{"id":642,"date":"2016-11-27T18:39:11","date_gmt":"2016-11-27T18:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=642"},"modified":"2016-11-27T18:39:11","modified_gmt":"2016-11-27T18:39:11","slug":"the-end-game-what-the-immigration-lobby-has-in-store-for-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=642","title":{"rendered":"The End Game: What the Immigration Lobby Has in Store for Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

The End Game:<\/span><\/h1>\n

What the Immigration Lobby Has in Store for Us\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It has been an ongoing story that never lets up.\u00a0\u00a0Ordinary working metro-Vancouverites, including double-income families, are being displaced by big foreign money and in-migration.\u00a0\u00a0Not only can they not afford a down payment or qualify for a mortgage, in a growing number of cases they can\u2019t even\u00a0\u00a0pay the rent, assuming they find an apartment or basement suite.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This housing crisis has provided ample fodder for local news media.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, rare is the night when it doesn\u2019t\u00a0\u00a0pop up\u00a0\u00a0as a news item. Or so it seems.\u00a0\u00a0Case in\u00a0\u00a0point:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yesterday evening, November 21, 2016,\u00a0\u00a0a BC Global TV news reporter asked real estate magnate Bob Rennie about how he would address Vancouver’s lack of affordable housing. His answer: increase supply (surprise, surprise).\u00a0 How do you do that? By changing zoning laws so that houses could be converted to multi-family suites.\u00a0\u00a0Another form of densification.<\/p>\n

The following night, November 22nd<\/sup>, BC Global TV news made Premier Christy Clark’s announcement to create affordable housing its top news story. Her plan?\u00a0 Spend $855 million to create 5,000 social housing units involving 68 new projects.<\/p>\n

5,000 units. That sounds like a lot. Except when you consider that in addition to the number of foreign-born migrants\u00a0coming in from other provinces, 30,000 freshly minted New Canadians are settling in the city every year via the airport express.\u00a0\u00a0Repeat.\u00a0\u00a0While 5,000 units are being built, 30,000 extra people are inserted into the housing market each year.\u00a0\u00a0This conjures up the image of Charlie Chaplin in the factory scene in \u201cModern Times\u201d\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=DfGs2Y5WJ14<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0. No matter how hard Charlie tries to keep up with the flow,\u00a0\u00a0he can\u2019t move fast enough to deal with the stuff that it is coming at him down the conveyor belt.<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s do the math.<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s err on the conservative side and assume that each unit will be occupied by 4 people.\u00a0\u00a0That would\u00a0\u00a0mean that those 30,000 extra people would require 7,500 units,\u00a0\u00a0or 625 units every month for a year.\u00a0\u00a0In other words, just 8 months of business-as-usual immigration would wipe out the benefit of 5,000 social housing units.\u00a0\u00a0This is not to say that these immigrants will dwell in the new units, but that they will increase the pool of city residents looking for housing, thereby bidding\u00a0up real estate prices and pushing more Vancouverites out of the market.\u00a0 Premier Clark might as well use the $855 million to pay for their moving vans.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: Increasing the supply of housing in the context of continuing large-scale immigration is FUTILE. It is the Labour of Sisyphus. Like\u00a0bailing water out of a leaky boat. Even a cretin should understand that, but apparently politicians and realtors have failed to reach even that modest mental bench mark.\u00a0\u00a0Or could it be that the rewards of\u00a0not<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0understanding it are too great to resist?<\/p>\n

Obviously the solution is to reduce demand. How do you do that? Simple. You lower the federal government’s immigration and refugee intake. “But wait”, they will say, “immigration policy is not in our jurisdiction”.\u00a0 True. But do you ever hear a Vancouver Mayor or a city councillor call for a halt to immigration? Or at least a moratorium to allow Canada’s urban centres to catch their breath? A pause that would buy some time so all levels of government can repair infrastructure or improve social services or expand medical services or train more doctors or build more residential care facilities?<\/p>\n

