Canada Increases Immigration Budget To Help Backlogue In Processing

[Economy 52,838]

https://www.immigration.ca/canada-pledges-85m-for-tackling-immigration-backlogs-in-fall-economic-statement

 

Canada is giving a little $85M bump up to the immigration budget to help administrative processing as a backlogue has risen to 1.8 Million people

 

Canada has prioritized immigration as a way to deal with ageing population and to replace those leaving the workforce

 

This year immigration is targeted at 401,000 immigrants or over 1% of population (roughly 3X US rate relative to population). It is set to rise to 450,000 annually in a few years

[Economy 52,838]

Great now can they deal with the chronic housing shortage and housing crisis in the meantime?

 

The economic benefits of very high immigration in my opinion is largely offset by extreme economic strain from housing innafordability

 

If they can solve this issue already (theyve had enough time to try to do something about it) we can have the benefits of immigration without the downsides. This housing boom/price surge has been going on for 20 years now

[HuffsAhoy 7,433]

When will America?  The process to immigrate my husband from Canada has been nothing short of a nightmare  At this rate, he might be here for good by summer 2023 

[Economy 52,838]

4 minutes ago, HuffsAhoy said:

When will America?  The process to immigrate my husband from Canada has been nothing short of a nightmare  At this rate, he might be here for good by summer 2023 

I mean the average processing time from application to acceptance in Canada is 7 years so

 

But maybe that time frame is dropping since in the last few years the immigration targets were raised multiple times

 

Not that many years ago we took in only 250,000 a year. That was still a high rate relative to population (one of the highest in thebworld) but still our immigration quota has increased by a little over 80% in the last few years alone, thats almost double

[HuffsAhoy 7,433]

1 minute ago, Economy said:

I mean the average processing time from application to acceptance in Canada is 7 years so

It was actually less for the route we were gonna take when I was thinking of immigrating there instead. But, the affordability of staying in America (especially housing) outweighed the benefits of moving. 

[Economy 52,838]

1 minute ago, HuffsAhoy said:

It was actually less for the route we were gonna take when I was thinking of immigrating there instead. But, the affordability of staying in America (especially housing) outweighed the benefits of moving. 

Yeah smart move. Housing has only gotten worse in the last few years. Price appreciation annually has continued in the double digits.

 

Home prices even in the suburbs are now over $1M and thats for an average sized house 

 

weve increased immigration by 80% the last few years alone (i added that in my comment but u replied before i got a chance) so housing will only get tigher

 

But immigration is only agravating the issue its not the root cause as there have been periods of time in history in the 1800s and again in the 1900s when as a percentage population grew even faster and it never got this unaffordable and we always built enough housing

 

Canada has a beaurocratic problem with slow housing approvals that is finally getting attention and thats the biggest issue. High population growth is just a bad combination when you have that problem

 

Theres a lot of anecdotal blame that investors are the reason housing keeps going up but there simply isnt enough data to prove that. In fact the extremely low vacancy rates contradict the idea that a bunch of homes are being bought up as speculative investments and being left empty. Even if investors buy them they are at least renting them out so in terms of livable supply they are not the problem. We dont have enough housing units plain and simple

[Fuffy 1,049]

The processing times are insanely slow. 

It's took nearly a whole year to get permanent residency and my case was really straightforward (single, young, economic applicant). I already lived in Canada before applying too.

There's also been a load of mistakes within the immigration department, people getting the wrong PR cards, people being wrongly rejected, and call centres refusing to help with genuine questions because of the Afghan crisis. 

The immigration targets are generally too high compared to the burnout staffing and housing availability. 

The problem is that most immigrants head to the GTA and Vancouver (myself included), which adds to the housing crisis and feeds populist parties.

[Economy 52,838]

1 hour ago, Gogo Yubari said:

The processing times are insanely slow. 

It's took nearly a whole year to get permanent residency and my case was really straightforward (single, young, economic applicant). I already lived in Canada before applying too.

There's also been a load of mistakes within the immigration department, people getting the wrong PR cards, people being wrongly rejected, and call centres refusing to help with genuine questions because of the Afghan crisis. 

The immigration targets are generally too high compared to the burnout staffing and housing availability. 

The problem is that most immigrants head to the GTA and Vancouver (myself included), which adds to the housing crisis and feeds populist parties.

Given how much impact immigration has on the Nation spending a few more million to help process more efficiently seems like an extremely small price to pay on the grand acheme of things. Surprised Canadas immigration agencies are always so strained and that this has never been adressed properly.

 

As for the populist parties it props up... I do have to agree with them on 1 thing. Canada does have a serious red tape issue when it comes to land development. To the point where a new condo project in Toronto can take nearly 10 years to fully approve.

 

Canada i read has ranked 34 out of 35 Countries studied for efficiency in approval processes. This is definitely not helping the housing crisis.

 

Stress tests, foreign buyers taxes, vacancy taxes etc... they may help to some extent and I have no objection to them but they are only a superficial measure. It doesnt solve the root cause of the problem which is lack of housing supply

 

Canada would need anothet 1.4 Million housing units to reach the G7 average of units relative to population. For a Country of less than 40 Million thats a shockingly high percentage. Thats how behind we are in housing

 

Its also not surprising that repeated calls for a crashing of the bubble have been consistently wrong. While factors like changes to interest rates and employment could definitely cause a temporary drop in prices and sales, an outright crash with so much more demand than supply seems extremely unlikely anytime soon. Certainly not like what we saw in the US in 2007/2008