I’m unhappy about the immigration but not because I don’t want people from other countries here. That part is mostly irrelevant to me.
I’m unhappy about it because we need them to immigrate here because we’ve utterly failed to create a thriving, functional, sustainable, balanced economy with people who have legitimate means and incentives to participate in it across the board.
This mass immigration strategy is a lifeline whether we like it or not. It’s not a good situation no matter how you slice it in my opinion, but I suspect things would be worse without immigration.
I recently started a business and I’ve been completely blown away by how much it sucks in this country. The start up costs were reasonable until I discovered my type of business requires light industrial space to get a permit. I can’t get the permit to operate from my residence due to zoning, not because I want a store front or anything, but because I’d need to drain water more often than residential zones are allowed. I mean, someone who has a lot of baths will drain far more water than I’d need to, but whatever. I need to rent the space to operate.
So I look around my city and discover this can cost around $100k per year for remarkably small spaces. Like, barely larger than my 2 car garage. The cheapest I found was $65k for what is essentially the same situation as my garage, but I’d be able to get the permit. It’s dirtier, far away from my home, only has 120V service, no internet, would need serious renovation to be suitable for basic lab work, etc.
I thought I must be missing something and started digging into historical pricing. Around 15 years ago the same place was leased for 3 years at $15k per year.
How are we supposed to build our economy in these conditions? Why would I take on that risk? I don’t want to build the next unicorn here; I just want to tissue culture some plants. I like it. It’s insane to bother doing it legitimately though. What a mess.
Canada is failing to make entrepreneurship appealing or even sensible. Regular employment is becoming less rewarding for most people each year. As a result I think we’ve got a shrinking and relatively unmotivated workforce. Unless that were to change, we absolutely need to import labour to fill the gaps. It’s going to feel strange to live here in 20 years, I think. It won’t be the same. I hope it works out well for the people who are coming here, at least.