Statistics Canada Reports II

[lio45]

Originally Posted by thewave46

The problem with the current 'pump up scheme' is that is distorts the necessary process for correction. People losing their homes is not the end of the world if they can land in a cheaper rental and rebuild their lives. By closing off this avenue by way of high population growth, one has essentially removed a pressure release valve.

This is a feedback loop that keep prices up, because if you have nowhere else to go then you'll do everything you can to avoid giving back your house keys to the bank (say, cram some 15-20 South Asian boarders at $300/month each into your basement to make ends meet), and the party continues

[lio45]

Originally Posted by acottawa

We also aren’t giving away 160 acres of free land willing to settle on it.

Lots of things are different. We have much more of a social safety net too -- that chart kool maudit posted a while ago showing that immigrants to Denmark are mostly a net drain on collective coffers was an eye opener.

In a true sink-or-swim society, the more the merrier -- no downside to importing disproportionally massive hordes of unwashed every year.

(This BTW is IMO why the U.S. is doing significantly better than nearly all of its peers, in this era of great migration pressure. Immigrants, even the least qualified ones, are more of a resource to them, and less of a drain.)

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by lio45

Actually it's totally the other way around: back then the Suckers were the ones who had no initiative, stayed behind, and starved from lack of potatoes. The ones who dared seize the opportunity offered and cross the Atlantic did pretty well on average.

If you accept a deal that sucks for you (staying put in Ireland during a famine because it's the inertia option, coming to Canada in 2024 as an Indentured Servant and living 20 to a house while waiting in a 100-person lineup for a job at Tim Hortons, etc.) when you could pretty easily have done better, then it can be said you're a Sucker, no?

• Video Link

[jc_yyc_ca]

Originally Posted by KnoxfordGuy

Stats Can released the Quarterly population figures for Jan 1st.

Canada 40,769,890 + 0.6%
Increase of 1,271,872 from Jan 1, 2023.
97.6% immigration
2.4% natural Increase

202,000 for Alberta. Pretty heavy growth, and a lot of it looks to be interprovincial. People looking for cheaper housing.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...data-1.7157110

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

to be clear, I am definitely not advocating for unimpeded population flows across borders, which evidently is not tenable. Just saying that we should remember that most of our ancestors (probably 90% or higher) also had humble beginnings in this country, with modest (at best) resources. The primary difference today being where these immigrants are coming from.

I've never quite understood this point. Oh, on the surface I get it, but I don't understand why it's mentioned in this context.

If one wants to extol the benefits of immigration and benefit a larger number of potential immigrants over the longer term, catering that level of immigration to the host society is imperative. A short-term spike that annihilates the long-term local consensus is probably more hostile an approach to more potential immigrants over the long-term.

Yes, my ancestors were poor folks, like pretty much everyone prior to the 20th century. Some of them were forcibly cleared off their lands or starved out of their country at the whims of higher imperial powers who had dreams of political legitimacy in the New World through occupation.

But they're dead people. They've been dead a long time. I never knew them. Their travails and sufferings are done. My concern is of tomorrow and how we best approach that. Do I owe a bigger debt to the Canadian children of today who live here now, or some person who isn't here? My obligation to the mythical cry of ancestors whose descendants got lucky to end up in 21st century Canada is a non-element compared to the needs and wants of the people actually exist in the here and now who will carry the load of Canada going further into the 21st century.

[Acajack]

I know it's unlikely to happen, but if recent growth rates are maintained, Canada would achieve the Century Project's goal (100 million Canadians) almost half a century early, in 2053!

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Most of those of us who aren't racists basically assumed Immigration=good until 2022 or so. I noticed it here first and then in real life conversations a few months after that. It took the political-media elite a little longer but they are also waking up to the fact we need a massive decrease in immigration and especially TFW fake students that now form the bulk of the intake.

I never thought I would have said cut immigration and reduce student visas (and TFWs) but here we are in 2024, growing at around 1.3 million/yr

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

For most of my years (more than 20) at SSP, and for those that shared an opinion on the matter, the desire has been for a bigger (population) Canada. Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.

Clearly, the intake is completely unsustainable, for a multitude of reasons. And if there is one thing that the current liberal government owns, it is the completely unrealistic intake.

