Canadians Welcome Immigrants but Worry About Impact on Housing and Health Care: Survey

A person walks by a row of houses in Toronto on July 12, 2022. Cole Burston/The Canadian Press

Most Canadians say they support the federal government’s immigration quotas but that issues surrounding housing, the cost of living, health care, and transportation needs to be addressed first, according to in-house research conducted by the Department of Immigration.

“Participants said that their communities need to plan for accommodating more immigration and more permanent residents,” said the report “2022–2023 IRCC Annual Tracking Qualitative Research,” delivered in March and first obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.

“They pointed to a variety of things that they saw around them today that they felt were not working well and would need to be addressed, including housing shortages and affordability, the rising cost of living, infrastructure and transportation, the healthcare system, and the education system.”

The federal government’s latest Immigration Levels Plan set quotas at 465,000 immigrants in 2023, another 485,000 next year, and 500,000 in 2025. The report found most participants felt new immigrants made their communities a “better place to live,” appreciated learning from and about new cultures, and that this was ‘the Canadian way.'”

“Conversely, a few participants said that although they were generally in support of immigration, they were hesitant to support those targets,” the report said. “They often had concerns regarding how prepared Canadian communities are to accommodate that level of immigration. A few participants were also concerned that the government would not be able to process that number of permanent residents in a reasonable timeframe.”

Participants said there should be a plan to encourage new immigrants to settle throughout Canada and to ensure foreign credentials are better recognized. Also, some said that while the federal government should focus on attracting newcomers with skills related to housing, health care, and skilled trades, they also expressed support for unskilled workers to assist in the agriculture, fast food, and retail sectors.

“However, some participants mentioned that the cost of living was too high for people to support themselves and their families on those types of jobs and that it would not be fair or right to believe new immigrants would want or be able to do those jobs and build a successful future in Canada,” the report said.

It also found there was little awareness of the fact that over 100,000 Ukrainians had come to Canada since Russia’s invasion of its neighbour back in early 2022, despite participants broadly supporting the relocation measures as it was the “right thing to do” to help those in need.

Housing Shortages

In a 2022 report, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimated demand was short of supply by 400,000 homes annually. It said that current stock numbers 16 million condos, townhouses, and single-family residences. “We project that over 22 million units will be required to achieve affordability,” said the report Canada’s Housing Supply Shortages: Estimating What Is Needed To Solve Canada’s Housing Affordability Crisis By 2030.

In 2019, the federal government passed the National Housing Strategy Act to promote construction. According to a May 5 Inquiry Of Ministry, some 106,000 homes have been built to date under the program.

“I do worry about the structural mismatch between supply and demand in Canadian housing,” Peter Routledge, Superintendent of Financial Institutions, testified at hearing of the Senate banking committee in 2022. “It makes it harder for younger Canadians to get in.”

“We have new Canadians arriving and young Canadians leaving home and creating households with about 250,000 households being formed every year in Canada,” said Mr. Routledge. “However we’re probably completing 200,000 to 210,000 houses every year.”