facet of reality that says we also need to replace a labour force that's retiring even faster than immigrants can keep up with.

Obviously we need to attract house builders but probably doctors even moreso.

Agreed. How about Tim Horton's workers? Do we really need to replace them? Because there's a couple of things about this replacement which need mentioning. First is the CD Howe Institute, which supports immigration, said we could deal with the aging workforce most easily by just pushing back the retirement age for a couple of years. That's what Mulroney then did. Trudeau reversed this.

Also, if the purpose of new immigrants is to replace our aging workforce should the government have increased the number of elderly immigrants who can be sponsored sixfold? Not coincidentally, this was done after each of the last three elections during which Trudeau promised ethnic/immigrant communities to make it easier for their parents and grandparents to come over.

Again, the Harper government had frozen the numbers back in 2013 because of the tremendous healthcare resources these elderly immigrants used, as well as that 25% were winding up on welfare. These were obviously not considerations for Trudeau.

Now add in AI and the number of jobs that's going to do away with over the next couple of decades. Do we really need to double immigration? I don't think so. We should, in fact, have been lowering immigration.

I am Groot · December 21, 2023

11 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Honestly we don't. Not as much as some would have you believe.

What we need is to improve productivity substantially, and to do that we have to convince business to invest.

Our productivity suffers because business doesn't invest. It doesn't invest because 1) we have too many protected oligopolies, 2) governments are in the habit of rescuing incompetent businesses rather than letting creative destruction do away with them, and 3) business has come to rely on a continuing stream of cheap labour, either from heavy immigration or from that plus the temporary foreign worker programs (including foreign students).

eyeball · December 21, 2023

1 hour ago, I am Groot said:

Now add in AI and the number of jobs that's going to do away with over the next couple of decades. Do we really need to double immigration? I don't think so. We should, in fact, have been lowering immigration.

What we should have done, decades ago, is to stop our population from growing so unsustainably.

We also knew full well why we needed to do that.

Queenmandy85 · December 21, 2023

I advocate for reducing the population. It has to be gradual, but if there were fewer people in Vancouver or Toronto, we would not need builders except for maintainance of the existing housing. Eliminate apartment buildings giving us more space. As the population falls, we remove unused homes.

We do not need people to work in Tim Hortons or Starbucks. We now have the technology in a room called a kitchen where you can actually make your own coffee and even bake a few doughnuts.

With a reduced population, we will not exhaust our resources that future Canadians will need to survive. In the past, we had a population of 12 million and we thrived. Now, we have the technology to run this country and protect it with a third of the population.

Queenmandy85 · December 21, 2023

Governments are consumed with the need to find more and more jobs for people. It drains the treasury and distracts from more essential business.

The essence of Canada, the thing that makes this country great, is our wilderness. Now we are losing it as people spread out away from the cities.

They say Canada has lots of room, well, so does Russia. Let Putin take people in.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Queenmandy85

eyeball · December 21, 2023

5 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

With a reduced population, we will not exhaust our resources that future Canadians will need to survive. In the past, we had a population of 12 million and we thrived. Now, we have the technology to run this country and protect it with a third of the population.

This would be regarded as a death sentence for our economic system. Don't ask me why economists designed it that way but economics is just a social science after all. It's like political science really, more philosophy than anything.

CdnFox · December 21, 2023

1 hour ago, I am Groot said:

Our productivity suffers because business doesn't invest. It doesn't invest because 1) we have too many protected oligopolies, 2) governments are in the habit of rescuing incompetent businesses rather than letting creative destruction do away with them, and 3) business has come to rely on a continuing stream of cheap labour, either from heavy immigration or from that plus the temporary foreign worker programs (including foreign students).

Sure. And also bad tax regimes, lots of red tape and things to hold business back (not just federally). unions with ridiculous demands and too much power, etc.

There's much to fix.

Queenmandy85 · December 21, 2023

It would mean we would never have to retire. Aging does not mean useless. The longer you work the healthier you are. I retired 15 years ago but I never stopped working. Neither did many of my fellow "retirees."

CdnFox · December 21, 2023

25 minutes ago, eyeball said:

What we should have done, decades ago, is to stop our population from growing so unsustainably.

We also knew full well why we needed to do that.

Sigh. NO we did not. Our population growth was WELL under control decades ago. And we DID make significant changes in 2006 that addressed the vast majority of problems with immigration prior to that very successfully as it turns out.

Sorry - this problem started with trudeau. Take a look at the chart.

Every time there's any problem you run around claiming that you've been telling people for 20 years now. TOLD 'EM I DID - BUT THEY WOULDN"T LISTEN!!! DO SOMETHING ABOUT AI TAKING PEOPLE"S JOBS I TOLD "EM IN '68 AND NOW LOOK!!!

Yeash.

