Quote:
Originally Posted by DevelopmentAndy
Intellectual midgets saying "We need immigration." No, locals can also work at Tim Horton's. Criticizing the idea of immigration reform is just sad with this Port Dog and Pony Show. Thanks for posting though.
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I'd say historically, Saint John has been at its best when it was an entry point for immigration and had a steady flow of immigrants from around the world looking to find a better life in Canada. Immigrants no longer arrive in Saint John by ship at the Port, but they do arrive at the air-port. For the city to grow, develop, and prosper, we need to attract migrants, both international and internal. Toronto might not need more immigrants, but Saint John absolutely does.
Saint John's problem has
never been immigrants. Saint John's current problem is an outdated property tax system that the government has yet reform, and nearly 50% of the CMA population living outside the city limits. Even if the best we get is moderate property tax reform and more of the KV/GB suburbs property taxes going towards a regional budget, the situation would be fundamentally better for the Port City
and for the region as a whole. Still, the optimal solution for the city and the region as a whole would be some form of regional amalgamation where all the constituent communities of the region contribute equally to a regional budget, even if they retain their councils and city/town identities.
The biggest thing holding back Port Saint John's growth back is our
small population. Saint John should get rid of that "Small City: Big Heart" slogan, yesterday! The only good thing about that slogan is that the city did not have to pay the marketing students in New Jersey that came up with it.
It really is a shame that the city went with a free slogan/brand picked by marketing students in New Jersey for a school project instead of doing something fun and interesting like hosting a public competition for the new city slogan. While the slogan was free, the marketing campaign was not. Saint John deserves a better slogan that that.
The city's slogan should be aspirational, not self deprecating... "Canada's First City", "First Canadian City", "Canada's Port City", or "the Port City" would all be much better slogan's for the city than Small City, Big Heart...
Port Saint John at least has some
big, aspirational ideas for the region, but the city and province don't exactly seem to have a lot of big ideas or big solutions to make Saint John a better city and region. I don't get what the hold up is to fixing the housing crisis in Saint John. The provincial and federal governments should be funding major affordable housing and population growth solutions for Saint John so that we see way more mid rises and high rises going up not just around the Central Peninsula, but around the entire city and region.
The province has given Saint John an especially bad deal in terms of fair taxation for nearly half a century, and that no amount of tax reforms will make up for. The federal government has also let Saint John down in the past many times. It's time for both the feds and the province to step up and attempt to right these historical wrongs by funding some big, ambitious housing and infrastructure solutions here in Canada's oldest incorporated city... a city with one of the biggest infrastructure deficits in all of Canada. It's not unreasonable to expect housing developments to keep up with growth, but for the most part, that has not been happening in Saint John since 2020, as we have seen thousands of renters in Saint John be squeezed out of the rental market.
Not only should the lack of housing
not be an issue used to foster hate against immigrants, it should be an issue that is actually helped solved by immigrants. We don't need more TFW's to help out Tim Horton's owners,
, but we do need more immigrants that want to come to Canada and be builders... literally. The last time I checked NB's housing minister lives in Uptown Saint John, and both he and the premier are Liberals like the Prime Minister himself. Mark Carney literally never shuts up about how Canada will build big, build bold and build now to not just get out of the housing crisis, but also the economic crisis that Canada finds itself facing. I think Hickey and Holt should be leaning on the Carney Liberals to fund some big housing projects here in New Brunswick's main three cities, but especially for Saint John, as the housing minister certainly knows how much Saint John needs the help more than any other city in New Brunswick.
Ports will undoubtedly be central to Canada's economic strategy that seeks to expand the reach of our
global trading relationships. Ports like Saint John could even be an important part of Canada's housing solutions through the import of modular housing. Though one day, it would be best for Canada to be a net exporter of modular housing products.
Here's an example of a 10 storey, modular apartment building in China with modules the size of shipping containers that was assembled in a single day:
• Video Link
A lot of countries have a comparative advantage to Canada when it comes to manufacturing things like modular housing. While the country remains in a housing crisis, we should be looking at all the options around the world, or starting new ones. JDI and other Canadian companies are already expanding modular housing manufacturing here in Canada, but they could also look to expand their operations abroad in countries like Mexico with lower labour costs and more robust manufacturing sectors. Canadian companies and Canadian resources could contribute to global housing solutions, and ports like Saint John could help make these global developments and connections possible.
The last thing a growing port city needs is an isolationist attitude... we need the growth, we need the immigrants, we need the big, positive ideas. Here in the Saint John Region, one of the best things about growth via migration (both international and internal), is that these new people bring fresh, new perspectives, new experiences, and new ideas to this old city that has seen its fair share of economic and demographic challenges. Many of these new Saint Johners are coming from much bigger Canadian cities and much bigger cities from around the world where the problems of Saint John probably do seem quite small and insignificant in comparison to where they are coming from.
I hope we could both agree that immigrants are not the problem in Saint John, and that instead, the problem is a lack of big solutions to solve big problems like the housing and affordability crises and a lack of solutions to provide better economic opportunities to the people of Saint John, New Brunswick, and Canada.
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