The years follow one another and look alike: every winter we talk about the housing crisis that is coming our way. They blame the rise in the price of materials, the slowness of the construction of social housing or even landlords who unduly increase the price of their rents.
Posted at 11:00 a.m.
The housing crisis being a highly complex issue, there is no doubt that all these factors make this crisis worse. It should be noted, however, that one factor in particular is always, or almost, kept silent. It is that of our excessively high immigration thresholds.
Jean-François Perreault, Vice-President and Chief Economist of Scotiabank, recently explained this to the Finance Committee in Ottawa: “Since 2015, we have seen a huge increase in immigration which has amplified the pressure on the real estate market. »
It is even the immigrants themselves who bear the brunt of this pressure, because when they arrive here, their first instinct is obviously to look for accommodation, but very often with little success.
We are therefore in a paradoxical situation where the proposals to increase immigration, that is to say policies that are usually described as “pro-immigration”, actually harm the quality of life of immigrants.
The governments of Quebec and Canada seem to ignore this reality, while Quebec raises its threshold to 70,000 immigrants in 2022 and Justin Trudeau’s Canada remains on course for its objective of 400,000 immigrants per year.
These immigration thresholds were announced without any real resistance by other politicians or by journalists. Conversely, a decline invariably triggers a media cacophony where everyone shares their thoughts on the issue. Let us remember the outcry a few years ago, when François Legault had modestly proposed to lower the thresholds for two years and then raise them.
Progressive waterproofing
How can we explain our complacency with proposals to increase immigration, when these exacerbate the housing crisis? It is that there is a form of progressive privilege which gives its supporters a certain privilege in the political, journalistic and intellectual fields.
We attach unequivocally positive moral value to the increase in immigration thresholds, which prevents us from questioning it.
The moral posture, the one that is generally associated with “openness to others”, seems to be sufficient to justify proposals which nevertheless pose real problems.
On the other hand, when a drop is on the table, it is presupposed that bad feelings animate it and that one must in this sense push its defenders to admit them. Anyone who defends such a policy will be hounded in press briefings. We will also not hesitate to show the scarecrow of the labor shortage without saying that the increase in immigration only partially alleviates the shortage, because it in turn requires more services like hospital care, schools, teachers, etc.
One can understand this unequal treatment by the fear of certain media or certain political personalities to see such a debate giving rise to xenophobic comments. Such fears say a lot about the inability of some to distinguish between immigration as a social issue and immigrants as individuals.
A privilege to be revoked
Let’s understand that this is not to criticize the fact that the premier of Quebec is questioned at length when he talks about immigration cuts. All of our policies have to be logically and factually justified, which is healthy for our democracy.
The problem is rather our indolence towards the proposals to increase immigration. It is high time to end this progressive privilege. Each proposal, however virtuous it may seem, must be questioned.