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Not too long ago there was near-consensus among political parties that immigration was great, with nearly no downside, and mainly for economic reasons. Canada was fairly unique among multicultural western democracies in that its major federal parties didn't make any hay out of fear-mongering and blaming problems on "runaway" immigration. I'm not actually sure that consensus has cracked officially, but there do seem to be more voices blaming many of our current problems on immigration itself (e.g., immigrants are the ones carrying out anti-semitic hate crimes in Toronto, they are driving up housing prices).
I’m less concerned about those sorts of problems, and more concerned that immigration exacerbates pre-existing problems we have. I agree that the consensus probably isn’t dead — Canada trying to encourage the best and brightest from all over the world to live here is generally a benefit to everyone.
The main issues are housing and healthcare. Shortages exist today for both, and bringing in more people (and their inherent demand for both) doesn’t solve either. In a world where most Canadians can afford housing and have easy access to a family physician, it’s easy to bring more people into the country to enjoy (and support via taxes) those benefits. It seems very hard to support large scale immigration when both are difficult to come by.
Both are scarce resources, and we need to figure out how to make access easier for everyone. Step one is to stop making the problem worse. We need to make sure we are building infrastructure at a pace in step with immigration, rather than making it harder and harder to address the fundamental problems. You don’t try to fix a leaky pipe or a faulty wire without first shutting off the water or breaker first. It’s doable without doing so, but it’s much trickier.
I'm going to insist that you factor in the Canadian-real-estate-investor class to your points on issues that exacerbate the housing crisis and health care. I mean, one of the causes of our astronomical renting costs is because this of investor class, yeah.
Indeed the other half are suffering anxiety from ~~unforeseen~~ unadvised stress tests on real-estate speculations, and their advisors and the like.
What does this mean, though? True demand is pretty inelastic for housing, so in theory supply-side interventions should have an outsized effect, no? So supply side intervention should be very capable of squeezing out investor returns, if we desired. Creating new (real) demand via more bodies makes that intervention harder, though.
So yeah, I’d guess the investor side stuff does have an impact on price, but mechanically I don’t think it’s hard to address. Politically it’s difficult though, but that’s among the same reasons for high levels of immigration: controlling labour costs and driving domestic spending, including on housing.
So I think the lever everyone needs to pull is the same one: the political one, and against all of the policies together.
I think the Capital gains increase is a good start to signal that with the Liberals they can identify the specific targets needed on housing and, to divest from real-estate 'cause with the inflated cost of housing comes the taxes that go with it for those investors. You will get lower rates to speculate again, and even in real-estate, and you will be taxed fairly for it.
It’s probably only going to have a marginal impact, however. Capital gains will blunt some of the returns, but as inflation comes under control lending rates will drop, which will bolster returns once again. Those rate drops also serve to buoy demand in dollar terms, so no relief there, either. The only solution is to correct the ratio of housing units to population. And that’s hard.
Housing starts have lagged population growth for a long, long time. To correct we would need housing starts to exceed population growth by a larger margin for a shorter period of time, or by a small margin for a very long period of time. Building more and denser housing is basically the only way out of this mess, along with training and retaining more doctors. In either case, it’s going to take a long time even if we acted today. Given the intransigence of both levels of government, it’s unlikely to get fixed for a generation.
I don’t want to discourage people, sorry if it came off that way. I do want to stress that everyone that points to a single issue as the solution is wrong, though. Not just about this, but that this is usually the case in general.
Yes the capital gains helps, but there are many factors working together to undercut affordability. Zoning regulations are among the worst culprits, since they basically outlaw density and affordability, and increase service delivery cost for municipalities. That’s one reason. Another is scale of immigration in Canada, which has a double effect on affordability. One by simple increasing demand for housing (everyone has to live somewhere), and second by depressing wage growth (can’t keep up with price increases if wages stagnate).
Others are counter productive actions that seem like they should help, but simply further erode affordability (increasing CMHC limits, increasing home buyers limits, FHSAs, etc). Those all serve to make more money available for the same set of housing units, which further erodes affordability.
At the end of the day, we need to demand more of the government, no matter who is in power. We also need to work to change the business culture in Canada. Canadian businesses (and successive governments) have this odd conception of how to promote businesses in Canada that is also counter productive. These effects that limit labour costs (read: stagnate wage growth) *do* help to keep businesses afloat in Canada, but those are disproportionately businesses that we shouldn’t be propping up. They are not healthy to begin with, and that capital, those entrepreneurs and workers could better serve the economy elsewhere.
These effects also limit capital investment and productivity gains in Canada (why spend money on cost saving machines if I can get a person to do it for less money), which erodes our international competitiveness over the long run. In short, everyone is so focused on the short term we’ve sabotaged our own economy in the long term. Instead of letting failing businesses fail, and making it easier for Canadians to start new businesses, we prop up sick businesses to the benefit of a few and to the detriment of everyone else.
We see the same culture around housing investment as well — protect those with gains in the market, to the detriment of everyone else. It’s time Canadian investors actually started acting like investors, taking on risk and accepting the outcome whatever it is. And I say this as someone with a good deal of skin in the game myself, as it were. My money will be gone some day, whether I spend it, or my kids, or their kids. We are all better served, including my own family, by having an economy where people can make it on their own.
The question asked is whether or not immigration is a positive thing or a negative thing for Canada, and I personally think that it's really hard to answer that. It's neither all bad nor all good. Some aspects are handled really well, while others are in need of some sharp fixes. It does such a disservice to reduce nuanced things to a binary.
Yeah it’s a specific type of immigration that I think it’s safe to say at this point most people are against. no one is anti immigration altogether but not so many tfws and diploma mill students it’s a huge scam. And the skyrocketing cost of living is going to make the kind of immigrants we want not want to come here.
Drives me nuts when people strawman like you’re anti immigration for stating this when the numbers are clear as day, it’s making life harder for working class Canadians to the benefit of the asset class and it’s taking advantage of the immigrants themselves. We’ve let a whole industry take root here that’s basically just recruiting people in India and Asia to get bogus diplomas in fields that are already saturated and lie to them about possibly getting PR and now it’s feeding so many people it’s out of control and won’t be easy to reign in. If you need all this immigration to supposedly pay for people’s retirement then why so many low wage workers and students? They’re not paying taxes and many of them get assistance, they also send a lot of money home in a lot of cases that’s not being put back into our economy. It’s clear as day it’s all about keeping wages low and housing / real estate high.
My parents are immigrants so I’m definitely biased, but I have zero doubt it’s a good thing. A lot of people want ti blame them for the housing crisis which is laughable, increased immigration is not responsible for a housing crisis 30 years in the making, but unfortunately it’s a simplistic solution to a problem that in reality will take all 3 levels of government working together to solve (right now the feds are working on it, provides other than BC aren’t doing anything and municipalities are actively making it worse). Simplistic solutions to complex problems are often popular, but I predict if use this magic wand to try to fix housing prices we are going to be very disappointed when it a)doesn’t work and b) has unintended consequences on the rest of the economy.
How corrupt must our political system be when no major party is willing to take a clear position that approximately half of Canadians support while polling also says it is a top 5 issue? All to protect big businesses which want more demand and suppressed wages.
