Last Updated On 5 September 2023, 9:33 AM EDT (Toronto Time)
Canada housing crisis has developed into an urgent problem that is impacting regions throughout the country.
The federal government has set up a record immigration targets for 2023-2025 aiming at welcoming around 1.5 million immigrants.
Immigration is important for Canadian economy, but Canada housing crisis is growing even after raise in Bank of Canada’s rate from 0.25% to 4.75% since January 2022.
Home owners have passed on the increase in their monthly mortgage payment to tenants by raising the rent.
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Huge influx of international students, foreign workers, and permanent residents from outside Canada are finding it hard to find an affordable accommodation.
There are not enough new houses being built across major cities causing an increase in home prices, rather construction of new homes has dropped.
The housing problem not only has an effect on people and families who are looking for housing that is both cheap and secure, but it also has wider-ranging ramifications for the economy and society.
Factors That Contributed to the Canada Housing Crisis
There are multiple factors that led to the current housing shortage in Canada to include population growth, a restricted housing supply, growing demand from local as well as international purchasers, speculative investment, and insufficient housing legislation.
Immigration levels plan of welcoming around 1.5 million by 2025 is only for permanent residency.
Number of temporary residents admitted every year are even way too high when compared to permanent residency.
To put in perspective, Canada approved 551,405 new study permits, 650,000+ new work permits, 3 million temporary resident visas (or visitor visas) as compared to only 437,180 permanent residents in 2022.
Most of the Canadian population is concentrated in metropolitan cities and new immigrants also prefer to live their Canada dream in these bigger cities.
More than half of the Canadian population resides in only 10 large urban areas of Canada; Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa-Gatineau, Winnipeg, Quebec City, Hamilton, and Kitchener.
And more than half of these are only Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver because newcomers prefer MTV area.
This has caused housing crisis with most of the people wanting to stay in major cities or nearby areas, but not enough homes being built to accommodate the influx of newcomers.
Repercussions on the Economy and the Society
Canadian economy certainly depends on immigrants. Immigration minister on June 16 said they want to target immigrants who can play a role in building new homes.
The current Canada housing crisis has profound repercussions for both the economy and society.
This has led to family affordability crisis, disparities in wealth, rates of homelessness, and the demand placed on social services.
Canada has one of the biggest housing bubble when compared to rest of the world and still growing further.
As we know major aspect of economy is demand and supply. With increased demand of living Canada dream and lesser supply of housing has led to affordability crisis.
To summarize, the Canada housing crisis presents a substantial number of difficulties and calls for immediate concrete steps from Canadian government.
This approach should include immigration reforms, greater housing supply, measures to improve affordable housing, and community participation.
Municipal Nominee Program (MNP) that could allow local communities, chambers of commerce and local labour councils to directly sponsor permanent immigrants was part of immigration minister’s mandate letter in 2019.
However, it is somewhat taking too long or we can say just lost somewhere.
Such programs can help disperse newcomers to Canada to the municipalities that need their skill the most and will also be a better fit newcomer to set up for success.
Similar immigration pathways should be introduced by the Canadian government for medium (population 100K-500K) and small cities (<100K).
What are Canada immigration levels plan for 2024 and 2025?
New Canada immigration levels plan are set at welcoming 485,000 permanent residents in 2024 and 500,000 permanent residents in 2025.
How much is Canada’s population in 2023?
40,008,788 is the latest updated number of Canadian population as of June 19, 2023 at 10:16 am EST.
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