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The government says they're targeting 500k a year, but should we believe them?
In flagrant violation of the first law of holes, they have not stopped digging. There is a massive housing crisis in the country, and immigration is the first and most available lever the federal government has on the problem. Ottawa (mostly) can't build homes directly, at least not on the scale the country needs. Trudeau's "ambitious housing plan" is a paltry 2 million additional homes across 8 years, with half of that covered by the provinces and municipalities, and that's if it actually goes to plan. If you're bringing in a million people every year.., the math ain't mathing, as the kids say. Even at their target of 500k, it seems like not quite enough.
As for temporary vs permanent, I'm not sure. I've known many temporary residents, all waiting around for PR, some staying long past their expired work permits: my friends and coworkers - good people, for sure, but they have to live somewhere. It also seems like no one really ever gets deported. Famously, you have to kill 16 people, but less anecdotally, the country is only deporting a few thousand a year, equivalent to a few days worth of immigration.
I have talked to a number of recent immigrants on dating apps, and a huge number are students or recent graduates of a very low ranked local university that I've never even heard of any local going to, and whose student body seems to be about 90% international students. I don't think it's bad enough to be called a diploma mill, but it's not good. It makes me doubt that we're really attracting the brightest people. The standards of the higher ranked universities themselves are dropping. All of these universities have a huge problem with cheating from what I've heard and the lower ranked ones have pretty low standards for passing.
I don't think the immigration rate should take the price of housing into account though. The average Canadian benefits from higher prices. The problem is that cities refuse to allow development. The median voter supports immigration but doesn't want his own neighbourhood to change. And they don't want urban sprawl either. But even if they doesn't happen, the average Canadian is still better off with high property values.
Yeah.. some of that is true.
My steelman for the government's actions is that they're doing what they feel is best for the country because something something Century Initiative. Country needs population to support its social program Ponzi scheme (and I mean that with love. Free healthcare is great, but it is expensive. So is OAS). It needs to be paid for with an expanding population's taxes, and where that population lives is not Ottawa's problem. It's not Trudeau's fault most of Vancouver still looks like this.
But no. I don't think the average Canadian benefits from higher home prices. The average voter? maybe. So then you have the PM just come right out and admit it. "Home prices cannot be allowed to fall". It's generational warfare, and our politicians have picked the side their votes come from. The boomers get to retire. You get to eat the bugs.
How can the average Canadian not benefit from higher property values if the vast majority of property is owned by Canadians?
It's not generational warfare. People are free to give the proceeds of higher property values to their children, and most of them do. It's not the government's fault if some people don't want to help their children. But when the government does intervene and artificially suppresses property values or taxes them to redistribute to the young, a large share of that is redistribution to immigrants or their children. This is the opposite of what the government should do if it wants to help Canadians at the expense of foreigners as so many claim it should.
"Generational warfare" was perhaps hyperbolic. I mean that the government is propping up assets that, absent their meddling, should come down in value, if things were at all sane like in the US.
It doesn't help the younger generation of Canadians now if their parents will eventually croak in 25 or 30 years and leave them the house (along with god knows what owed in deferred property tax. Have fun with that, kids! Edit: actually, maybe this is only a BC thing), nor does it help those who can't bank on an inheritance.
Why should they come down in value?
Of course it helps them. They don't have to save as much for retirement or their parents can take out a mortgage and provide them with a downpayment. Their grandparents also own property and their parents and grandparents own REITs and rental properties.
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