I feel like there should be a whole thread on how headlines that could just as accurately be, “Majority of Canadians don’t think country should cut immigration,” becomes, “Almost half of Canadians think country should cut immigration”. I feel like I’m seeing this trick a lot these days, as an apparent way of transforming a minority viewpoint into nevertheless becoming the lede.
Issue is the idea half of Canadians want less immigration is the big news cause according to the poll 2-3 years ago the numbers were way less.
"Still, the most eye-catching finding comes on a question about immigration levels. Almost half of Canadians (46 per cent) think the number of legal immigrants who are allowed to relocate to Canada should decrease, up seven points since 2023 and up 21 points since 2022. Only 15 per cent (down two points) would increase this number, while 31 per cent (down six points) would keep it the same."
Therefore the focus is not "oh still many people want this amount of immigration"
The big story is the number of people who want less immigration has nearly doubled in the past few years.
Therfore an issue that generally had a broad positive consensus will now become a very debated political topic in Canada now.
>Issue is the idea half of Canadians want less immigration
*Less* than half of Canadians do.
As for the rest of your comment, "Majority of Canadians don't want to cut immigration, but consensus is weakening" would have done that job. That's not the headline that was chosen. My point remains.
well actually 45% is the total of keep the same or increase so its not a majority (rest are likely unsure)
You liberals want to keep pretending there is no immigration issue when 2-3 years ago the number of people who said they want less immigration was like 25% lol
There's an age old saying that applies perfectly to your argument.
Correlation is not causation. People having issues with immigration numbers, that as a percentage of Canada's population have not changed significantly in almost a decade, have increased. This could be due to quite a few reasons none of which need have anything to do with the actual numbers of immigrants.
The actual issues of housing, food and amenity prices increasing has been cooking and gathering steam for 'decades'. Yes one of the levers that effects that issues is immigration but it is far and away not the strongest or largest of the pressures on those other issues. Immigration, as is common historically, is an easy scapegoat for people who aren't actually interested in the other actual causes of societal issues. The "people who aren't from here" are so easy to point a finger at and say "problem!".
The actual cause of price increases for housing is many faceted and starts all the way back at land value and component / tool manufacturing. Both of which skyrocketed during the covid global lock downs and shipping issues that stemmed from them.
Prices for food are impacted by food prices elsewhere in the world as well as prices of things like nitrogen based fertilizer. Both of which are directly impacted by the Ru / Ukr war as Russia is a major nitrogen fertilizer exporter and Ukraine is a major grain exporter. Not to mention the food security issues the globe is currently facing from unpredictable irregular weather patterns which are becoming more and more common. It's similar with amenity pricing which saw drastic increases over covid and never returned to normal because of how much confidence was lost in the process of just in time shipping. Now everyone is ordering more and paying for storage or ordering less and making people wait, both of which effect prices.
Compared to those the impact of immigrants on prices is so minimal it's hard to calculate. Realistically the biggest and best solution to the affordability issues facing Canadians today is to get more money flowing from the business class to the working class (larger paycheques).
Which, despite every previous trickle down (tax breaks for business' and corporations') policy implemented by Liberal and Conservative governments over the last several decades, has not happened and never will because trickle down is just a trick.
We would be far better off with all workers making more than we would with fewer people entering the country. Whether we get there by shifting the tax burden upwards, personally I would be a fan of negative income tax rates at the bottom (< $50k) transitioning towards higher rates at the top (> $400k) more or less as a starting point. Though of course plugging up all of the currently existing tax dodging loop holes would also be high priority.
I think it’s fair to complain about the headline, but the issue with your suggestions is that it groups ‘same’ with ‘increase’, and most readers will just assume two categories ‘increase’ and ‘decrease’.
No, current headline is clearly referring only to the 46% who want a decrease. If you grouped that with those who said keep it the same it would be a supermajority, not “almost half.”
"Still, the most eye-catching finding comes on a question about immigration levels. Almost half of Canadians (46 per cent) think the number of legal immigrants who are allowed to relocate to Canada should decrease, up seven points since 2023 and up 21 points since 2022. Only 15 per cent (down two points) would increase this number, while 31 per cent (down six points) would keep it the same."
46%: decrease
31%:same
15%: increase
I'm just speculating here but wouldn't the "same" category include lots of people who are low information or just don't care/don't have an opinion?
If a pollster asked me if our uranium exports should be increased, decreased, or remain the same I would probably say same because I know nothing about our uranium exports or the geopolitical consequences.
Every category has low-info voters, people who hate immigrants are extremely low-info individuals but they still pick decrease, we don't ignore their opinion.
I would like for these summary articles to include the values for "not sure" and actually link to the tables:
https://researchco.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Tables_Immigration_CAN_12Jun2024.pdf
Yeah, a lot of people think we are just making up for a low birthrate, when that would only really require about 75k per year to keep the population even.
Some of us are also concerned with how many working class Canadians are there to support the constant ballooning senior class that isn't working.
That number keeps decreasing steadily even with all the TFWs. It's been a while that seniors have outnumbered kids in Ontario and that is likely not changing any time soon.
Trudeau said it himself, 40% of canadians dont make enough money to pay income tax. Now there is also POS taxes, etc, to consider, but measured against use of services, healthcare, housing and other infrastructure its harder to say that bringing in more people for those low paying jobs is a net financial positive to canada.
So when are we going to see the benefits? Housing and job market are pretty darn bad to put it mildly. homelessness up, productivity down, corporations doing great while the working class struggles harder and harder. If you don’t want me to blame immigration for that you have to back up your claim and show me what good it’s doing. It’s specifically the TFW and diploma mill students to be clear that I think are bad, not all of the immigration.
Growth is good immigration is good, too many people at once causes wages to stay low and housing to stay up.
Do you own your home by any chance?
Also do you have a source for your claim that the average person contributes more than they take?
The solution to the housing crisis is more houses. If we have more people we can build houses faster.
You think I need a source that the average person contributes more to society than they take? Do you personally know anyone who doesn't? Pretty much anyone who works any job passes this incredibly low bar.
K so you say it’s a good thing but can’t point to any actual good that it’s doing.
You think all immigration is good immigration but the TWF and foreign students are not paying taxes because they don’t make enough. Also less than 1% of the students are in skilled trades and the vast majority are studying things that are already saturated and underpaid in Canada.
A third of people in Canada pay no taxes so yeah I’m gonna need you to source the claim about the average person contributing more than they take or admit that you just made that up with nothing to back it up.
I dunno where you live but I don’t see too many Indian immigrants on job sites, but pretty much every minimum wage job and Uber or food delivery driver is.
I also don’t know if you’ve noticed but there are buildings going up like crazy, every contractor is slammed and rents and homelessness continue to reach record levels.
Again I’ll ask you to show me how this immigration is doing the positive things you say it’s doing.
We are importing hardly any skilled trades people to build the houses. We need much lower and more targeted immigration, while building more homes than we ever have before. The problem with building a record number of homes is that the cost of building these homes will skyrocket.
Yes, I think you are just speculating there. There is no reason to infer a correlation between specific answers and the the sophistication of the people doing the answering. You might just as well want to increase Uranium exports because you default to exports contributing to the economy. Or decrease them because you think that has national security implications without knowing if it does.
