I think a lot of this was done with the hope that more immigrants would translate to higher economic productivity, but this simply hasn't been the case. Unemployment rate is 1-2% higher than in the US. GDP per capital is stagnating. Most of the highest skilled workers leave for the US. I don't think the problem is the immigrants per se, but rather our government's addiction to deficit spending and printing money. Not to mention the tacit refusal to enforce anti-trust legislation against the major companies in the country which seems totally corrupt. The number of public sector jobs has ballooned and none of the public services have improved--quite the opposite. Canada needs some major reforms to get out of this mess.
To their credit there has been a movement across the country to scrap single-family zoning restrictions and allow more housing development. Which should improve the housing situation but it's still unlikely the housing market can keep up
> rather our government's addiction to deficit spending and printing money
The deficit spending is clearly to try to buy votes but I think he reading the tea leaves wrong - the average person is way more concerned about inflation, their job, and the economy, and I think this spending is unpopular, even from those who tangentially benefit from the spending!
Capital doesn't place too much emphasis on borders. When a person can double or triple their salary just by moving a few hours south it's easy for all the capital to get concentrated in one place (namely the US)
"Highly skilled" people are highly sought after because, by and large, they are the people most likely to create new capital. Success in creating new capital begets a desire to create even newer capital and so long as the people continue to be successful in capital creation efforts, there is really no end.
Not a whole lot different as to why Silicon Valley hasn't stabilized with Detroit. Of course, Detroit is also interesting here because it provides a cautionary tale as to what happens when capital creation seizes up. That is what Canada is desperately trying to avoid by trying to bring in the "highest skilled" people from other countries.
the important caveat here is the TN visa, which makes it reasonably easy for certain skilled fields to move across the border.
if you're in STEM there is easy a 40% difference in pay, and considerably more on the high end (FAANGM, or similar large Enterprise tier).
by limiting it to high-end, educated work, it also skews the market a lot -- high earners leave, low-to-mid market stagnates. Canada then has to import both high-end talent via immigration, but also low-end Temporary Foreign Workers to do crappy jobs like slinging coffee at Tim Hortons.
Capitalism is not supposed to increase salaries forever. Certain regions are more developed in certain industries and can demand higher salaries in those industries. Thus people move where the jobs are. Brain drain is perfectly consistent with capitalism and an expected affect.
To their credit there has been a movement across the country to scrap single-family zoning restrictions and allow more housing development. Which should improve the housing situation but it's still unlikely the housing market can keep up