Why Canada Can't Solve Its Population Problem with Immigration

Canada has gone through a lot in the last 10 years, and one of the biggest problems is the price of housing. Canadian cities are in such a small area of the country's landmass and housing construction has not kept up with the population, so housing prices have skyrocketed. Canada now finds itself in a bit of a population trap, where they can't afford to keep bringing in more people and put even more strain on housing, but they also can't afford not to.

This video was made possible by our Patreon community! ❤️
See new videos early, participate in exclusive Q&As, and more!

▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
Check out our other channels ▶️
Epic Economics @EconomicsIsEpic
Context Matters @Context.Matters

And our Language Channels →

Also on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you listen!

#EconomicsExplained #canadaeconomy #operabrowser

▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

ECONOMICS EXPLAINED IS MADE POSSIBLE BY OUR PATREON COMMUNITY 👊🙏

👑 ROYALTY CLASS 👑
Juan Benet

UPPER CLASS
Valkmit, Randall, Jeromy Johnson.

ELITE CLASS
Charles Youngs.

UPPER MIDDLE CLASS
Michael Wakim, Pineapples&bricks, Adrian Bellomo, Peter Wesselius, Michael Ling, Stephanie Roth, Frank Soltero, David Poliakoff, Jay Eno, Grégoire Duchêne, Sophie G, Brett Jubinville, Anthony Roberts, jill hoffman, Nathan Ngumi, JKH, Post Apocalyptic In Missouri, Laor Glukhovsky, Kib Bibens-LeFebvre, Forodon, Paul Ashworth, Wendover Productions, Andrew Harrison, Igor Bazarny.

MIDDLE CLASS
Justin Thiele, William Sherlock, Gerhardus, Derrick Yowell, DionysusLin, BUBBA CONWAY, Chris, Brian, Vladimir Zotov, Seth, Dragan Alexandru, Tenebrion, Jason, Alex Wong, Robert Abraham, Jamie Costello, Rick Van Velden, Leah Klearman, Bacongravy, Klaus Clemens, Ps0Fa, Abel, Eric Slimko, Empyre18, Brian Jackson, Istvan P, Leonid Sorokoumov, Thomas Davenport, Nicholas Luchetta, Kim Brand, Ted Marcy, Joshua White, John Issitt, Joe Ryan, Patrick Staight, Wees Kendall, Shane Guthrie, Andrew Baartz, Jim Kirker, Karan Mehta, roGER, Marton Csikos, Randy Cleary, Arjan, Liubov Zvereva, Michael D. Hall, Long Phan, Craig Mews, Kent Klatchuk, Zac Woodrell, Roman~1, Chris Hawkins, Wesley Fite, Robert Nyborg, David McIlveen, Anthony, Arend Peter Castelein, Daniel Alberto Vázquez Rodríguez, Kamil Sicinski, Dodd Willingham, Leo Vassershteyn, "How long can a profile name be... this long... Wow, this is longer than I would have expected. Good lord, the letters! Secunda!", Michael Kürbis, Hugh Harris, David W., Dar H, Will, Kheng Lai Tan, David Taylor, Scott Greenwood, Jane Walerud, Zachary Demko, Michael Wolff, Siegfried Eggl, PM, Jack Annear, michael, Franklin, Trevor, Marcel Roquette, Daniel Hall, Connor Costello, John D Tyler, Petronio Coelho, Kevin MacIntyre, Travis Thompson, Matthew Eggleston, Kenneth Lum, Andrew Vinnichenko, Zachary Kasow, Johannes, Reuben Field, Nigel Pauli, Jacob, AB3, Sridev, Matt McKee, Victor T., John C, Rimvydas, John Downie, Donald Wedington, Demo sthenes, Ed, Hayden van Reyswoud.

[ragingfred]

As a Canadian living in Canada I can assure you it is absolutely not over sensationalized. It's absolutely wild watching our standard of living erode in real time.

[zacharyrocks]

I'm a Canadian and it's been brutal. My quality of life has dropped like a stone in the past 4yrs

[tyvrabel]

Canadian here. Many immigrants are now leaving Canada because of how unaffordable it’s gotten

[JasonXYT]

I live in Calgary, after Covid, Inflation and being the so called "one of the most affordable cites in the world" rich people from mainly China and India, Toronto, and Vancouver have moved here and caused housing prices to rise super high and we have a lot of problems with homeless, crime and drug use all over the city now.

[ruisen]

As a Canadian, its now the norm for people in their 20's to live with several roomates in a basement suite, and not having money to go out with friends.