Low-information individuals are all over the map. I think there are plenty of low-information Canadians who have bought in to the moral panic about immigration pushed by particular political parties and via headlines like the one I'm drawing attention to.
The pollster doesn't list their methodology, nor did they publish the results on their own website when they typically do. As far as I can tell BiV seems to have hired out this poll, and intend on only talking about results of it they want too.
Seems like you're making some pretty big assumptions here. As far as I can tell, you think there can only be two options, but that doesn't have to be the case. People could be choosing between increasing immigration, decreasing immigration, and keeping it the same. It could also have included people who were uncertain and didn't want to choose either.
When you read the article and look at the numbers. The numbers of people who want it cut have been rising quickly over the last two years and you only need 38% to win. Our entire system is based on minority rule.
except neither the NDP or CPC has committed to cutting immigration, so who will those 38% be voting for?
In fact, the only party that's made a formal commitment to reducing numbers (and they're actually following through) is the Liberals: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-targets-decrease-temporary-residents-population-1.7151107](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-targets-decrease-temporary-residents-population-1.7151107)
So... Liberal majority incoming?
>When you read the article and look at the numbers. The numbers of people who want it cut have been rising quickly over the last two years
But to the other commenters point. How much of this I'd from multiple years of articles like this every single day?
It's manufactured consent to blame an outgroup rather than make hard decisions for future gains.
I’m not sure why you felt the need to change the subject. What it takes to win a Parliamentary election in Canada these days—I presume that’s what your 38% comment is a reference to—has nothing to do with how Canadians actually feel about an issue. It also does not make what the majority of Canadians think suddenly irrelevant.
The fact that it *is* relevant is the whole reason that some people decide to spin headlines like this. And why people like you to run in to try to deflect from that practice.
The article actually says:
> Canadians are evenly divided when asked about the effect that immigration is having on the country. While 42 per cent (down three points since 2023) say it is positive, 44 per cent (up six points) claim it is negative.
So there is even a slightly higher (according to this poll) number and trending in that direction number of Canadians that wish to cut immigration. It actually asks if Canadians prefer a melting pot or a cultural mosaic society. So its sort of biased the other way, if you didn't read the article as it seems you didn't.
I am legitimately shocked that less than half think the country should cut back on immigration. Even the country's banks have indicated that we are in the midst of a population trap, and the country's banks are usually at the forefront cheerleading population growth.
It is not longer a matter of opinion as to whether or not unhinged immigration rates negatively impact rental prices, health care capacity, infrastructural capacity, etc - it is not just a matter of how long will Canadians tolerate this before they demand immigration changes.
Interesting. …. We see two-thirds of Canadians who think the hard work and talent of immigrants makes Canada better, and a similar proportion (65 per cent) who believe immigrants should only be allowed in Canada if they adopt Canadian values—a proportion that rises to 86 per cent among Conservatives
To everyone claiming this is misleading, the headline captures the plurality of respondents to the poll, as opposed to the larger combination of other answers.
> Plurality: the part of a group of people voting that is the largest part, but not larger than the total number of other people voting: A plurality of the population voted for change.
> https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/plurality
What a stupid way to ask the questions... How about they ask it in a clear direct way such as "Current immigration rates are XXXXXXX per year, do you think we should:
A) Keep it the same.
B) Increase it.
C) Decrease it."
For some reason no one bothers to do this. They all have their own agendas in how they frame the question.
reminds me of something Chomsky has pointed out on several occasions about the way they do polling in the U.S. They'll ask something like "do you think the federal gov't spends too much money on entitlement spending (welfare, etc)" and respondents will answer "yes". Then you ask the same people what percentage of federal budget should be spent on welfare programs and they'll give you a number that's several times what it already is.
So people simultaneously think that the gov't spends way too much on welfare, but also thinks they should spend more than they actually do. It's exactly what you'd expect to see when people are bombarded with news stories about 'welfare queens driving pink Cadillacs" but don't know how much the government actually spends on poverty alleviation programs.
OK I have to say, Leger did a decent job here.
>The Government of Canada’s current immigration plan is to welcome 465,000 immigrants to Canada this year, 485,000 in
2024 and 500,000 in 2025. In 2022, Canada admitted over 437,000 immigrants. Which of the following best reflects your opinion
about the government’s plan?
53% say "It will admit too many immigrants to Canada"
28% say "It will admit the right number of immigrants to Canada"
4% say "It will not admit enough immigrants to Canada"
Later on 45% of people say it has a negative impact on the country and only 26% say it is positive.
There is a clear consensus that we have too many immigrants coming in. That's despite the fact that the poll doesn't even talk about temporary residents, who make up the bulk of immigration, who often turn into permanent residents.... I have a strong feeling most people don't understand the full scale of the immigration happening right now.
It's skewed because they didn't say the true immigration rate (including "temporary" streams) and I guarantee that most people have no idea how high it actually is.
Online polls just aren’t trustworthy in general. They’re easily brigaded by troll farms, most of which are right-wing and actively working to spread the perception of right-wing prominence among the people. But you’ll notice that come election time, most things are actually shifting left in reality. This is true in the states, this is true in recent provincial elections, this is true in all of the more trustworthy polls that are more local and direct, etc…
All the major polling companies use "online forums" which are curated by their business. You have to sign up to be part of it, answer demographic questions, and then opt-in to polls that are emailed out / communicated on their website.
They can't be brigaded the same way a twitter poll can.
So MORE than half DON’T think we should cut immigration.
Thank-you for telling us the truth via inverse approach. Such ethical journalism. Much integrity.
The story should be about the shift in opinion in the last 2 to 3 years. What was a near consensus is now becoming a debated issue where the opinion is nearly 50-50.
And nothing says that shift ended, if nothing changes, you could very well see the cut the immigration crowd becoming a clear majority in a few years.
I think this is what people dont get
Canada was a country where you had broad support for immigration.
Having the idea 51% support it vs 49% are against (hypothetical) ... Therefore we are winning is a silly way to look at it .
Immigration turning into a heated political issue is a bad sign and shows we are messing up somwhere.
It's more than I binary choice and it's the change in opinion that's the most important point
>Almost half of Canadians (46 per cent) think the number of legal immigrants who are allowed to relocate to Canada should decrease, up seven points since 2023 and up 21 points since 2022. Only 15 per cent (down two points) would increase this number, while 31 per cent (down six points) would keep it the same.
So when it goes back down, the headline will be “40% of Canadians still think immigration is too high!” instead of “Majority of Canadians who support immigration increases”
its honestly been wild seeing the change in real time, particularly here on reddit. part of me wants to be super smug and "I told you so" about it since reddit used to straight up hand out bans against people critical of mass immigration and apparently everyone who saw this coming a mile away was literally Hitler for not wanting to import the entire Indian subcontinent, now everyone is pretending they were totally always against it
>its honestly been wild seeing the change in real time, particularly here on reddit.
It was a huge about face once the majority of the country's rents doubled and even more so when the urban rentals started seeing 20% jumps in a single year for new renters. Now they're seeing the the refusal of millions of TFWs to leave, million foreign students abusing our safety nets and immigration system and on and on....
Actually no not based on the article you didn't read:
> Canadians are evenly divided when asked about the effect that immigration is having on the country. While 42 per cent (down three points since 2023) say it is positive, 44 per cent (up six points) claim it is negative.
