Is the housing crisis pricing out the skilled newcomers Canada wants to attract?
CBC
Ankita Goel was optimistic when she decided to leave her management consulting job in Mumbai in 2019 to follow her husband to Vancouver, where he already had a job in the tech sector.
Four years later, the cost of living in the city has her regretting her choice.
"Housing is unaffordable, groceries are going up, rent is going up as well, and it's making me seriously consider moving out of Vancouver," Goel told Cross Country Checkup.
"I feel it's unfair to new immigrants who leave behind their community, who leave behind jobs in their home country, who leave and everything and come to a new place, and then everything is so difficult for them."
Goel said she's definitely not alone and hears similar reservations from other newcomers she knows from India.
Inflation in Canada is showing no signs of slowing down, and the cost of rent and mortgages continues to rise — leading to an affordable housing crisis across the country.
At the same time, the federal government has increased immigration targets and aims to bring in 500,000 permanent residents per year by 2025. Those figures don't necessarily include migrant workers and international students, who are all looking for housing.
Christopher Ragan, director of the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University in Montreal, told Cross Country Checkup that he thinks it's pretty obvious the government sees immigration as key to Canada's economic growth.
"If you are going to significantly increase the annual inflow of immigrants — and that's exactly what this government has done — then I think you really have to make sure that you've got all of the other pieces in the puzzle working in the same direction," Ragan said.
Vik Singh, an assistant professor in global management studies at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University, said it's possible that highly skilled immigrants researching a move to Canada could start to think twice if the housing crisis doesn't improve.
"Definitely, because they probably have better choices. They have the ability to go to other countries if they're really looking into living there," he said.
Goel said part of the reason why she's staying in Canada is that she's waiting to get her Canadian passport — which will make it easier to apply for an H-1B visa so she can work in the United States.
"I know there's gun crime and stuff, but it's much cheaper, and there's a lot of places you can buy houses there," she said.
Singh said he understands the logic of this approach: "If you look at the process to go to the U.S., it's much easier if you have a Canadian passport."
