Juno News - Will immigration fix Canada’s housing crisis？ (ft. Cosmin Dzsurdzsa)

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 let's just drill down for a moment here on the math on this on the economics because the

00:00:13.820 government says that the only way we can fill the labor shortage is through immigration okay

00:00:18.180 there's some basis for immigrants being necessary to filling up the workforce when there are 0.99

00:00:23.860 vacancies but the government is claiming that there's not actually going to be a housing

00:00:27.880 issue because when we have more immigrants we'll be building more houses that's the argument 1.00

00:00:33.360 they're putting forward and it's one that didn't quite add up to my colleague cosmon gerja host of

00:00:38.460 the daily brief and a fantastic investigative journalist at true north who joins me now

00:00:43.340 cosmon thanks for coming on the show here uh what do you make of this here what where is the

00:00:48.300 government getting this idea from that uh houses will just be built you know a dime a dozen once 0.71

00:00:53.980 we open the floodgates on immigration yeah i think it's preposterous and in my piece i call it

00:01:00.540 a myth it doesn't really make sense that immigrants are going to come to canada and suddenly start

00:01:06.920 building houses when you look at the statistics last month statistics canada released the labor

00:01:13.400 survey and it found that 45 000 construction jobs were lost the month before that it was about 16 000

00:01:22.060 so it really doesn't add up who are where are these immigrants that are building houses

00:01:27.200 yeah it's a valid question and i know and you and i spoke about this a little on the the daily brief

00:01:33.300 yesterday a lot of them go into the service sector and and we know there are vacancies in that sector i

00:01:39.640 mean we've all had issues where you try to get your coffee poured and it takes you know like 25 minutes

00:01:44.700 or something because no one's working at whatever the local cafe is and yeah that's a thing that happens

00:01:49.780 but these are jobs that are very low paying jobs they're not a job that you're ever going to be able

00:01:54.820 to build a house with a salary on typically in cities like toronto or vancouver especially

00:01:59.660 whereas construction jobs pay considerably well and you can actually do very well with this so

00:02:04.860 why is this not happening has there been any research done into this has there been any effort to

00:02:10.320 get people into that track because that's an area where we desperately need labor in canada

00:02:15.200 yeah no i don't think there's been much research when i looked at the statistics from 2019

00:02:21.860 uh it shows that the most popular jobs for immigrants are service jobs health care jobs

00:02:28.240 uh bureaucratic jobs they're not necessarily coming here building the infrastructure that we need to

00:02:35.080 sustain such high levels of immigration they're all going to high density areas you mentioned this

00:02:40.580 earlier and with that comes a host of problems like increases in rent uh increases in the price

00:02:46.900 of housing increases in the price of goods also high density areas have generally have higher rates

00:02:53.900 of crime we see this happening in in toronto and uh vancouver and other major cities so what what

00:03:00.980 solutions uh are the liberal government proposing none really what mark miller said last week was that he

00:03:08.500 wants to increase the number of immigrants he's he's proposing to actually make it even higher than

00:03:14.740 than the uh one million target every two years we have right now yet we know that there's not enough

00:03:20.980 houses being built so i i'm not sure i i don't think they even have a solution to the housing crisis and

00:03:28.020 a part of me thinks that there's a cynical uh sort of desire to keep the housing prices high

00:03:34.340 yeah and i i'm wondering just i want to drill down on that point with you in a second but i would also

00:03:40.820 add here that this is not an issue of saying oh immigrants are making things difficult for native-born

00:03:46.340 canadians because immigrants are making it difficult for other immigrants and i don't mean that in a way

00:03:50.900 that is blaming them individually but it also means that people that are coming to canada in two years

00:03:56.740 are dealing with what i'd say is a bill of goods that's been sold to them that's not really here that

00:04:01.780 you can have this economic fortune in canada when they come here and find that the immigrants that 1.00

00:04:07.620 came in a year and two years before them are still looking for homes as well and there's nothing left

00:04:12.660 for them no you're absolutely right and i immigrated here with my family in 2003 and back then in

00:04:21.140 kitchener where we lived you could rent a three-bedroom apartment for about a thousand dollars a month and

00:04:27.700 that let my parents get the necessary accreditation and the the training they needed to to enter the

00:04:34.660 professional workforce while they were doing you know cleaning jobs and watching the kids so i don't

00:04:41.140 think that that is an opportunity that is present to many uh new immigrants anymore they have to get

00:04:46.580 full-time jobs uh both parents usually and then they're left stuck in a position that they didn't see

00:04:54.020 themselves being in in the first place so i think these uh high levels of um immigration targets

00:05:01.140 we're actually cheapening the immigration experience we're making it worse for the new immigrants and 0.99

00:05:07.860 as a country we should pride ourselves on on providing a flourishing and positive experience when

00:05:14.580 we come to canada so making it worse is simply not the solution cosmon georgia host of the daily brief and

00:05:23.140 investigative journalist here at true north thanks so much cosmon thank you thanks for listening to

00:05:28.500 the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - August 14, 2023

Will immigration fix Canada’s housing crisis？ (ft. Cosmin Dzsurdzsa)

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