Global Courant
It’s an argument that crops up again and again whenever there’s a discussion about the housing crisis plaguing Metro Vancouver or anywhere else in Canada.
If Canada can’t accommodate the people who already live here, we need to stop letting more people into the country.
On Friday, the country’s population reached 40 million, with almost all of last year’s growth coming from immigration. The federal government has committed to admit up to 500,000 newcomers to Canada annually by 2025.
By many standards, the influx of immigrants is a blessing, especially given Canada’s aging population and labor shortages. Many economists agree that the economy could not sustain much growth without the influx of newcomers. Culturally, immigrants bring innovation and vitality to Canadian society.
But that growth comes at a time when most municipalities have few homes available and most are already too expensive.
Immigration advocates and housing experts say the criticism of newcomers at the root of the housing crisis is misguided. They say that immigrants are too often the scapegoats for social and administrative failures.
Instead, they point to the federal government for setting big goals while failing to guarantee the infrastructure needed to support population growth.
‘It’s disheartening’
Calls to keep immigrants out because of housing costs are frustrating Meheret Bisrat, the senior manager of community development at DiverseCity Community Resource Society in Surrey, B.C.
Bisrat says immigrants are some of the people most affected by the effects of the housing crisis.
“It’s disheartening to hear comments like that because I feel like it lacks a little bit of compassion and understanding for the realities of new immigrants,” said Bisrat, who oversees the settlement and integration of newcomers at DiverseCity.
Immigration is responsible for almost all of Canada’s population growth in recent years. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
Bisrat says newcomers often face obstacles that those already living here don’t have. For example, they probably don’t have references and may not have a credit history to draw from.
“They are not fully aware of their rights and are being abused,” Bisrat said.
‘We need them’
Newcomers are often discriminated against when looking for housing because of their religion, the size or composition of their family or their dependence on social assistance if they are refugees, she says.
The difficulty or inability of new immigrants to find a home makes it extremely difficult for them to settle in their new country and fully integrate into their environment.
“They’re new members of our community. And we actually need them to be here,” she said.
Analysts say Canada’s housing problem is partly due to the federal government’s drive for growth that is not accompanied by policies to build more infrastructure. (Francois Gagnon/Radio-Canada)
That was the argument put forward by the federal government in November 2022 when it announced its target of 500,000 new immigrants per year.
Ottawa said newcomers were one of the main reasons Canada’s economy was able to recover from the pandemic and be an integral part of the country’s continued prosperity.
In a written statementthe FBI said immigration accounts for nearly 100 percent of Canada’s labor force growth and is expected to account for 100 percent of the country’s population growth by 2032.
By then, the ratio of employed to retired people is expected to shift from seven to one fifty years ago to two to one.
The Canadian Dream vs. the Canadian Nightmare
Andy Yan, the director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program, agrees that immigrants are an essential part of Canadian society.
Yan also sees a gap in government policy.
“The federal government has not necessarily linked the role of immigration to the need to fund infrastructure in this country,” he said.
“While making the promise of the Canadian dream, we seem very willing to expose new immigrants to the Canadian housing nightmare.”
Newcomers often encounter additional obstacles in finding accommodation, says a branch worker. (David Horemans/CBC)
The reluctance to let more newcomers into the country goes beyond housing problems, says Yan. It also exposes latent racism in Canadian society.
In Metro Vancouver, Yan says, that has often taken the form of fear of cultural flooding by various groups of immigrants.
“That racism avoids the deeper issues we have in terms of how we produce housing and for whom.”
