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.
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.