Originally Posted by jhausner
I don't actually understand how anyone here is arguing the point that because someone is "rich" in a third world country, that it makes any difference to their standing here in Canada. Like just because they are rich in Zimbabwe that they should be denied access to Canada or that we shouldn't treat them as human beings first an foremost.
It is NOT expensive to immigrate to Canada. A solo person wanting to immigrate to Canada needs to just basically have proof they have $12,500 in cash and pay about $500 or so not including any legal costs. It goes up from there for more people coming but not drastically. Family of 7 is about $33,000 in combined cash and the fees associated with PR applications and other legal processing.
Sure a lot of people in third world countries probably would dream about earning that amount of cash in their entire lifetime, but again I don't see how that matters. If someone was "rich" enough in China to come up with $12,500 cash working their behind off for a number of years, then come to Canada, how far would that get them? They'd bloody be living on the streets of East Vancouver with that amount of cash. That's not even the poverty line here!
So yes there are ultra wealthy people that immigrate to Canada, but the vast majority of people I am absolutely certain are not any better off or worse off than the average Canadian born by pure absolute luck in a country where they don't have to carry water in a bucket on their head for 1km to drink tonight.
I think some people need a little bit of perspective when it comes to our place in the world. More than 1/3rd of the world (2.5 billion) people live on $2 a day. Our low income citizens in Canada would be considered rich in more than 50% of the rest of this planet.
So quite frankly I don't really care how much money someone earns when they want to come to this country, I care about what they are going to contribute culturally, socially, and economically be they a billionaire or an average Joe and I think that's all anyone should care about. If they are going to live here and contribute, their kids are going to go to school, they are going to support the economy by buying things and going out, and they pay taxes, who cares what they make? If they are going to milk the system, work loop-holes, evade the tax system, and suck our resources without contributing in return, then that's what we should be annoyed with and want to stop. But again we need to keep some perspective here. There are plenty of born and raised Canadians that cheat on their taxes, lie about their income, and break the law. I'd actually venture a guess that the number of Canadians that do this greatly outnumbers the number of foreigners.
What does any of this have to do with housing though? Simple, I personally think we miss the actual drivers of higher costs in Metro Vancouver and that it isn't rich foreigners but rather government agencies (municipal, provincial, and federal) addicted to tax dollars and through policy, fees, and forced contributions during development add a lot of overhead to new housing starts, and people wanting to move here from elsewhere on the planet including other areas of Canada and us not building enough bloody houses for them. It takes 2-4 years to get a basic 120 unit townhouse complex in Surrey from start of planning to construction complete, and yet the city has 1250 people wanting to move here every month.
Is the answer to close the walls? No. The answer is to reduce government red-tape and build more units imho. Stop blaming people that want to come to this Country.
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