Housing affordability one of the main issues as cabinet meets for three days in P.E.I.
Post secondary institutions are using international students as a source of funding, so the institutions should ensure there’s reasonable housing available for the people they’re making promises to.
From a summary of the national housing accord:
Colleges and universities should be given funding and instructed to build on-campus student housing to support a rapidly growing population of international students or risk losing their status as designated learning institutions, which would eliminate their ability to bring in those international students.
Some schools are doing a great job, but most don’t.
This is a replacement for the funding withdrawn from the government over the years. At least for the large, established universities and colleges.
Yup. It’s part of the result of the austerity/spending cuts of the 90s. Around the same time the last of the cuts to non-market housing occurred.
I’d argue we should be funding our universities directly, rather than extracting cash from (mostly) developing countries. But I think that’s separate from the housing conversation.
I worry anything like this would be a gateway to other anti-immigrant sentiment. Immigrants are good for the economy everywhere in the first world, it’s just that they’re also highly unpopular most places, and I’d like to keep our advantage in tolerance.
Of course they are both good and very much needed. So knowing that, lets fucking build the housing infrastructure to support them first.
You don’t start spraying water in your backyard before the pool has been built…
My worry is that there’s so much NIMBYism against building housing so that if we slow down immigration for housing to catch-up then with the lower urgency we’ll just not build.
Good, then maybe the government will have a sense of urgency dealing with NIMBYs.
Agreed. We need doctors and construction workers, but for some reason executives are still at the top of the priority list for express entry (assuming I read that morass correctly).
Yes, I don’t like how immigrants are being blamed for yet another problem. Immigrants aren’t the reason nobody is building affordable housing. Immigrants aren’t the reason mega corporations like BlackRock are buying up every parcel of real estate they can get. Immigrants didn’t cause the housing market collapse of 2008.
Immigrants want to make a better life for themselves and their families in our great country and they’re willing to work hard and use their skills to do it. Hard working labourers aren’t the enemy. Once again, it’s executives, brokers, and shareholders.
Let’s add NIMBYs to the list, although there’s plenty of overlap.
From article, it looks like it’s on the mind of the party leaders too, just in a bit of a weird way
Fraser cautioned against blaming the lack of affordable housing on new immigrants.
“Let’s look at what the actual cause of the challenges are that we’re dealing with, and recognize that immigration can actually be used as a tool to bring the workers that we need to build more homes,” he said.
“We have to be really, really careful that we don’t have a conversation that somehow blames newcomers for the housing challenges that have been several decades in the works in Canada.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of doing just that during his own media availability in Ottawa on Monday.
“He wants Canadians to forget all that and blame immigrants. He wants to divide people to distract from his failings,” he said.
“He thinks if you’re afraid of your neighbour you might forget that you can’t pay your rent. This is what demagogues do.”
“He wants Canadians to forget all that and blame immigrants. He wants to divide people to distract from his failings,” he said.
“He thinks if you’re afraid of your neighbour you might forget that you can’t pay your rent. This is what demagogues do.”
Wow, things you don’t expect to hear from a conservative. If this was the version of Poilievre we got all the time I’d relax a bit, but he also goes the other way and hangs out with loonies sometimes.
Pretty much yep
No they aren’t, not for the common worker.
Mixed bag really. Increased labour supply drives down wages, but you also need people to do all the work and we have an aging population. Also need a tax base to fund our social services.
Immigrants also buy stuff, creating more jobs, so actually the demographic benefits are the main effect. If you think about it, there’s always one worker per worker.
Plus, I’d like to point out immigrants are people too and their opinion matters. The debate about this gets so dehumanising.
Yes, they are.
They’re going to look at it and do nothing, just like all the others parties.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“I think that’s one of the options that we ought to consider,” federal Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Sean Fraser told reporters as the Liberal cabinet gathered in Charlottetown on Monday.
“There are good private institutions out there and separating the wheat from the chaff is going to be a big focus of the work that I tried to do with [Immigration Minister Marc] Miller.”
Addressing the housing crisis is one of the main goals of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new cabinet as it meets for the traditional retreat before Parliament returns next month.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of doing just that during his own media availability in Ottawa on Monday.
Trudeau defended his government’s immigration policies when questioned Monday morning by reporters about whether Canada’s housing supply can keep up with its rapid population growth.
“Yes, there’s much more we need to do on housing, and we’re continuing to step up with record investments and partnerships with municipalities and provinces,” he said during a stop at the Island Montessori Academy in Cornwall, P.E.I.
The original article contains 551 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I think the lifting of the immigration quota needed to be handled better. All three governments needed to work together to have a concerted housing plan to accommodate immigrants.
