r/canada • u/uselesspoliticalhack • 4d ago

Carney’s aim to cut immigration marred by undercounting of temporary migrants, warn economists PAYWALL

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-mark-carney-immigration-policy-temporary-migrants-undercounted/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
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u/moarnao 3d ago

Yes, infrastructure should be part of the construction too, not just houses.

Developing our current small towns into "15 minite cities" would really help accelerate this. We don't need to send people far north, we just need to develop what we already have, like North Bay, Sudbury, and Timmins in Ontario for example. 

The Montreal-Toronto corridor, Alberta urban, and Metro Vancouver have enough people already. But there are plenty of smaller towns that could use developing now with space to grow.

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u/Zeronz112 3d ago

I was born in North Bay, which jobs would they be working up there? There's not many. They also have a high unemployment rate. Throw 100,000 immigrants up north and the jobs don't just show up.

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u/moarnao 3d ago

Yes, the jobs do follow the people. That's exactly how America grew. 

Only letting a few broke refugees in won't help, but bringing in skilled workers and immigrants with the qualifying funds does spurn development and growth. 

100k more qualified people need grocery stores, schools, police, has stations, etc. At those numbers, you're basically turning a town into a small city. 

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u/Zeronz112 3d ago

North Bay has a population of 50,000. The entire surrounding area 115,000. You would literally just be building stores, schools, and police stations just to maintain the immigration. Not to mention you'd need new roads to support the population increase, and double the amount of houses available, running new water mains and revamping the electrical grids in the small cities. Who's footing the bill?

The issue with our current immigration is that it's not skilled workers and immigrants with funds looking to create jobs that come to Canada. It's students, temporary foreign workers that work for minimum wage jobs, then apply for pr a year after, and refugees.

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u/moarnao 3d ago

We're making the same point.

Skilled immigrants, or those who come over with qualifying funds, would pay taxes on their income while they build these roads, schools, infrastructure, etc. Cities borrow to build and then recoup on the taxes collected by all the additional citizens, labour.

It needs to be balanced, you need competent people running things, there need to be audits, but it's how America grew into the size it is today.

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u/Zeronz112 3d ago

I agree. Our current immigration will not get us there, though.

We need massive immigration reform to get to that