PM Justin Trudeau's Canada

[afransen]

Canada imposed caps on foreign students first, by a few months.

As to whether the cuts are comparable......

Canada will issue 360,000 foreign student visas next year, supposedly. Canada being 1.67x the population of Australia....... A comparison would ask are we cutting to above/below the adjusted Australian number?

The answer is below. The Aussie number x 1.67 would see Canada issue 450,900 new student visas next year, and we will come in 90,000 below that.

To be clear, I think there's room to cut further, and to essentially limit foreign students entirely to the University stream, no one in Community College.

I would be okay with foreign students studying at colleges, without a work permit or path to permanent residency. I don't think many would take up that offer, but I don't see a reason to preclude it.

 

[Northern Light]

I would be okay with foreign students studying at colleges, without a work permit or path to permanent residency. I don't think many would take up that offer, but I don't see a reason to preclude it.

Well, we have to deal w/things as they are, for the moment, or will be (announced) which is that students will be permitted to work 24-hours per week, off campus.

***

I do see another issue though, which is housing. We don't currently require Community Colleges to provide enough housing to house any international student (and any domestic student requesting it).

This is a huge part of the current pressure on our housing market, which I think needs to be alleviated.

If you want to permit community colleges to recruit international students with a zero-hour work permission (off campus) and a requirement that the colleges build the required on campus housing, I could get behind that. But as you note, I think there would be limited uptake by both the students and the colleges.

 

[Richard White]

I do see another issue though, which is housing. We don't currently require Community Colleges to provide enough housing to house any international student (and any domestic student requesting it).

This is a huge part of the current pressure on our housing market, which I think needs to be alleviated.

A few years ago when I did security, my coworkers were foreign students from India.

They were looking to rent a house and asked if I knew somewhere that would rent to between 5 and 10 students in the same house. Apparently, they thought this was a viable option for them.

What irked me the most about that situation was that they could not afford to support themselves here and thought it was ok to work under the table given the limits on working hours.

 

[Northern Light]

Mike Moffatt turning the federal government on blast for the TFW program.

Limits on the TFW program aren’t good enough. Part of it needs to go

“Canada should place strict limits on the occupations eligible for the temporary foreign worker program and require firms to pay above-market wages for any workers it does bring in to

www.thestar.com

Key Bits:

He also notes that employers are using the TFW program to bring in 'Administrative Assistants' in the higher wage category........over 3,000 of them, and that this will have a wage suppressing effect where there is no justification such as an acute labour shortage in an essential profession.

He takes further aim at the Closed permitted system:

He's on point across the board.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I propose that we cancel the entire TFW program outside of agricultural programs. Restaurants, retailers and other potential employers of young Canadians should not have the option of driving down wages and job opportunities by tapping the developing world for cheap and desperate labour.

And while we’re at it, drop total immigration to below 200k a year until we have housing availability and affordability for those already here. Two working adults making a combined $140k (still well above the Canadian average income) should be able to afford a home and start a family. Until they can, apply the brakes on newcomers.

When I think back to my own immigration story I feel we had it so easy compared to newcomers today. We arrived in 1976 from the UK, my Dad worked at JWT in the UK and transferred to their Toronto office, bringing us over a few weeks later. We rented for a few years and then in about bought a semidetached in Mississauga for about $80k with >15% mortgage. With stable housing, employment and family life we did okay. By 1996, twenty years after arriving I’d graduated university and was making about $50k as a global sales manager. By 1998 I married my now wife, and with a combined income of about $85k we bought a semidetached here in Cabbagetown for about $280k. And we’re still here today, 26 years later. That’s how immigration works, make it affordable and a path to generational success.

But I now worry for my own children, both soon to graduate from post secondary schools. They want to move out and start their lives, not live into their 30s in some multigenerational family commune. Our government(s) by not managing housing and immigration supply and demand have made housing unaffordable and white collar entry level jobs unattainable. How did anyone in Ottawa think this was sound policy?

 

[evandyk]

If you take the federal definition of "affordable housing" (30% of gross income spent on housing) the median family in Toronto ($97K before tax) could afford a $420,000 mortgage at 5%. Even with some latitude for it being more expensive to live in a major city, we are decades away from incomes catching up to home prices, even if prices do not go up at all. Toronto (and the rest of Canada, though not quite has badly) has screwed an entire generation by enriching the older generation.

All of that wealth being dumped into the hands of boomers is going to trickle down eventually (my son, being the only child of an only child, is in line for two downtown Toronto houses), but not in a way that helps young people evenly or fairly, and not when they need the help.

PS Do you have room to build a laneway house? It's actually super fun to have an intergenerational backyard (mine is with a friend, not family, but it's a great arrangement). Intergenerational single house would not be my cup of tea, that's for sure.

 

[picard102]

How did anyone in Ottawa think this was sound policy?

Because people who own houses voted for it.

 

[Northern Light]

Because people who own houses voted for it.

Now hold up a minute. Did anyone in the last Federal election remember a public discussion, or anything in the Liberal platform along the lines of "In order to sustain high housing price growth, and lessen productivity and wage growth, a Liberal government will irrationally increase the number of TFWs and International students (allowing the latter to work full-time as well), so that Canadians will be collectively worse off" ?

I ask, because I read the platform and don't remember this piece in it.

I don't think Canadians voted for the current immigration policy, it was never up for debate.

 

[picard102]

Their policy was to do little to nothing to bring down housing prices, and it continues to be propping up values at their current exorbitant levels.

Trudeau says housing needs to retain its value

Many residents have been priced out of Canada’s housing market, but for a large number of Canadians, their house is a vital asset for retirement and passing on wealth

www.theglobeandmail.com

“Housing needs to retain its value,” Mr. Trudeau told The Globe and Mail’s City Space podcast. “It’s a huge part of people’s potential for retirement and future nest egg.”

 

[gabe]

All of that wealth being dumped into the hands of boomers is going to trickle down eventually (my son, being the only child of an only child, is in line for two downtown Toronto houses), but not in a way that helps young people evenly or fairly, and not when they need the help.

As long as the boomers stay healthy and don't have to go into nursing homes or retirement homes. Those monthly fees will eat up the house money in no time.

 

[PinkLucy]

Just had a family member go into a retirement home. $65k a year. The million dollar house will cover him for a while (he’s 90). Neighbours also just went, although they are younger at 85. Their rationale was that kids’ inheritance will be reduced, but they won’t be having to run around for the parents.

 

[evandyk]

When people say their home is their retirement plan, that's what they mean. And although that scenario is going to repeat itself many times, there's still going to be enough left over for a large transfer of wealth to millenials over the next 20 years.

 

[lenaitch]

All of that wealth being dumped into the hands of boomers is going to trickle down eventually (my son, being the only child of an only child, is in line for two downtown Toronto houses), but not in a way that helps young people evenly or fairly, and not when they need the help.

In your son's situation, the homeowner(s) could hold a private mortgage for him, have a line of credit to create cash for him or do the reverse mortgage thing (essentially the same - not sure of the differences) or simply gift money if either homeowner has liquid assets. Any mortgage/LoC gets reconciled at estate time.

 

[picard102]

As long as the boomers stay healthy and don't have to go into nursing homes or retirement homes. Those monthly fees will eat up the house money in no time.

Don't worry, Harris and company will just raise the fees until boomers kids need to pay out of their pockets.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Any mortgage/LoC gets reconciled at estate time.

He who dies with the most debt wins.