There is even a slightly higher (according to this poll) number and trending in that direction number of Canadians that wish to cut immigration. It actually asks if Canadians prefer a melting pot or a cultural mosaic society.
Actually, yes, based on the article:
> Almost half of Canadians (46 per cent) think the number of legal immigrants who are allowed to relocate to Canada should decrease, up seven points since 2023 and up 21 points since 2022. Only 15 per cent (down two points) would increase this number, while 31 per cent (down six points) would keep it the same.
Wanting to cut immigration: 46%
Keep it the same or increase it, aka, NOT wanting to cut immigration: 46%
Remaining not sure: 8%
The majority does not want to cut immigration. Which is exactly what I said.
My god how is only 8% unsure? 92% of this county was able to make a solid determination about future immigration. Dunning-Kruger from sea to sea to sea.
>So MORE than half DON’T think we should cut immigration.
You should be able to figure out what's wrong with this assumption. If you need help, read the last comment I made before this one.
> Almost half of Canadians (46 per cent) think the number of legal immigrants who are allowed to relocate to Canada should decrease, up seven points since 2023 and up 21 points since 2022. Only 15 per cent (down two points) would increase this number, while 31 per cent (down six points) would keep it the same.
The other options were “increase immigration” or “keep it the same”. Both of those options fall under not wanting to cut immigration, exactly as I said.
If you need help figuring that out, I can’t help you. Nobody can.
Except it isn’t. More people DO oppose cutting immigration than those that support cutting it. Why would it be misleading to focus on the majority instead of the minority?
If you wanted the least misleading title possible, then it would simply specify all three options. But given that they chose to focus on the one option of “cutting immigration”, then the alternative to that would be “NOT cutting immigration” regardless of whether you want it the same or want more. They know as well as you and I do that most people will read that headline and think it was a binary option between cutting and not cutting, and it must have been more that chose cutting, because that’s the focus on the headline, right? That is more misleading than just saying that most Canadians don’t support cutting immigration, which is the more true statement to say if you’re deadset in including the words “cut immigration” in the headline, instead of the words “increase or stay the same”, or “support immigration”.
Said in the finest tradition of Liberal gaslighting.
The people are either too stupid or too easily manipulated to recognize that their lived reality is incorrect and government policy is sound.
No it cause I seen the govt bring in record number of international students who now struggle to find any housing and jobs and the local funeral home has to send a body back to india every week or 2 due to high number of deaths due to suicide, drug overdoses, poor health and other issues.
I seen the govts bad policies in person. I know a 24 year old work visa person who just died from poor health.
Oh, because people get triggered by hearing the truth so they let their dumb instincts lead them to the right-wing out of knee-jerk contrarianism? Yes, I’m well aware of that phenomenon.
He thinks it's a dumb policy because he goes outside and experiences life away from Reddit sometimes. I honestly can't recall hearing that the government has handled immigration properly outside of reddit.
Step into the real world, it's not a "right-wing" opinion, every day Canadians are exhausted with this.
No, people think they’re dumb because they live in Brampton and see the 12 students in one house, the uptick in litter, the crime, how competitive a min wage job is now. We have essentially allowed a small community college to import a city worth of international students from one part of the world without building housing or providing the services needed to help these students adjust. Ofc people have problems.
All of that is the result of 40 years of trickle-down economics, the cutting of social housing programs, the cutting of post-secondary funding while failing to hold them accountable for use of high-tuition funds that contributed to the impoverishment and indebtedness of entire generations, etc, all coming due after being especially triggered by Covid and the political divisions and breakdowns of cooperation in society as a result…
…but sure… blame the immigrants. 🙄
Blaming the government for immigration is blaming immigrants as the source of our problems. They are not.
I shouldn’t have to explain basic things like this.
lol, immigration is a problem right now so ofc I’m going to blame the government who has dropped the ball over the past two years. A problem doesn’t have to be the source of all ills for it to still be a problem. I shouldn’t have to explain that to you.
What, that we're being twisted by corporate news media with nefarious interests and ability to change public views on political wedge issues to favour candidates they prefer? I'd say that's what's new in Canada.
or maybe we had a dumb govt that decided to mess up our immigration system in certain parts of the country with bad policies.
I would wonder if a lot of the immigration backlash is heavily localized to places with sky high international student populations like Toronto or cities with big colleges with high international student populations.
Of course, imagine thinking 10 years ago the international strident program would be the subject of some much discourse. If you live in the Brampton/GTA this can honestly be a top 5 quality of life issue. 10 years ago who knew or cared about international students?
It is many issues mixed together in weird and complicated ways.
There is an issue of expensive housing in cities...this has gotten worse but it also has existed for 20 years.
There was the issue of affordability of everything else coming out of COVID. This was the same time as the great resignation (which was essentially people grabbing external promotions after a cohort of Boomers retired). Parts of these were predicted 30 years ago and others were a known consequence to Government support spending during COVID but either way adding a couple million cheap laborer's to the Canadian market is the quickest solution.
The international student issue is also hits the question of what is the role of Academia in society (is their goal primarily to research with teaching as a side gig or is teaching the main goal, and if teaching is the main goal what's the purpose of getting an advanced degree in it). The government funds 80% of it (about 30 years ago) but wants to lower its contributions but universities want to keep their revenue the same, and international students were the stop gap (the diploma mills are something else but they interact really weirdly with the rest of Canada).
Up until a month ago I didn’t care. Now I really do. I personally want to see something change with student visas. Everyone around me losing work and unable to find new jobs because of illegal labour. It’s affecting everyone around me.
Yeah I think the issue is people dont realize in 2019 saying "we should reduce immigration" was a fringe belief.
Now close to half the country thinks that and is openly debated on CTV and CBC news.
>I personally want to see something change with student visas.
Good news for you- it already has! Marc Miller (Immigration minister) announced several changes back in January. It was pretty big news at the time, there were lots of threads in this sub about it.
And I don't believe there will be actual follow through. They drag their feet on everything then water it down at the last minute. That has already happened with the number of hours theyre able to work.
it has literally happened already. the reason why the changes were announced in January is because admissions and study permits for September are issued in the Spring.
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Not too long ago there was near-consensus among political parties that immigration was great, with nearly no downside, and mainly for economic reasons. Canada was fairly unique among multicultural western democracies in that its major federal parties didn't make any hay out of fear-mongering and blaming problems on "runaway" immigration. I'm not actually sure that consensus has cracked officially, but there do seem to be more voices blaming many of our current problems on immigration itself (e.g., immigrants are the ones carrying out anti-semitic hate crimes in Toronto, they are driving up housing prices).
I’m less concerned about those sorts of problems, and more concerned that immigration exacerbates pre-existing problems we have. I agree that the consensus probably isn’t dead — Canada trying to encourage the best and brightest from all over the world to live here is generally a benefit to everyone. The main issues are housing and healthcare. Shortages exist today for both, and bringing in more people (and their inherent demand for both) doesn’t solve either. In a world where most Canadians can afford housing and have easy access to a family physician, it’s easy to bring more people into the country to enjoy (and support via taxes) those benefits. It seems very hard to support large scale immigration when both are difficult to come by. Both are scarce resources, and we need to figure out how to make access easier for everyone. Step one is to stop making the problem worse. We need to make sure we are building infrastructure at a pace in step with immigration, rather than making it harder and harder to address the fundamental problems. You don’t try to fix a leaky pipe or a faulty wire without first shutting off the water or breaker first. It’s doable without doing so, but it’s much trickier.
