Canada's immigration dilemma: the benefits of not growing

By Frosty Wooldridge

Each week, I talk with Canadian writer and my friend Tim Murray who lives in British Columbia. He drills into Canada’s population crisis by hitting the nail on the head.  This week, he told the story of Canada’s dilemma.

High Housing Prices in Ontario’s Cities Are Inversely Correlated with High Unemployment

Could you give us an overall perspective of Canada’s growing population crisis?

“I was interested to read the research provided by Peter Goodchild that compared the list of the 15 Ontario cities that had the lowest unemployment with those 20 Ontario cities that have the lowest house prices,” said Murray.  “The two lists appear mutually exclusive. I would interpret this data through the prism of my own personal experience and in light of the last Canadian Census Report, and conclude the following.

“There are advantages to living in economically “depressed” localities. One of them is that the cost of housing is lower. Since housing costs for the typical Canadian can eat up anywhere from 40% to 70% of their disposable income, if those costs (in the form of mortgage payments, rents and/or property taxes) are lower, then so is the cost of living. Of course, if you are unemployed and living in a depressed area, these lower housing costs do not suffice to offset your lack of income.

“This is the reason that so many young people have left smaller rural or hinterland communities in Canada, communities like mine, which were once buttressed by a strong resource industry (forestry, mining or fishing). The latest census report, which takes a snapshot of the country’s demographic profile for 2011) is therefore somewhat deceptive. Yes, Canada has the fastest growing population in the G8 group, having grown 6% between 2006-2011, but the rampant growth in some major urban centres conceals the rapid de-population of outlying areas, which have lost their economic foundation. As demographer Ryan Berlin of “Urban Futures” put it, people are caught either in an upward spiral or a downward spiral. So what is the answer?

“Well, it is certainly not to continue promoting rapid population growth through mass immigration— for several reasons. We may be able to encourage and entice immigrants to depopulated regions, but it is doubtful that we can ‘direct’ them there given the mobility rights that are guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And even if we could, we could not force immigrants to remain in those regions. After all, there is a reason why Canadians are leaving them. They have to have a viable economy to employ them–and retirees in those communities need a viable economy to employ the people who would provide them with needed services. With a 61 year old body and a growing number of medical complaints, I can attest to the fact that it is brutally difficult to live like Robinson Crusoe or Daniel Boone in a small, relatively remote community.

“This is something that Green Party leader Elizabeth May seems not to understand. On the one hand, in responding to complaints that Canadian cities are straining under the pressure of government-induced population growth, she has proposed that immigrants be sent to small town regions crying out for people. But on the other hand,  like other ‘green’ and ‘progressive’ politicians in Canada, she argues that bigger and denser cities can grow and be ‘green’ at the same time. 

“Allegedly, according to the official environmentalist party line, urbanites of such cities have lower per-capita carbon footprints. Therefore, to save the planet we need to “urbanize” it and restructure our cities. That is a polite way of saying that we must herd outlying rural people into growing cities and squeeze them as tightly as we can. While most folks would describe this fate as bleak and claustrophobic, Greens describe it as life in a vibrant, ‘walkable’ and efficient ‘eco-dense’ and green city.  Minus chickens and backyard gardens of course.

“Unfortunately, Mother Nature does not care about ‘per capita’ but TOTAL emissions, TOTAL energy consumption and TOTAL waste. Reducing per capita waste and consumption by half while doubling the population level is absurd and illogical. Moreover, it is not certain that the Green contention about lower per capita emissions is true. If urbanites in Vancouver, Calgary or Toronto or London, England for that matter, emit less ‘carbon’, what of the carbon emissions and waste that is expended by the offshore factories that export the products that these affluent, green and progressive urbanites consume?

“Who should be ‘credited’ with the ecological damage—-the producers or the consumers? And what about the End of Oil? Many analysts like Canada’s Richard Embleton and Rick Belfour would argue that viable post-carbon Canadian cities of the future cannot exceed 20,000 citizens—or thereabouts. That would make the “Greenest City in The World”—Vancouver, or at least Metro Vancouver– overpopulated by a factor of one hundred.

“But what about that old chestnut, that we need population growth to support our social safety net, and that continued mass immigration will preserve our age structure? Simply put, that argument is dead wrong, and has been demonstrated to be wrong by at least two studies, one done by the C.D. Howe Institute only a few years ago.  What will support our aging population is not more people, or more immigrants or even “more young people”, but higher productivity from the people who work, along with perhaps, an upward adjustment in retirement ages.

“Each additional Canadian, whether coming from the airport or the local maternity ward, will impose infrastructure costs of roughly $500,000 in his or her lifetime. This is money that could and should instead be deployed in investing in more efficient technology and better training. And speaking of better training, let’s deal with another old chestnut, that Canada has a shortage of ‘skilled” workers.

“The truth is, we have never taken a proper inventory of our needs. It is just taken as a ‘given’ that robust economic growth—-which we also assume to be a certainty despite the very real prospect of financial collapse and rising energy prices—will require an influx of ‘trained’ workers. But what of the Canadians who have wanted the opportunity to be trained but have been passed over for the quick fix of air-lifting skilled staff from overseas? What of First Nations youth—a vast untapped, neglected and growing demographic—- have they been offered the education, the trade skills that this future economy will demand? If you want an answer to that question, just ask the National Chief of the Assembly of Nations Shawn Alteo. His answer would be an emphatic “No!”

“How ironic it is that the politicians of all four major parties and the apologists for the Immigration Industry typically invoke the “We-are-all immigrants, only-the-First-Nations-people-are-true-Canadians” argument to justify their maniacal determination to pursue 1% compounding annual population growth for Canada? It is obvious that the welfare of these “true Canadians” is not among their top priorities. Instead of locating training and educational facilities and opportunities close to native reserves, which for the most part suffer 70-85% unemployment rates and third world conditions, they hand out temporary visas by the fist-full to workers that foreign corporations find convenient to import.

Meanwhile, big-city Mayors like Vancouver’s quintessentially “green and progressive” Gregor Robertson speak with a forked tongue. On the one hand they brandish census statistics about their cities’ impressive growth as proof that they are liveable and attractive, and boast about their efforts to paint this growth ‘green’ with conservation measures and transportation decisions whose benefits will be quickly erased by that same growth.

“But then, on the other hand, they wine about the lack of federal funding to offset the costs of growth. More funding is required for ESL training, immigrant services, infrastructure, relief from traffic congestion—-the usual laundry list of complaints. But never once does Robertson, or any Mayor or City Councillor in the land—save Toronto’s Rob Ford—dare to address the source of these problems—-immigration-driven growth. No wonder, anyone that with that kind of courage would be swarmed by the media, with the CBC leading the charge. Still, it didn’t do Ford any harm at the polls, did it?”

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You may reach Tim Murray: http://sinkinglifeboat.blogspot.com or http://biodiversityfirst.googlepages.com, said, “I came upon an orchestration, the environmental movement, and all the musicians were playing violins to the tune of “Overconsumption, overconsumption, overconsumption.” They refused to play any other tune or use any other instrument to compliment that narrow repertoire. Apparently some corporate donors were paying them to be a one-trick pony.