Demanding Foreigners

A recent BC-CTV story on the “housing crisis” in Vancouver is titled: 'Bold action' coming on housing, Vancouver mayor says. The gist of Mayor Sim’s bold action is building more units, faster:

"We have a supply and demand imbalance in the city of Vancouver. How we address that is we build more housing. If we do not build more housing, this will get worse," Sim said.

Sim’s announcement comes after BC Housing Minister, Ravi Kahlon, set out new building targets in his September 26, 2023, press release and selected 10 municipalities to start:
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• City of Abbotsford – 7,240 housing units
• City of Delta – 3,607 housing units
• City of Kamloops – 4,236 housing units
• District North Vancouver – 2,838 housing units
• District of Oak Bay – 664 housing units
• City of Port Moody – 1,694 housing units
• District of Saanich – 4,610 housing units
• City of Vancouver – 28,900 housing units
• City of Victoria – 4,902 housing units
• District of West Vancouver – 1,432 housing units

​However, it is a mistake to try to address affordability by simply increasing the number of residences in some of the most over-priced markets in BC. Those in power appear to understand the supply part of supply and demand, but they are overlooking the source of the demand part.

By the time they build the mandated 60,123 units in the 10 jurisdictions listed, twice as many more will likely be required. This is because the federal government has revved-up Canada’s immigration intake. According to Moving 2 Canada, BC received 61,215 immigrant residents in 2022, with almost 80% (48,375) of those settling in the Vancouver area. There is no reason to think that this will not continue, with numbers growing even larger.

In general, increasing immigration is good policy that addresses employment vacancies and cultural diversity, but if it drives an increase in the cost of housing then it is negative in that regard. In BC, why do we allow 80% of the pre-Canadians to compound Vancouver’s unaffordability?

The matter is obviously complex, and Vancouver does need workers for jobs that our existing labour force doesn’t want, primarily because of low pay for that employment … but a large number of the new residents don’t want that work either. They have been accepted into Canada primarily because they have high-paying skills; could those educated/trained workers not be shared with the rest of the province?

As set out on the Provincial Government’s Welcome BC website, the two biggest sectors that need skilled immigrants are Technology and Health Care. Technology job locations are largely dependent on the employers involved, but Health Care bodies are needed in all regions of BC.

Would we be offending some kind of civil rights rule by initially restricting the settlement of immigrants with Health Care backgrounds to places outside the Greater Vancouver area? Such a measure would be temporary until such time as they become full Canadian citizens, about 3 years after landing.

Many doctors and nurses from other countries find that they cannot practice medicine in BC because of our different standards. At the same time BC health care facilities are understaffed, as a CBC report on the University Hospital of Northern BC highlights. If qualified-but-unlicensed immigrants were contracted to work at that Prince George hospital as part of their permanent resident agreement, they would do so under a supervised university program until achieving provincial certification. The same arrangements could take place all over the province.

This is a win-win-win situation. The immigrant has well paid employment in their field and eventual accreditation, the hospital has an able staff member, and Vancouver has a unit of housing that hasn’t been taken up during the process.

When the individual gains citizenship they would then be free to reside anywhere in Canada, but given that they then have an attachment to their workplace, their community, and their low cost housing, they may stick around. The average price of a single family dwelling in Prince George is about $500,000, while in the Greater Vancouver area it is over $1,200,000 (closer to $2,000,000 in the City of Vancouver proper).

Such an idea may be naïve or politically incorrect, but there are surely other ways that the in-flow of new immigrants can be redirected from “housing crisis” hot-spots like Vancouver. Adding more supply without diminishing the demand may look good in the news releases today, but that band-aid will fall off tomorrow exposing an even greater problem.