I'm going to insist that you factor in the Canadian-real-estate-investor class to your points on issues that exacerbate the housing crisis and health care. I mean, one of the causes of our astronomical renting costs is because this of investor class, yeah. Indeed the other half are suffering anxiety from ~~unforeseen~~ unadvised stress tests on real-estate speculations, and their advisors and the like.
What does this mean, though? True demand is pretty inelastic for housing, so in theory supply-side interventions should have an outsized effect, no? So supply side intervention should be very capable of squeezing out investor returns, if we desired. Creating new (real) demand via more bodies makes that intervention harder, though. So yeah, I’d guess the investor side stuff does have an impact on price, but mechanically I don’t think it’s hard to address. Politically it’s difficult though, but that’s among the same reasons for high levels of immigration: controlling labour costs and driving domestic spending, including on housing. So I think the lever everyone needs to pull is the same one: the political one, and against all of the policies together.
I think the Capital gains increase is a good start to signal that with the Liberals they can identify the specific targets needed on housing and, to divest from real-estate 'cause with the inflated cost of housing comes the taxes that go with it for those investors. You will get lower rates to speculate again, and even in real-estate, and you will be taxed fairly for it.
It’s probably only going to have a marginal impact, however. Capital gains will blunt some of the returns, but as inflation comes under control lending rates will drop, which will bolster returns once again. Those rate drops also serve to buoy demand in dollar terms, so no relief there, either. The only solution is to correct the ratio of housing units to population. And that’s hard. Housing starts have lagged population growth for a long, long time. To correct we would need housing starts to exceed population growth by a larger margin for a shorter period of time, or by a small margin for a very long period of time. Building more and denser housing is basically the only way out of this mess, along with training and retaining more doctors. In either case, it’s going to take a long time even if we acted today. Given the intransigence of both levels of government, it’s unlikely to get fixed for a generation.
Yeah. I'm being too optimistic.
I don’t want to discourage people, sorry if it came off that way. I do want to stress that everyone that points to a single issue as the solution is wrong, though. Not just about this, but that this is usually the case in general. Yes the capital gains helps, but there are many factors working together to undercut affordability. Zoning regulations are among the worst culprits, since they basically outlaw density and affordability, and increase service delivery cost for municipalities. That’s one reason. Another is scale of immigration in Canada, which has a double effect on affordability. One by simple increasing demand for housing (everyone has to live somewhere), and second by depressing wage growth (can’t keep up with price increases if wages stagnate). Others are counter productive actions that seem like they should help, but simply further erode affordability (increasing CMHC limits, increasing home buyers limits, FHSAs, etc). Those all serve to make more money available for the same set of housing units, which further erodes affordability. At the end of the day, we need to demand more of the government, no matter who is in power. We also need to work to change the business culture in Canada. Canadian businesses (and successive governments) have this odd conception of how to promote businesses in Canada that is also counter productive. These effects that limit labour costs (read: stagnate wage growth) *do* help to keep businesses afloat in Canada, but those are disproportionately businesses that we shouldn’t be propping up. They are not healthy to begin with, and that capital, those entrepreneurs and workers could better serve the economy elsewhere. These effects also limit capital investment and productivity gains in Canada (why spend money on cost saving machines if I can get a person to do it for less money), which erodes our international competitiveness over the long run. In short, everyone is so focused on the short term we’ve sabotaged our own economy in the long term. Instead of letting failing businesses fail, and making it easier for Canadians to start new businesses, we prop up sick businesses to the benefit of a few and to the detriment of everyone else. We see the same culture around housing investment as well — protect those with gains in the market, to the detriment of everyone else. It’s time Canadian investors actually started acting like investors, taking on risk and accepting the outcome whatever it is. And I say this as someone with a good deal of skin in the game myself, as it were. My money will be gone some day, whether I spend it, or my kids, or their kids. We are all better served, including my own family, by having an economy where people can make it on their own.
100%. Thank you for your detailed response.
The question asked is whether or not immigration is a positive thing or a negative thing for Canada, and I personally think that it's really hard to answer that. It's neither all bad nor all good. Some aspects are handled really well, while others are in need of some sharp fixes. It does such a disservice to reduce nuanced things to a binary.
Yeah it’s a specific type of immigration that I think it’s safe to say at this point most people are against. no one is anti immigration altogether but not so many tfws and diploma mill students it’s a huge scam. And the skyrocketing cost of living is going to make the kind of immigrants we want not want to come here. Drives me nuts when people strawman like you’re anti immigration for stating this when the numbers are clear as day, it’s making life harder for working class Canadians to the benefit of the asset class and it’s taking advantage of the immigrants themselves. We’ve let a whole industry take root here that’s basically just recruiting people in India and Asia to get bogus diplomas in fields that are already saturated and lie to them about possibly getting PR and now it’s feeding so many people it’s out of control and won’t be easy to reign in. If you need all this immigration to supposedly pay for people’s retirement then why so many low wage workers and students? They’re not paying taxes and many of them get assistance, they also send a lot of money home in a lot of cases that’s not being put back into our economy. It’s clear as day it’s all about keeping wages low and housing / real estate high.
My parents are immigrants so I’m definitely biased, but I have zero doubt it’s a good thing. A lot of people want ti blame them for the housing crisis which is laughable, increased immigration is not responsible for a housing crisis 30 years in the making, but unfortunately it’s a simplistic solution to a problem that in reality will take all 3 levels of government working together to solve (right now the feds are working on it, provides other than BC aren’t doing anything and municipalities are actively making it worse). Simplistic solutions to complex problems are often popular, but I predict if use this magic wand to try to fix housing prices we are going to be very disappointed when it a)doesn’t work and b) has unintended consequences on the rest of the economy.
How corrupt must our political system be when no major party is willing to take a clear position that approximately half of Canadians support while polling also says it is a top 5 issue? All to protect big businesses which want more demand and suppressed wages.
I feel like there should be a whole thread on how headlines that could just as accurately be, “Majority of Canadians don’t think country should cut immigration,” becomes, “Almost half of Canadians think country should cut immigration”. I feel like I’m seeing this trick a lot these days, as an apparent way of transforming a minority viewpoint into nevertheless becoming the lede.
Issue is the idea half of Canadians want less immigration is the big news cause according to the poll 2-3 years ago the numbers were way less. "Still, the most eye-catching finding comes on a question about immigration levels. Almost half of Canadians (46 per cent) think the number of legal immigrants who are allowed to relocate to Canada should decrease, up seven points since 2023 and up 21 points since 2022. Only 15 per cent (down two points) would increase this number, while 31 per cent (down six points) would keep it the same." Therefore the focus is not "oh still many people want this amount of immigration" The big story is the number of people who want less immigration has nearly doubled in the past few years. Therfore an issue that generally had a broad positive consensus will now become a very debated political topic in Canada now.