Molson, you in London and me in Niagara among every southern Ontarian have seen the price of for purchase housing and rentals rise insanely quick compared to most of Canada. Now the population growth is accelerating and not enough housing is being built in southern Ontario, lower mainland BC and increasingly other parts of Canada. Something's gotta give.

As a Calgary forumer like O-tacular could attest, Calgary has quickly risen in prices of rentals and for purchase housing the past few years. It will no longer be a city/Metro affordable to the masses.

Rents in our most affordable large cities, Edmonton and Winnipeg have jumped year over year by 27.5% and 26% respectively. Québec City rents increased by 22%. If that continues, there goes the affordability advantage these Metros offered.
Ottawa is now the 6th most expensive rental market in Canada, and becoming increasingly unaffordable.
https://www.zumper.com/blog/rental-price-data-canada/

In Niagara:
Unit size.........2019 rent.........2024 rent
Bachelor......~$700-800.........$1100-1250+
1 bed...........~$925-1000+......$1550-1700+
2 bed...........~$1125-1250+....$1900-2000+

Benchmark/typical prices for purchase housing
Type..........Feb 2019............Feb 2024
SFH..........~$400,000...........$635,000
Semi........~$375,000............$590,000
Condo......~$280,000............$420,000

Nite, do you really think wages have kept pace with housing costs?

Welland (2021 pop ~56,000), of all places in Ontario, went from building an avg of ~160 new dwelling units/yr to now over 1,000/y or over 6x the amount in a short period:

Year........New units....Total All Building Permits value
2016......132...............$81.7M
2022......1,045............$231.2M
https://madeinwelland.ca/Data/pdfs/2...ntActivity.pdf
The city's projections estimate the population will be over 81,000 within a decade.

Molson, I sorted by newest listings for sale in Welland, built since 2020 (if year built was entered).
A lot of Ugly Canada Thread contenders
https://www.realtor.ca/map#ZoomLevel...Listings=false

The quality of life for the average Canadian seems to be diminished from what I remember 10-20 years ago. Only those with affordable mortgages and grandfathered rental prices are doing better than the rest of our fellow Canucks.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Clearly, the intake is completely unsustainable, for a multitude of reasons. And if there is one thing that the current liberal government owns, it is the completely unrealistic intake.

100% agree.

This mass intake of new suckers and the ensuing housing crisis and over dependence on highly unproductive real estate resulting in our declining productivity levels is completely of Trudeau's making.

He can't blame it on COVID, supply issues, the war in Ukraine, Harper, the Opposition, or the provinces. Immigration, including student visas and TFW, are 100% the responsibility of Ottawa. Trudeau alone set the ground rules and there is no way he will be able to disown that responsibility in the next federal election which is why PP and the Conservatives are going to make mincemeat out of him.

Although I don't love the guy, I will feel sorry for PP as he is going to inherit a economic and financial mess that Trudeau that has left in his wake. From high deficits, to an economy that has become so unproductive that it needs 1.3 million new suckers every year just to stay afloat, to a collapsing healthcare system, to a housing affordability crisis, to entrenched poverty, to new programs like Pharmacare, dental, and childcare they we do not have the money to fund.............he is walking into a minefield.

It is going to take decades to undo the damage Trudeau has caused to reverse our financial and economic malaise and plunging standard of living.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by thewave46

I've never quite understood this point. Oh, on the surface I get it, but I don't understand why it's mentioned in this context.

If one wants to extol the benefits of immigration and benefit a larger number of potential immigrants over the longer term, catering that level of immigration to the host society is imperative. A short-term spike that annihilates the long-term local consensus is probably more hostile an approach to more potential immigrants over the long-term.

Yes, my ancestors were poor folks, like pretty much everyone prior to the 20th century. Some of them were forcibly cleared off their lands or starved out of their country at the whims of higher imperial powers who had dreams of political legitimacy in the New World through occupation.

But they're dead people. They've been dead a long time. I never knew them. Their travails and sufferings are done. My concern is of tomorrow and how we best approach that. Do I owe a bigger debt to the Canadian children of today who live here now, or some person who isn't here? My obligation to the mythical cry of ancestors whose descendants got lucky to end up in 21st century Canada is a non-element compared to the needs and wants of the people actually exist in the here and now who will carry the load of Canada going further into the 21st century.

I have the same attitude towards the unquestioning acceptance of any type or level of cultural change.

