MY TAKE

SKYROCKETING RENTS STRIKE HOME

What happens when the immigration minister becomes the housing minister? More grand planning, more double-talk…while the rents remain stubbornly high. Image credit: NEWS CANADA.

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

Sean Fraser’s recent recommendation to cap the number of international students might have caused whiplash in certain quarters. Because, wait, wasn’t he advocating for more, more and more international students just a few weeks prior?

Ah, but then he was immigration minister and now he is housing minister. But what is Marc Miller, the current immigration minister, to make of this? Is it a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand doth, or are they both hand-in-hand in some grand plan that is beyond our ken?

Because Miller is busy announcing measures (initiated by Fraser) to make more workers with experience in homebuilding occupations eligible for permanent residence through Express Entry. “Carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, roofers and others involved in homebuilding will have more opportunities to apply for permanent residence in Canada and bring their skills to Canadian worksites.”

He is also announcing a tax-free First Home Savings Account to help “put home ownership back within reach of Canadians across the country” with nary a thought as to how those who are being flown in to build these homes will ever afford homes of their own any time soon with reports of 30, 40, or even, God help us, 90-year mortgages otherwise known as the “infinity mortgage”. Those who already own homes are dealing with the nightmare scenario of their monthly payments doubling or more.

Hundreds of thousands of international students are dealing with skyrocketing rents. Media reports cite the average rent for a one-bedroom space in Toronto as over $2,500. 

A hearbreaking story of a woman posting notices on lampposts in downtown Toronto looking for affordable housing – she would do chores to help defray the cost of rental, she said – had a happy ending with Community Neighbourhood Group stepping in to help.

Habitat for Humanity, whose mandate is to help low-income, working families by providing them with the opportunity to purchase their own home, is now helping people earning $100,000.

Other not-for-profits are all doing their part, but unless there’s a major rethink on policies at all levels of government, we are going to continue to see more passing of the buck.

More of Justin Trudeau’s “I’ll be blunt, housing isn’t a primary federal responsibility”. But, someone please remind our beleaguered prime minister, immigration is.

Finance minister Chrystia Freeland had a similar response for Toronto mayor Olivia Chow, that she should look to the Ontario government for help.

Once upon a time, places like Barrie offered larger homes for a fraction of what they cost in Toronto. Now I see ads for semis “from $799,990”.

So now we’re looking for someone to blame. International students! Newcomers!

They are driving up the demand and thus the prices, is the new refrain. However, “immigration accounts for almost 100 per cent of Canada’s labour force growth, helping address labour shortage,” according to IRCC.

In an article dated August 10 in Newmarket Today, Joseph Quigley wrote of  175 more purpose-built rental homes in Newmarket, thanks to support from multiple levels of government.

Billed as “affordable”, the rent for a one-bedroom apartment of 576 sq. ft will be $1,728 and be available to those whose household income does not exceed $82,980. While the price is inclusive of the amenities in the building – a gym, lounge spaces, movie theatre, games room and more – water and electricity are excluded.

Was I the only one who wondered how this was considered affordable? Turns out, not so.

Readers’ reactions included questions about cosy relationships with developers, and comments about how the federal government caused inflation and high interest rates.

A selection, below:

“They neglected to mention that the extra charges for the necessities (ie: all utilities, parking, locker, and even visitor parking) are extra. They want to charge $155/month for one parking spot! After adding in all extra charges there really isn’t much savings at all. In fact I just rented a beautiful condo that ended up cheaper than this!”

“How is this affordable??? Definitely not for a senior on just the government pension. An exciting news story would be about REAL affordable housing for seniors.”

“If a person working minimum wage can’t afford it, it is not affordable. What a joke.”

Stuart Thomson, The Hub’s editor-in-chief posted on July 6 that as record numbers of foreign students come to Canada, experts are urging a rethink of the program. Excerpts from that post, below:

“The Canadian government counted more than 800,000 foreign students in Canada at the end of last year, a 31 per cent increase over the previous year. These students represent an extraordinary boon to universities and colleges, paying higher tuition and juicing the schools’ coffers while provinces cut or freeze post-secondary funding. The government estimates that foreign students spend more than $20 billion per year in Canada, on school fees and other consumer spending.”

“At least with some of the colleges, they have grown substantially without any plan to house people,” said Mike Moffatt, a professor at the Ivey Business School at Western University.

He said the provinces should demand a five-year plan from post-secondary institutions that would lay out targets for international students. The provinces could reject the plan if adequate housing wasn’t available, or they could require the schools to build residences for the new students.

Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo who specializes in labour markets and immigration, pointed to the large difference in estimates by Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey (LFS) and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) data on Canada’s temporary resident (TR) population in a new C.D. Howe Institute report, Canada’s Missing Workers: Temporary Residents Working in Canada.

“For housing market analysts, accurate estimates of the TR population are critical for gauging housing demand; and for labour economists, the contribution of this group to alleviating labour shortages and possibly also to distorting wage outcomes of workers in the permanent resident (PR) population is equally important,” he says. “As this population continues to surge, the significance of this measurement issue is critical.”

Something (or someone) can either be the solution or the problem, they can’t be both. So, are immigrants the solution to all our problems or are they the problem itself?

Depends on who’s talking.