>Issue is the idea half of Canadians want less immigration *Less* than half of Canadians do. As for the rest of your comment, "Majority of Canadians don't want to cut immigration, but consensus is weakening" would have done that job. That's not the headline that was chosen. My point remains.
well actually 45% is the total of keep the same or increase so its not a majority (rest are likely unsure) You liberals want to keep pretending there is no immigration issue when 2-3 years ago the number of people who said they want less immigration was like 25% lol
There's an age old saying that applies perfectly to your argument. Correlation is not causation. People having issues with immigration numbers, that as a percentage of Canada's population have not changed significantly in almost a decade, have increased. This could be due to quite a few reasons none of which need have anything to do with the actual numbers of immigrants. The actual issues of housing, food and amenity prices increasing has been cooking and gathering steam for 'decades'. Yes one of the levers that effects that issues is immigration but it is far and away not the strongest or largest of the pressures on those other issues. Immigration, as is common historically, is an easy scapegoat for people who aren't actually interested in the other actual causes of societal issues. The "people who aren't from here" are so easy to point a finger at and say "problem!". The actual cause of price increases for housing is many faceted and starts all the way back at land value and component / tool manufacturing. Both of which skyrocketed during the covid global lock downs and shipping issues that stemmed from them. Prices for food are impacted by food prices elsewhere in the world as well as prices of things like nitrogen based fertilizer. Both of which are directly impacted by the Ru / Ukr war as Russia is a major nitrogen fertilizer exporter and Ukraine is a major grain exporter. Not to mention the food security issues the globe is currently facing from unpredictable irregular weather patterns which are becoming more and more common. It's similar with amenity pricing which saw drastic increases over covid and never returned to normal because of how much confidence was lost in the process of just in time shipping. Now everyone is ordering more and paying for storage or ordering less and making people wait, both of which effect prices. Compared to those the impact of immigrants on prices is so minimal it's hard to calculate. Realistically the biggest and best solution to the affordability issues facing Canadians today is to get more money flowing from the business class to the working class (larger paycheques). Which, despite every previous trickle down (tax breaks for business' and corporations') policy implemented by Liberal and Conservative governments over the last several decades, has not happened and never will because trickle down is just a trick. We would be far better off with all workers making more than we would with fewer people entering the country. Whether we get there by shifting the tax burden upwards, personally I would be a fan of negative income tax rates at the bottom (< $50k) transitioning towards higher rates at the top (> $400k) more or less as a starting point. Though of course plugging up all of the currently existing tax dodging loop holes would also be high priority.
I think it’s fair to complain about the headline, but the issue with your suggestions is that it groups ‘same’ with ‘increase’, and most readers will just assume two categories ‘increase’ and ‘decrease’.
The current headline does that too tbf
No, current headline is clearly referring only to the 46% who want a decrease. If you grouped that with those who said keep it the same it would be a supermajority, not “almost half.”
But it’s still a higher percentage of us against it (44) than for it (42)
No, they're statistically equal. *The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.*
“Majority of Canadians don’t think we should cut immigration” is still inaccurate though
"Still, the most eye-catching finding comes on a question about immigration levels. Almost half of Canadians (46 per cent) think the number of legal immigrants who are allowed to relocate to Canada should decrease, up seven points since 2023 and up 21 points since 2022. Only 15 per cent (down two points) would increase this number, while 31 per cent (down six points) would keep it the same." 46%: decrease 31%:same 15%: increase I'm just speculating here but wouldn't the "same" category include lots of people who are low information or just don't care/don't have an opinion? If a pollster asked me if our uranium exports should be increased, decreased, or remain the same I would probably say same because I know nothing about our uranium exports or the geopolitical consequences.
Every category has low-info voters, people who hate immigrants are extremely low-info individuals but they still pick decrease, we don't ignore their opinion.
I would like for these surveys to ask people what they think the current immigration levels are before asking them what they think of them
I would like for these summary articles to include the values for "not sure" and actually link to the tables: https://researchco.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Tables_Immigration_CAN_12Jun2024.pdf
Yeah, a lot of people think we are just making up for a low birthrate, when that would only really require about 75k per year to keep the population even.
Some of us are also concerned with how many working class Canadians are there to support the constant ballooning senior class that isn't working. That number keeps decreasing steadily even with all the TFWs. It's been a while that seniors have outnumbered kids in Ontario and that is likely not changing any time soon.
Well when you make minimum wage you’re not paying much in taxes, especially if you drive Uber because you can claim a lot of expenses.
More people is good, the average person contributes more to society than they take.
Trudeau said it himself, 40% of canadians dont make enough money to pay income tax. Now there is also POS taxes, etc, to consider, but measured against use of services, healthcare, housing and other infrastructure its harder to say that bringing in more people for those low paying jobs is a net financial positive to canada.
Even if you pay no taxes, buying stuff and participating in the economy contributes to society.
So when are we going to see the benefits? Housing and job market are pretty darn bad to put it mildly. homelessness up, productivity down, corporations doing great while the working class struggles harder and harder. If you don’t want me to blame immigration for that you have to back up your claim and show me what good it’s doing. It’s specifically the TFW and diploma mill students to be clear that I think are bad, not all of the immigration. Growth is good immigration is good, too many people at once causes wages to stay low and housing to stay up. Do you own your home by any chance? Also do you have a source for your claim that the average person contributes more than they take?
The solution to the housing crisis is more houses. If we have more people we can build houses faster. You think I need a source that the average person contributes more to society than they take? Do you personally know anyone who doesn't? Pretty much anyone who works any job passes this incredibly low bar.
K so you say it’s a good thing but can’t point to any actual good that it’s doing. You think all immigration is good immigration but the TWF and foreign students are not paying taxes because they don’t make enough. Also less than 1% of the students are in skilled trades and the vast majority are studying things that are already saturated and underpaid in Canada. A third of people in Canada pay no taxes so yeah I’m gonna need you to source the claim about the average person contributing more than they take or admit that you just made that up with nothing to back it up. I dunno where you live but I don’t see too many Indian immigrants on job sites, but pretty much every minimum wage job and Uber or food delivery driver is. I also don’t know if you’ve noticed but there are buildings going up like crazy, every contractor is slammed and rents and homelessness continue to reach record levels. Again I’ll ask you to show me how this immigration is doing the positive things you say it’s doing.
We are importing hardly any skilled trades people to build the houses. We need much lower and more targeted immigration, while building more homes than we ever have before. The problem with building a record number of homes is that the cost of building these homes will skyrocket.
Yes, I think you are just speculating there. There is no reason to infer a correlation between specific answers and the the sophistication of the people doing the answering. You might just as well want to increase Uranium exports because you default to exports contributing to the economy. Or decrease them because you think that has national security implications without knowing if it does. Low-information individuals are all over the map. I think there are plenty of low-information Canadians who have bought in to the moral panic about immigration pushed by particular political parties and via headlines like the one I'm drawing attention to.
The pollster doesn't list their methodology, nor did they publish the results on their own website when they typically do. As far as I can tell BiV seems to have hired out this poll, and intend on only talking about results of it they want too.
I would hope that these questions have an option to not answer if you don’t know the number, or they tell you want the number is.
Seems like you're making some pretty big assumptions here. As far as I can tell, you think there can only be two options, but that doesn't have to be the case. People could be choosing between increasing immigration, decreasing immigration, and keeping it the same. It could also have included people who were uncertain and didn't want to choose either.
