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Majority of Canadians want fewer immigrants in 2027: Nanos (www.ctvnews.ca)
submitted 4 days ago by to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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A majority of Canadians want the country to accept fewer immigrants and temporary residents next year, according to a new Nanos Research survey commissioned by CTV News, as the country continues to grapple with immigration levels and their impact on housing, services and the economy.

The survey found that 52.3 per cent of respondents believe Canada should accept fewer immigrants and temporary residents in 2027, compared with 33.5 per cent who want the numbers to remain about the same.

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[–] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 child)

I'd push back on the reason for inceeasing the immigration targets. In my opinion the demographic problem is just marketing. I think the real driver is keeping wages low. A shrinking working population means increasing wages which means lower profits and need for higher capital investment in productivity increasing assets. Most business don't want that if they can get away with making good profits without that capital investment, because it lowers the profit rate on their capital. Business is the major donor and lobbyist of the cnservative and liberal parties in Canada so it makes sense to see these governments enacting business-friendly policy at the expense of wages. And to bring this back to the demographic problem - its sustainable solution has always been increased productivity - the exact thing lower wages work against. Adding fresh population is at best a temporary fix as that population soon conforms to pre-existing demigraphic trends. So in my opinion - demographics are a false pretext for increased immigration. (In this economy. In a less market oriented economy increasing immigration can absolutely fill a large landmass without depressing wages or productivity in existing population centres.)

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago

    I agree with most of this, its definitely a big part of the equation. I'd push back on your push back (fun!) When you say "the reason for increasing immigration targets". The reasons, as there are many. The exact balance of which, varies from place to place and industry to industry.

    We do have profiteering dominating executives and boards. Wage suppression is a standard operating proceedure.

    We also have systemic thinkers, like pension funds and governments who understand our demographic crisis is real. This is a macro problem.

    We have complicating factors like the housing crisis that make life painful for everyone, as no one can afford to move for marginally paying jobs, and the lack of security in a hire and fire on a whim environment make comitting any expenses to move where there is a labour shortage too risky for.

    Housing affordability needs fewer immigrants, and profits and demographics need more. There are compelling arguments about the complex interelations between economic factors, like building more houses than immigrants solves the dilemma, but here too the problem is doing so is uneconomical. We already have a bailout of shoebox condo developers who made too much product that no one wants.

    It's a classic case of neoliberal market driven ideology failing catastrophically. The numbers never added up, because proponent economists omit what they don't like. E.g limits to growth.

    There are many possible solutions. We could get governments responsible for social housing again, like they used to be. Governments don't need profits, they need systemic balancing. They can justify social housing by savings on medical care, justice, crime, and by improving labour mobility and affordability for businesses. A low wage isn't a problem in a free or geared to income appartment. If there are enough, it is easy to move from one place to another to fill a vacant job.

    Governments say trades are in demmand, but tradespeople say they are out of work or stalled at apprenticeships. Another market failure. Governments can either bridge the gap and tax accordingly, or tell business to fuck off and fix their own problems. With this group its always have your cake and eat it too. They want no taxes, no regulations, but lots of subsidies and bailouts and novel avenues for labour exploitation worldwide but protection from foreign competition. Hypocrites can eat ass.

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