The answer is “No”.\u00a0\u00a0Not now. Not ever. Immigration is the Elephant-in-the-Room .\u00a0\u00a0The love of mindless\u00a0\u00a0growth that dare not speak its name.\u00a0The very idea of reducing demand is outside the box.<\/p>\n

Instead, what we have heard from city politicians across the land is a perennial demand\u00a0\u00a0that Ottawa cough up federal funding to cope with the growing demands that immigration-driven population growth inflicts upon their property taxpayers.\u00a0 Taxpayers who are not only expected to fork over the money for infrastructure,\u00a0\u00a0transit and social service costs and\u00a0 ESL\u00a0 training——but move over and squeeze tighter\u00a0\u00a0and tighter for an endless queue of migrants whom the self-serving immigration lobby insists we need.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In essence, the Conference Board of Canada, the federal cabinet, the Mayor, the city council and the Bob Rennies of this world are issuing city residents an ultimatum:\u00a0\u00a0Either submit to ever increasing density and live in a shoebox—-or leave.\u00a0\u00a0Make Vancouver a “Sanctuary City” for illegal migrants, but offer no sanctuary for Canadian Vancouverites who cannot afford shelter.<\/p>\n

Growth mongers need to answer several questions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What is your end game?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What is your population target?\u00a0\u00a0How many people do you want to live in this country?\u201d 40 million? 50 million? Or is it John McCallum\u2019s wet dream of 100 million citizens?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If so, where do you intend to fit them in?\u00a0\u00a0The wetlands that comprise 14% of Canada? Or the lakes that make up 7.6%? Or the permafrost tundra, or the boreal forest upon which global climate stability depends, or the mountains which together account for another 73% of this \u201cbig\u201d country of ours?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Canadian Shield alone occupies 48% of the land. Think of undulating hills of spongy swamps, decaying peat,\u00a0\u00a0and thick taiga forest on top of rock dotted with thousands of lakes—not an ideal site for the town home accommodation of ten million refugees and 50 million immigrants,\u00a0\u00a0wouldn\u2019t you say?<\/p>\n

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And then there is that one little detail, that provision in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which guarantees freedom of movement.\u00a0\u00a0How do you intend to command so many millions of newcomers to make these God-forsaken regions their home? Answer: You can\u2019t.\u00a0\u00a0And if you can\u2019t command them or direct them, how would you entice them? And if enticed, how would you make them stay?\u00a0\u00a0There is a reason so few Canadians live there. Other than the sub-zero temperatures and the black flies, that is.\u00a0\u00a0They need a viable economy.<\/p>\n

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Economics compels 80% of us to live in cities. The trouble is, only 5.2% of Canada is arable, and of that , only .5% is classified as \u201cClass 1\u201d, half of which is found in Ontario. And wouldn\u2019t ya know it, most of it is close to that\u00a0\u00a0beacon of mass immigration, the GTA.\u00a0\u00a0B.C.\u2019s Fraser Valley is also in the cross-hairs.\u00a0\u00a0Canadians have already lost one fifth of this priceless Class 1 farmland to development. Do you propose that that continue? No?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

OK then.\u00a0\u00a0We\u2019ve ruled out the uninhabitable 94%, and we don\u2019t want to lose any more of our prime arable\u00a0\u00a0land.\u00a0\u00a0And mass immigration is off the table.\u00a0\u00a0So that leaves us with but one option.\u00a0\u00a0Pack\u2019em into urban sardine cans.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That\u2019s it, isn\u2019t it? The end game.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Tim\u00a0\u00a0Murray<\/em><\/p>\n

November 22, 2016<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The End Game: What the Immigration Lobby Has in Store for Us\u00a0     It has been an ongoing story that never lets up.\u00a0\u00a0Ordinary working metro-Vancouverites, including double-income families, are being displaced by big foreign money and in-migration.\u00a0\u00a0Not only can they not afford a down payment or qualify for a mortgage, in a growing number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[488,490,219,489,99],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions\/643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}