Ray Birt 🇮🇷

The Canadian government's mass immigration policies of the last 10 years were highly regressive. Having seemingly learned nothing, they are dead set on turning back on the taps rather than letting the country heal. On cue, the media has begun parroting the government's narrative and gaslighting anyone who disagrees. This suggests that they remain blissfully unaware that the Bank of Canada has written extensively about how (mass) immigration has negatively affected housing, rents, inflation, labour supply, wages, and productivity. So I've compiled an inexhaustive list to help these folks. 🏘️- Monetary Policy Report, October 2023 🔗bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/u… ▶️"The strength in rent and other housing costs is partly due to strong housing demand, which is supported by rapid population growth, and a structural lack of housing supply" 🏘️- Staff Analytical Note, December 2023 🔗bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/u… ▶️"The rise in immigration is nonetheless contributing to pressures in inflation components linked to house prices, given that it is adding more to housing demand than to housing supply in the context of structural imbalances in the Canadian housing market." 🏘️ - Speech by Toni Gravelle, December 2023 🔗bankofcanada.ca/2023/12/econ… ▶️"When a country’s population is growing quickly, the supply of housing also needs to increase to avoid a worsening in affordability. Shortly after immigration began ramping up in 2015, Canada’s vacancy rate—a measure of how many apartments and houses there are available to rent or buy—started to fall." 🏘️ - Monetary Policy Report, January 2024 🔗bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/u… ▶️"A larger increase in newcomers than in the past is adding pressure to the structural supply constraint in housing. This has helped to push the overall housing vacancy rate to record lows, which has underpinned house prices and led to higher rents (Chart 3-A)." 🏘️ - Staff Analytical Note, April 2024 🔗 bankofcanada.ca/2024/04/staf… ▶️"Meanwhile, the composition of immigrants coming to Canada has changed considerably since 2015. Historically, growth of the immigrant population in Canada came mostly from permanent residents....While the wages of the earlier immigrants are closer to those of Canadian-born workers and have been increasing over time, those of non-permanent residents are much lower and have fallen over this period. Because real hourly wages are typically correlated with labour productivity, this piece of evidence is consistent with non-permanent residents working in less productive occupations." 🏘️ - Monetary Policy Report, July 2024 🔗bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/u… ▶️"The increase in housing demand from newcomers is being felt across all types of housing, but the largest initial impact tends to be in rental markets. This is because most newcomers start out as renters." 👨‍🌾 - Staff Analytical Note, May 2025 🔗bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/u… ▶️"if newcomers’ conditional wages reflect their labour productivity, the productive capacity of the Canadian economy grew less than it would have if recent newcomers had the same socio-economic characteristics as in the past." ▶️"However, this gain has been particularly acute for certain industries such as accommodation and food services, business, building and other support services, and retail trade. Labour productivity in these industries—which are comprised of a sizable share of lower-skilled occupations—is lower than the average in the business sector." 👨‍🌾 - Staff Analytical Note, May 2025 🔗bankofcanada.ca/2025/06/staf… ▶️"Youth—individuals 15–24 years of age—represent a significant portion of the overall increase in unemployment since the start of 2023. This is a larger share than during other periods of rising unemployment (Chart 5). This is partly due to the high number of immigrants, who are generally younger than the rest of the population." 👨‍🌾 - Speech by Nicolas Vincent, May 2026 🔗bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/u… ▶️“The labour market is particularly challenging for young people”: The 2022–24 influx of young newcomers “intensified competition in Canada for lower-skill and entry-level jobs”. Youth unemployment has risen above 14%, and he expects it may normalize now that immigration has been cut. 🏘️ - Staff Article, September 2026 🔗bankofcanada.ca/2026/09/spar… ▶️"Strong population growth drove asking rents higher in recent years"