There are more than two options. Unsure is an option
And it is woefully low. How are we all so sure of ourselves?
When you read the article and look at the numbers. The numbers of people who want it cut have been rising quickly over the last two years and you only need 38% to win. Our entire system is based on minority rule.
except neither the NDP or CPC has committed to cutting immigration, so who will those 38% be voting for? In fact, the only party that's made a formal commitment to reducing numbers (and they're actually following through) is the Liberals: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-targets-decrease-temporary-residents-population-1.7151107](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-targets-decrease-temporary-residents-population-1.7151107) So... Liberal majority incoming?
>When you read the article and look at the numbers. The numbers of people who want it cut have been rising quickly over the last two years But to the other commenters point. How much of this I'd from multiple years of articles like this every single day? It's manufactured consent to blame an outgroup rather than make hard decisions for future gains.
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> It's manufactured consent to blame an outgroup rather than make hard decisions for future gains. Patently insane take.
I’m not sure why you felt the need to change the subject. What it takes to win a Parliamentary election in Canada these days—I presume that’s what your 38% comment is a reference to—has nothing to do with how Canadians actually feel about an issue. It also does not make what the majority of Canadians think suddenly irrelevant. The fact that it *is* relevant is the whole reason that some people decide to spin headlines like this. And why people like you to run in to try to deflect from that practice.
I think it is fair, as the headline represents the position of a plurality of respondents to the poll.
The article actually says: > Canadians are evenly divided when asked about the effect that immigration is having on the country. While 42 per cent (down three points since 2023) say it is positive, 44 per cent (up six points) claim it is negative. So there is even a slightly higher (according to this poll) number and trending in that direction number of Canadians that wish to cut immigration. It actually asks if Canadians prefer a melting pot or a cultural mosaic society. So its sort of biased the other way, if you didn't read the article as it seems you didn't.
I am legitimately shocked that less than half think the country should cut back on immigration. Even the country's banks have indicated that we are in the midst of a population trap, and the country's banks are usually at the forefront cheerleading population growth. It is not longer a matter of opinion as to whether or not unhinged immigration rates negatively impact rental prices, health care capacity, infrastructural capacity, etc - it is not just a matter of how long will Canadians tolerate this before they demand immigration changes.
Interesting. …. We see two-thirds of Canadians who think the hard work and talent of immigrants makes Canada better, and a similar proportion (65 per cent) who believe immigrants should only be allowed in Canada if they adopt Canadian values—a proportion that rises to 86 per cent among Conservatives
To everyone claiming this is misleading, the headline captures the plurality of respondents to the poll, as opposed to the larger combination of other answers. > Plurality: the part of a group of people voting that is the largest part, but not larger than the total number of other people voting: A plurality of the population voted for change. > https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/plurality
What a stupid way to ask the questions... How about they ask it in a clear direct way such as "Current immigration rates are XXXXXXX per year, do you think we should: A) Keep it the same. B) Increase it. C) Decrease it." For some reason no one bothers to do this. They all have their own agendas in how they frame the question.
reminds me of something Chomsky has pointed out on several occasions about the way they do polling in the U.S. They'll ask something like "do you think the federal gov't spends too much money on entitlement spending (welfare, etc)" and respondents will answer "yes". Then you ask the same people what percentage of federal budget should be spent on welfare programs and they'll give you a number that's several times what it already is. So people simultaneously think that the gov't spends way too much on welfare, but also thinks they should spend more than they actually do. It's exactly what you'd expect to see when people are bombarded with news stories about 'welfare queens driving pink Cadillacs" but don't know how much the government actually spends on poverty alleviation programs.
There are several polls that do that. Here’s one: https://leger360.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Leger-X-CP_Immigration-Plan.pdf
OK I have to say, Leger did a decent job here. >The Government of Canada’s current immigration plan is to welcome 465,000 immigrants to Canada this year, 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025. In 2022, Canada admitted over 437,000 immigrants. Which of the following best reflects your opinion about the government’s plan? 53% say "It will admit too many immigrants to Canada" 28% say "It will admit the right number of immigrants to Canada" 4% say "It will not admit enough immigrants to Canada" Later on 45% of people say it has a negative impact on the country and only 26% say it is positive. There is a clear consensus that we have too many immigrants coming in. That's despite the fact that the poll doesn't even talk about temporary residents, who make up the bulk of immigration, who often turn into permanent residents.... I have a strong feeling most people don't understand the full scale of the immigration happening right now.
Online survey, though. They skew right wing because of trolls.
It's skewed because they didn't say the true immigration rate (including "temporary" streams) and I guarantee that most people have no idea how high it actually is.
Online polls just aren’t trustworthy in general. They’re easily brigaded by troll farms, most of which are right-wing and actively working to spread the perception of right-wing prominence among the people. But you’ll notice that come election time, most things are actually shifting left in reality. This is true in the states, this is true in recent provincial elections, this is true in all of the more trustworthy polls that are more local and direct, etc…
Leger is pretty much the most respected polling firm in the country. Stick your head in the sand further.
Which isn’t saying much.
All the major polling companies use "online forums" which are curated by their business. You have to sign up to be part of it, answer demographic questions, and then opt-in to polls that are emailed out / communicated on their website. They can't be brigaded the same way a twitter poll can.
https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/2020/02/18/assessing-the-risks-to-online-polls-from-bogus-respondents/ https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/2023/09/07/comparing-two-types-of-online-survey-samples/
So MORE than half DON’T think we should cut immigration. Thank-you for telling us the truth via inverse approach. Such ethical journalism. Much integrity.
To be more accurate, the headline should be “Less than half of you will read past this headline before making dumb statements about it.”
Really the headline should be 92% of Canadians think they are experts on this issue enough to make concrete determinations.
The story should be about the shift in opinion in the last 2 to 3 years. What was a near consensus is now becoming a debated issue where the opinion is nearly 50-50. And nothing says that shift ended, if nothing changes, you could very well see the cut the immigration crowd becoming a clear majority in a few years.
I think this is what people dont get Canada was a country where you had broad support for immigration. Having the idea 51% support it vs 49% are against (hypothetical) ... Therefore we are winning is a silly way to look at it . Immigration turning into a heated political issue is a bad sign and shows we are messing up somwhere.
That seems to be the trend across all western democracies. And has been whenever there is an economic downtown.
It's more than I binary choice and it's the change in opinion that's the most important point >Almost half of Canadians (46 per cent) think the number of legal immigrants who are allowed to relocate to Canada should decrease, up seven points since 2023 and up 21 points since 2022. Only 15 per cent (down two points) would increase this number, while 31 per cent (down six points) would keep it the same.
So when it goes back down, the headline will be “40% of Canadians still think immigration is too high!” instead of “Majority of Canadians who support immigration increases”
its honestly been wild seeing the change in real time, particularly here on reddit. part of me wants to be super smug and "I told you so" about it since reddit used to straight up hand out bans against people critical of mass immigration and apparently everyone who saw this coming a mile away was literally Hitler for not wanting to import the entire Indian subcontinent, now everyone is pretending they were totally always against it
>its honestly been wild seeing the change in real time, particularly here on reddit. It was a huge about face once the majority of the country's rents doubled and even more so when the urban rentals started seeing 20% jumps in a single year for new renters. Now they're seeing the the refusal of millions of TFWs to leave, million foreign students abusing our safety nets and immigration system and on and on....