[FrequencyModulator]

500k per year are just permanent immigrants. If we count the students and the temporary residents (who usually find a way to stay), it's more like 1M a year.

[pocobull]

One issue you didn't address in this video, is that importing skilled workers into Canada doesn't necessarily solve the skill shortage problem, because in many cases it's virtually impossible for skilled workers to actually get jobs in Canada, in their field of expertise. There are medically trained doctors from all over the world, living in Canada, driving taxis, because they cannot get certified to practice medicine. The medical associations in Canada, in order to protect Canadian trained doctors and nurses, put all kinds of barriers to foreign trained doctors and nurses to make it next to impossible for them to get certified. This is not specific to the medical field either. Foreign trained lawyers, accountants and architects also face the same barriers in getting Canadian certification. So Canada is essentially importing all kinds of skilled workers, to work at McDonald's, or to drive cabs or become nannies.

[batprime]

This is a trend among first world countries. Bring immigrants rather than actually solving the root cause of their population problem

[primetimeperformance]

Canada is NOT the same country I grew up in. Painfully high cost of living, laughably low wages, and oppressive taxation are crushing our quality of life, if not our spirits.

[malcolmparker]

I myself am a Canadian, and one thing not mentioned here is that a very large amount of recent immigrants to Canada are coming from a single country: India. As more and more immigrants come from a single place, there is less of a need for them to integrate into wider Canadian society. There are ads for rentals now that discriminate (illegally) toward favouring Indians, posted by other Indians. It might be anecdotal, but I have seen it with my own two eyes. It is also more of a social issue than a purely economic one so I can see why it wasn't mentioned.

Something more economic though is also the effect of immigration on wages. The video mentions that international students are more willing to fulfill minimum wage jobs that Canadians don't want to do. Canadians don't want to work these jobs because they simply don't pay enough for the work. While flipping burgers or working a cash register isn't high skilled labour, it can still be very stressful and combine that with minimum wage (which with our cost of living is just enough to stay at home with your parents and contribute to their mortgage), it's no wonder Canadians don't want to do it. In absence of immigrants willing to work these jobs, these jobs would have to either pay more or cease to exist. TLDR: many Canadians feel as though excessive immigration is leading to wage suppression in this country, especially towards lower-skilled and minimum-wage jobs.

[pandacheese]

As a Canadian its super rough here. My girlfriend and i work 50+ a week and arent any closer to having kids or owning a home then when we started

[joshuarussell]

There's never been a single shortage of skilled or unskilled labor in any 1st world country, only companies not willing to pay fair market value...

[punkcanuck]

Regarding a housing pricing collapse: Various studies have shown that Canada is ~1.5 Million homes behind the G7 average of homes/population. Even if all immigration and visa's ended tomorrow, Canada is still short a Lot of homes. Prices would come down, but not nearly as much as many predict.

[kaygee]

Ironically, this never touches on the reason why there's a population crisis in the first place. The cost of having children and the cost of living have made it so that its unaffordable to have a home and children, and having somewhere to live comes before opting in to parenthood. If the median income was healthier, there wouldnt be a population crisis.

[legostTrigger]

Canadian here, recently went on a trip to the US and the job market is just a night and day difference. "Help Wanted" signs in every storefront, offering wages I can't even begin to comprehend as well as extensive benefits, on the job training and more. Contrasted to Toronto where even minimum wage work is competitive, it's honestly depressing to live in a place with such few opportunities.

[Velcera]

Paradigm shift in politics, economics, and private property needed yesterday.

[Aridanx]

All I know is that my rent has doubled here in less than two years. We're not doing well. Supply can't keep pace, food prices have also exploded. It's a tough time to be a working class family.

[everydaytwiceonsundays]

Don't forget to mention that Canada has infrastructure for about 30 million. Living standards are plunging, and things are bleak. It's now impossible for workers to even think of having kids because housing is so hard.

[krystianblue]

Growing up as a Canadian and watching these kinds of videos about other less developed countries, its very weird to see it about your own country.

[toedrag-release]

The scary thing is you didn't take into consideration that yes we Canadians bring in 500k immigrants....and 900k foreign students most of which go for their permanent residency after they graduate through our point system. It should be noted that alot of the red tape for building houses are due to what we were doing in the 80s we were building on farmland this was causing a crisis. It was predicted that if we continued at the rate we were we would have to import the majority of the foods we normally produce locally. While canada is large alot cannot be grown on and alot cannot be built on.