Canada bet big on immigration to juice the economy but failed to build infrastructure. Now it’s hitting the brakes.
I have no strong feelings about immigration. As far as I can tell, the feds went hard on bringing people in, but didn’t do their homework when it came to ensuring appropriate services existed for the growing population.
Our infrastructure was already strained beforehand, and the extra few percent of population have exacerbated the many pre-existing problems.
The increase in immigration has just made the holes in our infrastructure more obvious. We’ve had decades of under investment in public sectors including transit, housing, and healthcare. With the increase of immigration, the immigration became a convenient excuse for these holes we can complain about and point fingers at instead of actually patching these holes.
The only real conversation I’ve seen about the holes (and immigration) are that the holes need to be fixed. I haven’t seen sustained complaints about the people immigrating or immigration itself.
My media diet is pretty centre: G&M, CBC, the Guardian, and Lemmy.
I have no strong feelings about immigration. As far as I can tell, the feds went hard on bringing people in, but didn’t do their homework when it came to ensuring appropriate services existed for the growing population.
The Feds did this because it was cheaper. They did their homework–inasmuch as they know we have a demographic problem–but didn’t do the hard, expensive and unpopular part, which was ensuring a) that infrastructure would exist to support the people brought in, and b) taxing the wealthy to make sure a) happened.
It’s very similar to the feds’ policy on drugs: do the cheap half of the solution (decriminalization) but not the expensive part (comprehensive public housing & mental-health services).
This is neoliberalism in action, and it’s something both the red and blue parties will do: if it can be solved by doing nothing, or at least doing less, they’ll do it. If it involves giving public money to private entities, they’ll do it. If it’s a tax cut, grant or “accelerator fund”, they’re all over it. If it involves long-term funding commitments, permanent staffing levels, expensive facilities and the need to tax the rich, they’ll shut up and look at their shoes.
I’m frankly amazed they announced a capital gains increase, but I’ll believe it when I see it survive the year.
do the cheap half of the solution (decriminalization) but not the expensive part (comprehensive public housing & mental-health services).
This is neoliberalism in action
Agreed.
I’m frankly amazed they announced a capital gains increase, but I’ll believe it when I see it survive the year.
My bet is that it’ll survive until the next election. This budget was a very timid step towards addressing our polycrisis, but it won’t be enough to prevent Poilievre from taking power. Then he’ll ax it.
I’m not just talking about physical infrastructure. I’m including lack of healthcare capacity (family doctors, staffed ERs, etc), missing schools (classes run out of portables, enough teachers to teach, etc), homeless shelters, rehab facilities, effective transit, etc.
It seems like we stopped building a lot of that stuff during the cuts in the 1990s, and we never really started again.
Many of the newcomers are students and they have to pay massive tuition. So they aren’t contributing directly to taxes, but they are contributing a huge amount to Canada’s post secondary institutions. Like 78% of total tuition in Ontario. The linked article has some pretty wild graphs. It’s shitty because that money is being sucked out of newcomers’ home countries to fund Canadian institutions.
Conversely, the spike in immigration has been in the last decade or so. A lot of the missing infrastructure takes longer to spin up: it’s a decade+ to train medical staff. It’s five+ years to train a teacher. Even planning and building transit can take a while. A sensible approach would be to plan for a growing population by getting more doctors/teachers/busses/houses ready before increasing the population, but it sounds like we didn’t do that.
It’s shitty because that money is being sucked out of newcomers’ home countries to fund Canadian institutions.
Plus, sometimes it’s just for the prestige. I know of some that sign up for agricultural programs, but they’re from tropical countries so almost nothing applies when they go back. On the bright side, these are the rich elites where they come from, so the really needy ones aren’t directly effected.
Vasudev’s father, Jitesh Vasudev, told CBC News he and his wife spent their entire life savings and mortgaged their house to take out a loan of $50,000, just to afford the first year of his son’s education in Canada, before he was shot and killed.
That’s unfortunate, although I do kind of wonder what the plan was after year 1.
It’s true for most, having talked both to foreign students and foreigners who could never dream of being foreign students. It’d be dope if we actually just worked out a philosophy for how our universities should be funded.