It's conventionally accepted by most that what was done to Indigenous peoples was wrong, but then bizarrely people use that as justification to say that the non-Indigenous cultures that have developed here over centuries have no right to any type of permanency or legitimacy.

And if they're overwhelmed by something else, it's simply just desserts.

Seems dumb to reproduce tensions, grievances and injustices over and over.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by acottawa

We also aren’t giving away 160 acres of free land willing to settle on it.

and Canada is no longer a mercantile, agrarian based economy. Large scale import of poor low-skilled immigrants made perfect sense based on the economics of the time, but it no longer makes sense in a society that derives most of its value from highly skilled and productivity driven services.

[MolsonExport]

I'm quite sure that if the majority had a say, that my wife's parents would never have been able to emigrate to Canada (1970), because many people back then were terrified of the "Asian horde". Thankfully, the majority didn't have a say.

[thewave46]

Right. I'm not opposed to immigration, but ratcheting up immigration to the point of turning public opinion against it is folly. Especially in a democracy. At the end of the day, immigration is a domestic policy of the Government of Canada to serve Canada's interests. If it is pursued at a level that causes more downsides than advantages (if even only perceived) by the citizens of that country, it behooves government to alter the policy.

I'm the descendant of immigrants too. I'm happy they were admitted to this country. However, I'm under absolutely no illusion of why they were admitted: To work. Not some under some high moralistic banner of multiculturalism. They did well. Raised a family. Made this place their home, became members of the community. I'm happy to be here by their choices.

I don't owe them anything though - they got to live out their their lives. I owe young domestic Canadians more and think we should design policy that way. If more immigration can make those lives better, great. If it makes their lives worse, I'm not sure why we're doing it.

[MolsonExport]

But I don't think we are in disagreement. I am not opposed to anything you are saying. My comment was more directed against the issue of the majority making decisions on what racial/ethnic type(s) of immigrants should be candidates. Having a say on the number of immigrants is one thing. Saying that they should only come from countries x, y, and z is quite another thing.

[Spocket]

What I want to know is whether or not we can find some way to get rid of JT before he assumes his final form.

All joking aside, IS there some way to get rid of him before the next election? He's an insane ideologue and he's burning the country down because he doesn't understand or care what %90 of us are trying to cope with.

[theman23]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

. Saying that they should only come from countries x, y, and z is quite another thing.

Who is suggesting this?

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Spocket

What I want to know is whether or not we can find some way to get rid of JT before he assumes his final form.

All joking aside, IS there some way to get rid of him before the next election? He's an insane ideologue and he's burning the country down because he doesn't understand or care what %90 of us are trying to cope with.

Who actually thinks he makes decisions alone? Perhaps we need professional demographers and economists to run the country. The problem is, I doubt they would all agree on much. Politics usually trumps logic.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I'm quite sure that if the majority had a say, that my wife's parents would never have been able to emigrate to Canada (1970), because many people back then were terrified of the "Asian horde". Thankfully, the majority didn't have a say.

I am pretty sure Mein Kampf was not trending in 1970.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Architype

Who actually thinks he makes decisions alone? Perhaps we need professional demographers and economists to run the country. The problem is, I doubt they would all agree on much. Politics usually trumps logic.

Demographers and economists need an objective to provide a reasonable recommendation. If the objective is to try to squeeze a little economic growth before the 2025 election in an economy with collapsing productivity then the current approach is probably right. If your planning horizon is any further than 2025 then you would want a different strategy.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

But I don't think we are in disagreement. I am not opposed to anything you are saying. My comment was more directed against the issue of the majority making decisions on what racial/ethnic type(s) of immigrants should be candidates. Having a say on the number of immigrants is one thing. Saying that they should only come from countries x, y, and z is quite another thing.

As has been said, no one serious or with any power is advocating for this, though there is the legit question of how people are integrated and become Canadian.

We have tons of examples of how anyone of any origin or background can become totally Canadian (or even Québécois), but it becomes more challenging to achieve when people deny that such a thing as Canadian values, for example, even exist.

[MolsonExport]

or even Québécois

'cept maybe Quebec anglos (enemies of Quebec, I have been told), unless they have a Brian Mulroneyian command of the language, or jump on board the sovereignty train without any reservations.

Quebec Anglos are the perfect boogeyman for Quebec nationalists. Don't pay any attention to those Americans behind the curtain.