Harper drew a lot of praise for his immigration policy including from immigrants and even the libs had to grugingly accept it was working, the cbc had to work overtime hours to find anything to complain about Proper point system, reasonable number of immigrants, and we were doing well.

THat went to hell under trudeau - in is first year he drove immigration to new heights not seen since the 70's and then aside from a covid blip has now driven it to insane levels.

eyeball · December 21, 2023

1 minute ago, CdnFox said:

Sigh. NO we did not.

Yes we did but you were probably to young to remember.

CdnFox · December 21, 2023

1 minute ago, eyeball said:

Yes we did but you were probably to young to remember.

Of course we didn't. As i pointed out there was no need. Immigration wasn't a problem, and when they realized it could be improved anyway they did it and it was even less of a problem. Your boy justin screwed it up, there was nothing to talk about 20 years ago.

Oh look. Eyeball's making crap up again. Yawn. THanks for almost saving the world and solving all the problems 20 years ago Eyeball - that must have been a VERY busy year for you

eyeball · December 21, 2023

1 minute ago, CdnFox said:

As i pointed out there was no need. Immigration wasn't a problem

We knew full well overpopulation would be a problem. This was pointed out decades and decades ago.

You can even go back as far as the 18th century to find precautions against overpopulation.

CdnFox · December 21, 2023

6 minutes ago, eyeball said:

We knew full well overpopulation would be a problem. This was pointed out decades and decades ago.

No, decades ago we were saying UNDER population would be a major problem. Due entirely to the baby boom. And it was. And it is. The problem we have now is NOT overpopulation. WE are the second largest country in the entire world and we have 40 million people. We have room.

The problem is that we have been bringing in people faster than we've been expanding our infrastructure AND faster than our systems for integrating them can handle. If we built more homes, or had more extensive systems, this would not be a problem. But we don't. So it is. And now it's about 5000 bucks a month to rent a pup tent on someone's lawn and a 6 year wait in the ER to get your broken bone set.

We were not talking about overcrowding back then, there was not a problem back then, the ONLY problem we talked about back then was that immigrants weren't succeeding fast enough to pay for themselves (but their kids were ) and so we introduced points.

NOBODY EVER claimed that canada - with far less people than the island of brittain for god's sake, with 1/10th of the population of the USA, was over crowded. THey said we're going to have too LITTLE population once the boomers retire.

Legato · December 21, 2023

11 minutes ago, eyeball said:

We knew full well overpopulation would be a problem. This was pointed out decades and decades ago.

You can even go back as far as the 18th century to find precautions against overpopulation.

If the problem was known 20 years ago why did Trudeau completely ignore it?

CdnFox · December 21, 2023

Just now, Legato said:

If the problem was known 20 years ago why did Trudeau completely ignore it?

Because he has the mind of a 15 year old. So he missed it.

CdnFox · December 21, 2023

13 minutes ago, eyeball said:

We knew full well overpopulation would be a problem. This was pointed out decades and decades ago.

You can even go back as far as the 18th century to find precautions against overpopulation.

Oh and by the way doorknob - they're STILL talking about under population. This is the kind of thing we were hearing in the 70s and 80's and 90's

https://www.newcomernavigation.ca/en/news/rbc-canada-needs-a-lot-more-immigrants-almost-double-the-current-rate-in-the-long-run.aspx

And they're not technically wrong but the problem is the gov't started bringing them in without giving a single thought to where the homes and hospitals are going to come from.

eyeball · December 21, 2023

24 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

No, decades ago we were saying UNDER population would be a major problem

Only economists, social...scientists (LOL), and governments were saying that.

29 minutes ago, Legato said:

If the problem was known 20 years ago why did Trudeau completely ignore it?

It was known long before that. Trudeau ignored it for the same reason his predecessors did.

Nefarious Banana · December 21, 2023

Fellow mentioned that Muslim immigrants shouldn't be accepted in Canada . . . his point was that about 30% of the worldwide Muslim population is radicalized and their sole purpose is to recruit and destroy anything/anyone who is not Muslim. He stated that they do not try to adapt to the host country's laws, social customs, etc., or even try to fit in and be a Canadian citizen. He said that they expect the host country and its citizens to knuckle under to their radical views, and Sharia law . . . .

eyeball · December 21, 2023

29 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Oh and by the way doorknob - they're STILL talking about under population. This is the kind of thing we were hearing in the 70s and 80's and 90's

https://www.newcomernavigation.ca/en/news/rbc-canada-needs-a-lot-more-immigrants-almost-double-the-current-rate-in-the-long-run.aspx

And they're not technically wrong but the problem is the gov't started bringing them in without giving a single thought to where the homes and hospitals are going to come from.

No they're perfectly correct given the received assumptions of economists and other social (LOL)..scientists. Why would they need to give it anymore thought?