[chrisfosterelli]

> We have way too many people!

We're one of the least densely populated countries in the world with one of the lowest birth rates in the world. If you don't think immigration makes sense for cultural reasons that's fine, but with respect to healthcare and housing don't be under any illusion -- reducing immigration would exacerbate these issues by giving us an even more heavily aging population.

[xboxnolifes]

healthcare availability, housing availability, and immigration rate are not related by population density, but by population growth and infrastructure growth. If your infrastructure growth doesn't outpace your population growth, it doesn't matter how dense or not dense your country is.

[chrisfosterelli]

Our infrastructure is constrained because of systemic policy decisions, not because we can't practically grow it fast enough. These policy constraints would become significantly more painful under a declining, aging population.

For healthcare, we don't pay our GPs enough and we overwork them. Physicians have been either leaving the profession or moving into non-GP roles (specialists, etc). Since healthcare is taxpayer funded, reducing the number of working age tax payers and increasing the number of aging people in need of health care is going to make this worse.

For housing, we allow too much control of housing at the municipal layer and it's become a complex, bureaucratic mess to build anything anywhere. The dirty secret is that no federal government wants to step in and be the one to fix this because then it would cause housing prices to decrease and a terrifying large percentage of aging, voting population has the majority of their net worth in their house with "downsizing" forming the majority of their retirement plan. Reducing the population isn't going to fix this, we'll end up with less people who can build houses and more people who are either dependent on high house prices for their retirement or poor and in need of taxpayer programs (of which there will be less tax payers to fund) to support themselves.

These are obviously complex issues and I'm simplifying to some degree, but those are at least two key relationships worth really calling out here with respect to population. There's others, but my core point is that simplify cutting off population growth is not going to fix either of these -- it'd probably make them worse.

[Nomentatus]

Things could always be more efficient; but the housing shortage is now Canada wide, throughout jurisdictions. It's systemic, pretty much everywhere. You're right that letting low birthrate rule has problems (see Japan) but not such extreme ones, impoverishing so many.

[chrisfosterelli]

> but the housing shortage is now Canada wide, throughout jurisdictions

Yes. That's what I mean by "systemic" too. The housing policy problems are a result of incentives and the same incentives exist across municipalities in Canada. Municipalities also don't exist in isolation; for example as Vancouver prices out people they move to nearby areas like Kelowna and exacerbate the problem there.

It's not a simple matter of efficiency. The bureaucracy is a symptom of the incentive structure. Councils have the vast majority of control over new buildings and they're not incentivized to approve them. Councils are mostly homeowners and are voted in by mostly homeowners, who mostly don't want to see their neighbourhoods change or the price of their single detached homes decrease.

[addicted]

Existing infrastructure is not designed for an aging population.

But it’s good that you point out the real problem which is a lack of infrastructure.

[jwond]

> We're one of the least densely populated countries in the world

There’s a reason most Canadians live close to the southern border. Most of Canada’s territory isn’t particularly friendly to large-scale human habitation.

[chrisfosterelli]

Yes. It can both be true that large portions of Canada are not ideal to live in and also that we have a really low density. If you've ever been to London, Tokyo, New York, or anywhere really you'd see that Canada is not dense.

[m00x]

I agree, it's definitely not density. Vancouver and Montreal density is ~900p/km. NY is 2000+, London is 1500+. The Canadian boomers are cucking the younger generations with NIMBYism. Nothing gets built so they keep their house value.

[Gigachad]

Total population means less than growth rate. The country may be sparsely populated but construction is the main bottleneck. It’s hard to spit out hundreds of high rises quickly enough.

[chrisfosterelli]

Construction is the bottleneck because nothing ever gets approved, and when it does it takes years, and nobody who makes decisions is incentivized to fix this. It's not primarily because we can't physically build fast enough (although COVID has made this more notable lately, that's fair). The incentives for this situation get worse with an aging population because we lose working age people who can work construction.

[wpdev_63]

Why must we compare ourselves to 3rd world countries that have terrible quality of life issues?

Maybe the canadian economy isn't able to support a decent quality of life and these population levels. Seriously go visit these countries these people are from and ask yourself, would you like canada to turn into this?! Let's be honest with ourselves.

Don't worry you can just label me a racist and devolve the argument around that instead of the fundamental issues with immigration today. Canada is going to turn into the countries where these people are from if there aren't cut backs.

[Pasorrijer]

Have you met any first or second generation Canadians? Yes, people bring their culture and their traditions. And by the time you get 1 or 2 generations down, aside from a few different holidays Canada's school system has done a fairly good job of normalizing the population.

Immigration is a major source of Canadian talent and innovation... A lot of the systemic issues around larger populations aren't related to immigration, as others noted, but to short sighted, "get me elected" policies for our political "leaders".

[gregjor]

Thanks, Canada, for giving us The Weeknd!

[wpdev_63]

I didn't say anything about culturism in that comment.

My point still stands that the problems of overpopulation in the countries these people are from is just going to bring that problem to canada. The economy cannot support them.

Canadians today aren't having children so why are we bringing these people in? How is this in anyway moral?

[Pasorrijer]

I don't understand how using phrases like "these people" doesn't bring culturism into the conversation. You clearly stated that "these people bring that problem to Canada", implying that their culture is the primary problem and that culture will be travelling with them to Canada.

As for the economy not being able to support them, I think this statement ignores the fact that every immigrant that meets Canada's criteria brings some useful skill. We immigrate farmers, doctors, nurses, engineers, lawyers. All of whom add to the economy in a way that, generally, expands the economy to support their presence.

Now, we have major policy mismatches, where trained individuals cannot work in their field due to obscure policies and regulations, but that's tied to misguided national policies that exist independently of individual immigrants.

[Nomentatus]

Depends where you are. I thought this until I lived in Toronto, and met many third generation Canadians with distinct accents.

[chrisfosterelli]

Do you consider the United Kingdom, France, Japan, the United States, and Germany third world countries? These are all examples of countries with more density than us. We have similar density to Kazakhstan, Bolivia, Turkmenistan, Chad, and Libya. Density is not the direct determinant for a decent quality of life.

[wpdev_63]

>Do you consider the United Kingdom, France, Japan, the United States, and Germany third world countries?

Ahh here comes the part where you call me a racist and immediately think your morally superior to everyone else in the thread lol.

Your trying making equivalence between western 1st nations that share most of the cultural values that exist in Canada vs 3rd world poor nations with population numbers higher than the whole north american continent that we should immediately treat the same otherwise it would be racist.