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Immigration accounts for over 94% of Canada’s population growth in Q2 of 2022

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Re: Immigration accounts for over 94% of Canada’s population growth in Q2 of 2022

#71
post #4

Canada has an immigration rate 10x the rate of the US but any discussion of lowering this is considered racist. I have a top 5% income but I will never own a house in my life and can’t access a family doctor. We have way too many people! The population is expected to be 50% foreign born or children of immigrants by 2040 and it’s already majority foreign born in our biggest cities. I honestly don’t expect this country…

Healthcare would be much worse without immigrants.

In Canada, immigrants make up

    23% of registered nurses
    35% of nurse aides and related occupations
    37% of pharmacists
    36% of physicians
    39% of dentists
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/ca...

Re: Immigration accounts for over 94% of Canada’s population growth in Q2 of 2022

#72
post #4

Canada has an immigration rate 10x the rate of the US but any discussion of lowering this is considered racist. I have a top 5% income but I will never own a house in my life and can’t access a family doctor. We have way too many people! The population is expected to be 50% foreign born or children of immigrants by 2040 and it’s already majority foreign born in our biggest cities. I honestly don’t expect this country…

> Canada has an immigration rate 10x the rate of the US

I assume you mean per-capita? Because legal immigration alone into the US is about 1.8 million/year and has been for almost a decade, excluding one or two pandemic years.

Re: Immigration accounts for over 94% of Canada’s population growth in Q2 of 2022

#75
post #3

Curious on the distribution of the duration of immigrants in Canada. Any data points on this?

This survey said up to 30% of young immigrants may leave within two years.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/young-immigrants-may-leave-can...

I have heard this elsewhere, that Canada loses a lot of its immigrants either to return or another destination (most likely the US).

The rate of immigration is not as high as the headline number for this reason, but 20% of Canada's population is still foreign born which exceeds the historical peak in the US during the 1900s and 1910s.

Re: Immigration accounts for over 94% of Canada’s population growth in Q2 of 2022

#76
true story I honestly considered emigrating from the us to Canada as a diesel engine mechanic when I was a greenhorn. Kirkland lake, a mining company, flew me up for two weeks to see things in their repair pool and even offered relocation.

from my observation blue collar work in Alberta at least is seen as equal or better than white collar. you're treated sincerely and honestly at the job site and there is real respect and concern for your safety and productivity on the job. there is a very tangible and defined career path you can take, with lucrative benefits and meaningful lasting retirement.

I chickened out at 19 because I didn't understand the implications of the citizenship, which requires a pledge of allegiance to the queen. old timers at my shop managed to scare me out of it but to this day I still dream of Canada.

Re: Immigration accounts for over 94% of Canada’s population growth in Q2 of 2022

#77
post #9
post #4

Canada has an immigration rate 10x the rate of the US but any discussion of lowering this is considered racist. I have a top 5% income but I will never own a house in my life and can’t access a family doctor. We have way too many people! The population is expected to be 50% foreign born or children of immigrants by 2040 and it’s already majority foreign born in our biggest cities. I honestly don’t expect this country…

You have too many people in a country with the average population density less than a person a square mile? This is such strange thinking- your solutions should be build more houses and train/immigrate in more doctors! This country is doing better than it ever has in history. The immigrants Canada lets in are a gift to the economy. If neighboring US is anything to go by, 90 of the top 500 US unicorns ($ 1 billion+) h…

I have discovered my ideal population density is far lower than most people. Perhaps yours is higher?

Re: Immigration accounts for over 94% of Canada’s population growth in Q2 of 2022

#78

I’m surprised people are going where housing is so expensive, where are they living?

Housing in Canada is expensive for North America. Relative to incomes it remains cheap.

That’s not true at all.. Almost nobody with a house in Canada has the income to buy it at current prices. The only way most people can do it is because they bought a long time ago or got an inheritance from somebody who bought a long time ago

Re: Immigration accounts for over 94% of Canada’s population growth in Q2 of 2022

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have way too many people! We're one of the least densely populated countries in the world with one of the lowest birth rates in the world. If you don't think immigration makes sense for cultural reasons that's fine, but with respect to healthcare and housing don't be under any illusion -- reducing immigration would exacerbate these issues by giving us an even more heavily aging population.

healthcare availability, housing availability, and immigration rate are not related by population density, but by population growth and infrastructure growth. If your infrastructure growth doesn't outpace your population growth, it doesn't matter how dense or not dense your country is.

Our infrastructure is constrained because of systemic policy decisions, not because we can't practically grow it fast enough. These policy constraints would become significantly more painful under a declining, aging population.

For healthcare, we don't pay our GPs enough and we overwork them. Physicians have been either leaving the profession or moving into non-GP roles (specialists, etc). Since healthcare is taxpayer funded, reducing the number of working age tax payers and increasing the number of aging people in need of health care is going to make this worse.

For housing, we allow too much control of housing at the municipal layer and it's become a complex, bureaucratic mess to build anything anywhere. The dirty secret is that no federal government wants to step in and be the one to fix this because then it would cause housing prices to decrease and a terrifying large percentage of aging, voting population has the majority of their net worth in their house with "downsizing" forming the majority of their retirement plan. Reducing the population isn't going to fix this, we'll end up with less people who can build houses and more people who are either dependent on high house prices for their retirement or poor and in need of taxpayer programs (of which there will be less tax payers to fund) to support themselves.

These are obviously complex issues and I'm simplifying to some degree, but those are at least two key relationships worth really calling out here with respect to population. There's others, but my core point is that simplify cutting off population growth is not going to fix either of these -- it'd probably make them worse.

Re: Immigration accounts for over 94% of Canada’s population growth in Q2 of 2022

#80
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have too many people in a country with the average population density less than a person a square mile? This is such strange thinking- your solutions should be build more houses and train/immigrate in more doctors! This country is doing better than it ever has in history. The immigrants Canada lets in are a gift to the economy. If neighboring US is anything to go by, 90 of the top 500 US unicorns ($ 1 billion+) h…

Sounds like you're not very familiar with canada. We have a very narrow populated strip within about 50-100 km of the us border, and then a vast uninhabitable area in the north. Overall population density is a meaningless metric

The Atlantic coastal regions are pretty moderate and they're also sparsely populated. There's plenty of space in southern Ontario/Quebec, in Edmonton and Calgary...
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