As early as spring 2022, researchers and officials, with supporting evidence, warned the Trudeau government: immigration thresholds complicate an already well-established housing crisis.
Published yesterday at 5:00 a.m.
What you need to know
- In recent years, the number of immigrants has surged in Canada and the number of available housing units has not kept pace;
- Immigration Canada officials strongly alerted the Trudeau government of this in 2022;
- In October 2024, Ottawa finally announced that immigration thresholds would be lowered.
“As those responsible for managing immigration, policymakers must be aware of the misalignment between population growth and housing supply, as well as how permanent and temporary immigration influence population growth,” notes Matthew Saayman, policy analyst at the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, in a document co-written with his fellow researchers at the same department, Sébastien Vachon and Dan Hiebert (the latter as academic in residence).
Titled Population Growth and Housing Supply (in French, “Demographic Growth and Housing Supply”), this document was made public after a freedom of information request from Richard Kurland, a lawyer specializing in immigration law in British Columbia.
The rapid growth in the number of arrivals, “in particular international students, was not anticipated and the models were not adjusted quickly enough to take these new trends into account”, we can also read in the study.
The authors state that “real estate market indicators show how Canada ranks among the worst of its peers. Between 2005 and the fourth quarter of 2021, the ratio of house prices to household income in Canada increased by 163%, the largest increase among G7 countries, indicating that housing has become less affordable.
Furthermore, officials insist, “the demand [en logements] could be underestimated: the average size of Canadian households has declined over the last century. In general, this has led to an increase in per capita housing demand in Canada.”
Also, “the supply could be overestimated: there has been an increase in the number of housing units which are not really occupied”.
To what extent does the housing crisis affect Canada’s reputation when someone is looking for a host country?
The study does not dwell too much on this issue, but nevertheless highlights the extent to which a newcomer’s access to property is considered an “important milestone in their establishment and integration into Canada.”
-Newcomers “are looking for housing across the price range, from the most affordable rental units to the most expensive luxury homes. Virtually all market segments are affected.”
In the email exchanges also obtained through an access to information request, it is mentioned that the document will also be sent to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Thresholds revised downwards
Me Richard Kurland indicates that it took him a long time to obtain his response to his request for access to information and thus receive the report and the email exchanges between officials.
According to him, these documents demonstrate that “officials were aware of the housing crisis caused by Immigration [Canada]. They served warnings, which were ignored. A mea culpa from a minister will not reduce the cost of rent or remove the harm that has been caused to Canadian families.”
The number of immigrants continued to grow after 2022, giving rise to a standoff between Justin Trudeau and the provincial premiers, notably François Legault.
In April 2024, Justin Trudeau finally admitted that temporary immigration in recent years had reached a rate “much higher than what Canada has been able to absorb” (“absorption capacity” being precisely the theme addressed in 2022 by Immigration Canada analysts).
It was only in October 2024 that the Trudeau government agreed to lower its immigration thresholds.
Starting in 2025, the number of permanent residents accepted into the country will increase from 485,000 in 2024 to 395,000 in 2025.
In addition to accentuating the housing crisis, the massive influx of immigrants has been felt in schools, among others on the island of Montreal.
According to the demographic report from the Institute of Statistics of Quebec published Thursday, Montreal welcomed 91,300 additional people between 2023 and 2024, an increase of 4.2%. This rate represents the strongest growth ever recorded for a region of Quebec.
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