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As Canada has grown rich, our fertility rate has gone down. I have no moral problem with that, but it does cause a problem: as the population ages, the ratio of workers (who pay tax) to retired people (who carry a tax burden) shrinks. The options are increasing the taxes on workers, cutting the benefits to the retired, or increasing the working age population via immigration.
As to grocery stores, housing prices, etc. I think these problems are more related to a lack of competition. A free market can handle an influx of consumers.
I think the third option could be further broken down: 3a) increase the working age population via a well planned immigration strategy that includes necessary infrastructure spending (medical residencies, housing, etc etc) to support that immigration 3b) open up the floodgates with absolutely no planning for the consequences whatsoever and then blame everyone else for the ensuing inflation and societal stress.
Unfortunately our current government chose 3b.
This is not even close to the only problem. Our housing stock has not kept up with population growth, which is a big reason why housing prices have been so out of control here. It's not due to a lack of competition so much as regulation and population growth that has outpaced building capacity.
So I'm not sure I can agree that that graph looks fine. It's true that we need immigration to balance falling fertility rates, but this needs to be balanced by the available resources so the cost of living doesn't spiral out of control. Labour shortages can often be addressed in others ways, like automation.
Housing stock I really do think is down to regulation - it’s crazy hard to build here in Vancouver, even right near mass transit stations.
Should we have increased the ability to compete in housing and groceries before the influx of immigrants? Maybe. But I don’t think having them here makes these issues harder to address, and it might increase the pressure to actually take action. Every party is talking about cost of living now.
At least not without paying construction workers a whole lot more in order to compel the software developers away from developing software and into building houses, but then that only drives the cost of housing even higher!
I expect the answer is because nobody actually wants to live in such dwellings. They might accept rent in a place like that if they see it as a stop-gap until they can move into their "dream home", but it is not the home they are willing to commit to and build (obviously there are exceptions).
The claim that immigration is the only option is a fallacy peddled because it's the lazy short term option and "Après moi, le déluge" [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apr%C3%A8s_moi,_le_d%C3%A9luge
Immigration is the only thing providing GDP growth. Otherwise the Canadian economy is clearly broken
What do you think?
1. Immigration is a federal matter, commerce is (mostly) a provincial matter. In practice, this means the federal government brings in the people it thinks should be most economically useful for the economic need that is present, but the provinces put up red tape to disallow them from being most useful. The canonical example here being the trained medical doctor left to drive a taxi.
2. Immigrants tend to want to settle amongst each other. Which is no doubt important socially, but the communities are most often not located where there is the economic need. This leaves individuals to be under-utilized, if even jobless, all while employers can't find anyone to hire. Since provincially-regulated employers can't find anyone to hire, the federal government sees a need for even more people and use one of the few tools they have. You can guess what happens next.
Is it possible that only 0.16% of immigrants are educated? Well, maybe, but if that's the case it is insignificant enough that it is basically meaningless. Said economic region is home to 0.8% of the population, so immigrants are disproportionately not going there despite the data showing the greater economic need.
Education does not remove the human experience. I expect it is plain hard to be one of almost no immigrants to show up somewhere, even if you come with awareness. You aren't likely to find a familiar culture, or other people going through the same experience, so it can easily become isolating. Immigrant communities beget immigrants because they offer something to immigrants. Life isn't just about work it turns out.
Maple syrup reserves are running low and Canada will need bodies for the upcoming war over New England’s supply.
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/canada-popula...
That projected 39 million for 2024, but we're already over 41 million right now [1]. So if the graph that started this thread is correct, in 2023 the Canadian population grew 3% just from immigration.
There's no question we need immigration given the low fertility rate, but there is definitely a limit to how much immigration is stable vs. disruptive, eg. if you doubled your population in one year the country would be unrecognizable and there wouldn't be enough resources to meet everyone's needs. For instance, housing capacity has been growing a lot slower than 3% per year for decades now, which is definitely a factor in our very high housing costs. We're definitely in a pickle.
[1] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2018005...
Also, implicit in your post seems to be an assertion that the moral responsibility for their deaths would fall on us rather than the people causing the deadly circumstances in their home countries, and that we are thus we are obligated to help in this specific way. There are a lot of problems with this argument.
- danger of torture - risk of life - risk of cruel and unusual punishment
Where have you come up with this idea that it somehow suggests a significant number?
That reply is only relevant to the original post if "significant fraction" consists of a meaningfully large percentage of that increase that is allegedly causing the problems.
Therefore, the phrasing of that reply in-context is misleading at best.
"A significant fraction of those people would be dead if they didn't immigrate." -- bryanlarsen, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40598367
> Also, implicit in your post seems to be an assertion that the moral responsibility for their deaths would fall on us
There is no such assertion. Any more logical fallacies up your sleeve before we move on?
You're going to have to fill us in with your own personal, non-standard definition that you are using, I guess.
Oh, right, you're not interested. But then why be here at all?
Canada let too many people in and the issues stem from infrastructure not able to handle it.
Can it be fixed? Absolutely! Will it? Probably not at any rate of speed that will fix the immediate pain.