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goldstein: high immigration policy undermining housing, healthcare and climate goals
it’s hard to know what the trudeau government was think...
aug 3 2024
3 minute read
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it’s hard to know what the trudeau government was thinking two years ago when it dramatically increased its immigration targets given the added pressure this has put on three issues it says are priorities — housing affordability, improving healthcare and reducing industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
when prime minister justin trudeau came to power in 2015, 271,845 immigrants became permanent residents of canada.
in 2022, his government set a target of 465,000 for 2023, 485,000 this year and 500,000 in 2025, followed by another target of 500,000 in 2026, announced last year.
simultaneously, there has been a huge increase in non-permanent residents during the trudeau era (international students, temporary foreign workers and asylum seekers).
trudeau himself said in april that in 2017, they constituted 2% of canada’s population, while today it’s 7.5% or almost three million people, a number the pm described as “far beyond what canada has been able to absorb” and “something that we need to get back under control.”
all of this has directly contributed to rapid population growth — canada’s population hit 41 million people on april 1, an increase of one million people in less than a year, almost all of it due to increases in permanent and temporary immigration.
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while the trudeau government is sticking with its previously announced permanent immigration targets, it has now set a goal of reducing the number of temporary residents to 5% of canada’s population by 2027.
immigration minister marc miller has announced plans to cap and reduce the number of international students and foreign workers, and in an interview with reuters last week said more measures are coming to end “the era of uncapped programs.”
asked if the government made a mistake by allowing rapid growth in temporary residents, miller said, “every government makes mistakes. i think we are all human.” but “coming out of covid, in particular, we were facing massive labour shortages.”
asked about a recent leger poll that found 60% of canadians surveyed believe too many immigrants are coming to canada, miller responded: “i’m not naive enough to think canada is immune to the waves of anti-immigrant sentiment,” although he acknowledged canadians want a system that is not out of control.
the trudeau government often blames anti-immigration sentiment when questioned about its immigration policies, despite the fact years of polling have shown canadians are generally supportive of immigration.
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the reason there is concern now comes from statements by trudeau that temporary immigration needs to be brought under control and by miller that the skyrocketing number of international students was a source of concern about the integrity of the immigration system itself.
the federal government has long argued canada needs high immigration because of its low domestic birth rate, which is not providing enough future workers to grow the economy.
but that policy has also undermined the goals of the trudeau government on three major issues it says are priorities — housing affordability, healthcare and climate change.
internal government documents obtained by the canadian press earlier this year revealed that in announcing its significant boost to immigration targets in 2022, the trudeau government ignored warnings from its own public servants that doing so would increase the cost of housing and negatively impact canada’s already beleaguered healthcare system.
“in canada, population growth has exceeded the growth in available housing units,” the documents said.
“as the federal authority charged with managing immigration, ircc (immigration, refugees and citizenship canada) policy-makers must understand the misalignment between population growth and housing supply, and how permanent and temporary immigration shapes population growth … rapid increases put pressure on healthcare and affordable housing.”
last month, a peer-reviewed study by lauren eastman, sukhy k. mahl and shoo k. lee published by the canadian health policy journal — a growing problem: is canada’s health care system keeping up with newcomers — found that, “newcomer demand for health human resources including family physicians, specialists and registered nurses, far out-strips new supply in recent years, leading to a shortage of 1,122 family physicians, 690 specialists and 8,538 registered nurses in 2022. immigration and healthcare resource policies should work in tandem to ensure the healthcare shortage facing canadians is not exacerbated.”
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herbert grubel, a former federal mp and emeritus professor of economics at simon fraser university, and patrick grady, a former senior official in the federal finance department, estimated in a 2021 article in the financial post that based on higher immigration levels, “greenhouse gas emissions will be 7.5% above what they would have been otherwise” in 2030, and “this gap will be much larger by 2050, the year the government has promised to reduce emissions to net-zero as required by the paris accord.”
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