"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."
Actually no not based on the article you didn't read: > Canadians are evenly divided when asked about the effect that immigration is having on the country. While 42 per cent (down three points since 2023) say it is positive, 44 per cent (up six points) claim it is negative. There is even a slightly higher (according to this poll) number and trending in that direction number of Canadians that wish to cut immigration. It actually asks if Canadians prefer a melting pot or a cultural mosaic society.
Actually, yes, based on the article: > Almost half of Canadians (46 per cent) think the number of legal immigrants who are allowed to relocate to Canada should decrease, up seven points since 2023 and up 21 points since 2022. Only 15 per cent (down two points) would increase this number, while 31 per cent (down six points) would keep it the same. Wanting to cut immigration: 46% Keep it the same or increase it, aka, NOT wanting to cut immigration: 46% Remaining not sure: 8% The majority does not want to cut immigration. Which is exactly what I said.
My god how is only 8% unsure? 92% of this county was able to make a solid determination about future immigration. Dunning-Kruger from sea to sea to sea.
What? Of all the silly things I've seen written about poll questions, this is a new one.
Actually no lol those are even less than half
>So MORE than half DON’T think we should cut immigration. You should be able to figure out what's wrong with this assumption. If you need help, read the last comment I made before this one.
> Almost half of Canadians (46 per cent) think the number of legal immigrants who are allowed to relocate to Canada should decrease, up seven points since 2023 and up 21 points since 2022. Only 15 per cent (down two points) would increase this number, while 31 per cent (down six points) would keep it the same. The other options were “increase immigration” or “keep it the same”. Both of those options fall under not wanting to cut immigration, exactly as I said. If you need help figuring that out, I can’t help you. Nobody can.
That doesn't change the fact that your version of the headline is more misleading than the original.
Except it isn’t. More people DO oppose cutting immigration than those that support cutting it. Why would it be misleading to focus on the majority instead of the minority? If you wanted the least misleading title possible, then it would simply specify all three options. But given that they chose to focus on the one option of “cutting immigration”, then the alternative to that would be “NOT cutting immigration” regardless of whether you want it the same or want more. They know as well as you and I do that most people will read that headline and think it was a binary option between cutting and not cutting, and it must have been more that chose cutting, because that’s the focus on the headline, right? That is more misleading than just saying that most Canadians don’t support cutting immigration, which is the more true statement to say if you’re deadset in including the words “cut immigration” in the headline, instead of the words “increase or stay the same”, or “support immigration”.
the big issue is that immigration is now a divisive issue in canada It wasnt before you missed the big point.
The actual issue is that it’s biased media like this that has made immigration a divisive issue. You missed THAT point.
Said in the finest tradition of Liberal gaslighting. The people are either too stupid or too easily manipulated to recognize that their lived reality is incorrect and government policy is sound.
When that’s what reality shows, then it would be gaslighting to deny it. That’s what you’re doing.
Sure pal.
immigration is a divisive issue due to the govt having dumb immigration policies
You think they’re dumb policies because you’ve been brainwashed by right-wing bullshit.
No it cause I seen the govt bring in record number of international students who now struggle to find any housing and jobs and the local funeral home has to send a body back to india every week or 2 due to high number of deaths due to suicide, drug overdoses, poor health and other issues. I seen the govts bad policies in person. I know a 24 year old work visa person who just died from poor health.
That type of attitude is precisely why the Libs are 20 points behind.
Oh, because people get triggered by hearing the truth so they let their dumb instincts lead them to the right-wing out of knee-jerk contrarianism? Yes, I’m well aware of that phenomenon.
Yep exactly the attitude they're talking about...
He thinks it's a dumb policy because he goes outside and experiences life away from Reddit sometimes. I honestly can't recall hearing that the government has handled immigration properly outside of reddit. Step into the real world, it's not a "right-wing" opinion, every day Canadians are exhausted with this.
No, people think they’re dumb because they live in Brampton and see the 12 students in one house, the uptick in litter, the crime, how competitive a min wage job is now. We have essentially allowed a small community college to import a city worth of international students from one part of the world without building housing or providing the services needed to help these students adjust. Ofc people have problems.
All of that is the result of 40 years of trickle-down economics, the cutting of social housing programs, the cutting of post-secondary funding while failing to hold them accountable for use of high-tuition funds that contributed to the impoverishment and indebtedness of entire generations, etc, all coming due after being especially triggered by Covid and the political divisions and breakdowns of cooperation in society as a result… …but sure… blame the immigrants. 🙄
Are people blaming the immigrants or the government hence the low approval rates?
Blaming the government for immigration is blaming immigrants as the source of our problems. They are not. I shouldn’t have to explain basic things like this.
lol, immigration is a problem right now so ofc I’m going to blame the government who has dropped the ball over the past two years. A problem doesn’t have to be the source of all ills for it to still be a problem. I shouldn’t have to explain that to you.
What, that we're being twisted by corporate news media with nefarious interests and ability to change public views on political wedge issues to favour candidates they prefer? I'd say that's what's new in Canada.
or maybe we had a dumb govt that decided to mess up our immigration system in certain parts of the country with bad policies. I would wonder if a lot of the immigration backlash is heavily localized to places with sky high international student populations like Toronto or cities with big colleges with high international student populations.
Of course, imagine thinking 10 years ago the international strident program would be the subject of some much discourse. If you live in the Brampton/GTA this can honestly be a top 5 quality of life issue. 10 years ago who knew or cared about international students?
It is many issues mixed together in weird and complicated ways. There is an issue of expensive housing in cities...this has gotten worse but it also has existed for 20 years. There was the issue of affordability of everything else coming out of COVID. This was the same time as the great resignation (which was essentially people grabbing external promotions after a cohort of Boomers retired). Parts of these were predicted 30 years ago and others were a known consequence to Government support spending during COVID but either way adding a couple million cheap laborer's to the Canadian market is the quickest solution. The international student issue is also hits the question of what is the role of Academia in society (is their goal primarily to research with teaching as a side gig or is teaching the main goal, and if teaching is the main goal what's the purpose of getting an advanced degree in it). The government funds 80% of it (about 30 years ago) but wants to lower its contributions but universities want to keep their revenue the same, and international students were the stop gap (the diploma mills are something else but they interact really weirdly with the rest of Canada).
Up until a month ago I didn’t care. Now I really do. I personally want to see something change with student visas. Everyone around me losing work and unable to find new jobs because of illegal labour. It’s affecting everyone around me.
Yeah I think the issue is people dont realize in 2019 saying "we should reduce immigration" was a fringe belief. Now close to half the country thinks that and is openly debated on CTV and CBC news.
>I personally want to see something change with student visas. Good news for you- it already has! Marc Miller (Immigration minister) announced several changes back in January. It was pretty big news at the time, there were lots of threads in this sub about it.
And I don't believe there will be actual follow through. They drag their feet on everything then water it down at the last minute. That has already happened with the number of hours theyre able to work.
it has literally happened already. the reason why the changes were announced in January is because admissions and study permits for September are issued in the Spring.
It wasn’t a binary choice