It’s possible. That oil money makes a difference. It could also be different expectations. Some sections of road are rough, but they’re always present, convenient and passable, which is their job. Ditto for the plumbing and grid.
I have no strong feelings about immigration. As far as I can tell, the feds went hard on bringing people in, but didn’t do their homework when it came to ensuring appropriate services existed for the growing population.
Our infrastructure was already strained beforehand, and the extra few percent of population have exacerbated the many pre-existing problems.
The increase in immigration has just made the holes in our infrastructure more obvious. We’ve had decades of under investment in public sectors including transit, housing, and healthcare. With the increase of immigration, the immigration became a convenient excuse for these holes we can complain about and point fingers at instead of actually patching these holes.
The only real conversation I’ve seen about the holes (and immigration) are that the holes need to be fixed. I haven’t seen sustained complaints about the people immigrating or immigration itself.
My media diet is pretty centre: G&M, CBC, the Guardian, and Lemmy.
The Feds did this because it was cheaper. They did their homework–inasmuch as they know we have a demographic problem–but didn’t do the hard, expensive and unpopular part, which was ensuring a) that infrastructure would exist to support the people brought in, and b) taxing the wealthy to make sure a) happened.
It’s very similar to the feds’ policy on drugs: do the cheap half of the solution (decriminalization) but not the expensive part (comprehensive public housing & mental-health services).
This is neoliberalism in action, and it’s something both the red and blue parties will do: if it can be solved by doing nothing, or at least doing less, they’ll do it. If it involves giving public money to private entities, they’ll do it. If it’s a tax cut, grant or “accelerator fund”, they’re all over it. If it involves long-term funding commitments, permanent staffing levels, expensive facilities and the need to tax the rich, they’ll shut up and look at their shoes.
I’m frankly amazed they announced a capital gains increase, but I’ll believe it when I see it survive the year.
Agreed.
My bet is that it’ll survive until the next election. This budget was a very timid step towards addressing our polycrisis, but it won’t be enough to prevent Poilievre from taking power. Then he’ll ax it.
The infrastructure seems fine, actually. There’s just not enough houses at the endpoints of it.
I’m not just talking about physical infrastructure. I’m including lack of healthcare capacity (family doctors, staffed ERs, etc), missing schools (classes run out of portables, enough teachers to teach, etc), homeless shelters, rehab facilities, effective transit, etc.
It seems like we stopped building a lot of that stuff during the cuts in the 1990s, and we never really started again.
That’s true, then. I wonder how much of the problem is down to immigration. On the one hand, it’s more people, but the tax base also expands.
That’s a really interesting question.
Many of the newcomers are students and they have to pay massive tuition. So they aren’t contributing directly to taxes, but they are contributing a huge amount to Canada’s post secondary institutions. Like 78% of total tuition in Ontario. The linked article has some pretty wild graphs. It’s shitty because that money is being sucked out of newcomers’ home countries to fund Canadian institutions.
Meanwhile, our GDP per capita has apparently been falling since 2017. I don’t know how that relates to immigration versus our crappy productivity. Apparently our tax-to-GDP ratio has inched lower, so I assume our taxes per capita have also shrunk, despite the growing population.
Conversely, the spike in immigration has been in the last decade or so. A lot of the missing infrastructure takes longer to spin up: it’s a decade+ to train medical staff. It’s five+ years to train a teacher. Even planning and building transit can take a while. A sensible approach would be to plan for a growing population by getting more doctors/teachers/busses/houses ready before increasing the population, but it sounds like we didn’t do that.
Nice data!
Plus, sometimes it’s just for the prestige. I know of some that sign up for agricultural programs, but they’re from tropical countries so almost nothing applies when they go back. On the bright side, these are the rich elites where they come from, so the really needy ones aren’t directly effected.
I don’t know if that’s true for everyone:
That’s unfortunate, although I do kind of wonder what the plan was after year 1.
It’s true for most, having talked both to foreign students and foreigners who could never dream of being foreign students. It’d be dope if we actually just worked out a philosophy for how our universities should be funded.
We live in very different places, then.
It’s possible. That oil money makes a difference. It could also be different expectations. Some sections of road are rough, but they’re always present, convenient and passable, which is their job. Ditto for the plumbing and grid.