© Reuters. An asylum seeker walks down Roxham Highway to cross into Canada from the U.S. in Champlain, New York, U.S., February 28, 2023. REUTERS/Christinne Muschi/File Picture
By Wa Lone
TORONTO (Reuters) – The dream of constructing it large in Canada is popping right into a battle for survival for a lot of immigrants because of the excessive price of dwelling and rental shortages, as rising emigration numbers trace at newcomers being pressured to show their again on a rustic that they selected to make their adopted dwelling.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made immigration his predominant weapon to blunt Canada’s large problem of an growing older and slowing inhabitants, and it has additionally helped gas financial progress. That drove Canada’s inhabitants up at its quickest clip in additional than six a long time this yr, Statistics Canada mentioned.
However now a reversal of that development is progressively taking maintain. Within the first six months of 2023 some 42,000 people departed Canada, including to 93,818 individuals who left in 2022 and 85,927 exits in 2021, official information present.
The speed of immigrants leaving Canada hit a two-decade excessive in 2019, in keeping with a latest report from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC), an immigration advocacy group. Whereas the numbers went down throughout pandemic lockdowns, Statistics Canada information exhibits it’s as soon as once more rising.
Whereas that could be a fraction of the 263,000 who got here to the nation over the identical interval, a gradual rise in emigration is making some observers cautious.
For a nation constructed on immigrants, a rising development of individuals leaving Canada dangers undermining one in every of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau authorities’s signature insurance policies, which granted everlasting residency to a document 2.5 million folks in simply eight years.
Reuters spoke with a half a dozen individuals who have both left the nation or are getting ready to take action, due to the excessive price of dwelling.
Cara, 25, who got here to Canada in 2022 as a refugee from Hong Kong, now pays C$650 ($474) in month-to-month lease for a single-room basement condominium in Scarborough in jap Toronto, which is about 30% of her month-to-month take-home wage.
“I by no means realized that dwelling in a Western nation, you’ll be able to solely afford renting a room within the basement,” she mentioned. She declined to offer her actual identify as a result of she fled Hong Kong after taking part within the 2019 protests triggered by a now-abandoned extradition invoice.
Cara works three part-time jobs, making Ontario’s minimal wage of C$16.55 per hour, and goes to an grownup studying college to earn college credit.
“I nearly use each single penny,” she mentioned, whereas in Hong Kong she was in a position to save a couple of third of her month-to-month wage.
To make sure, emigration as a proportion of Canada’s general inhabitants touched a excessive of 0.2% within the mid Nineteen Nineties, and presently stands at about 0.09%, in keeping with official authorities information.
Whereas the numbers are small now, legal professionals and immigration consultants warn {that a} pick-up might solid a shroud over Canada’s enchantment because the one of many favoured locations for newcomers.
“There’s an actual significance in creating optimistic experiences in these early years” so that individuals resolve to remain, mentioned Daniel Bernhard, CEO of ICC.
Immigrants blame the sky-rocketing housing prices as the largest cause for his or her choice to contemplate a brand new nation.
On common in Canada about 60% of family earnings could be wanted to cowl dwelling possession prices, a determine that rises to about 98% for Vancouver and 80% for Toronto, RBC mentioned in a September report.
Myo Maung, 55, migrated to Canada from Myanmar over three a long time in the past and made a profitable profession as an actual property agent and a restaurateur. However he plans to retire in a rustic like Thailand since he can not see himself sustaining his dwelling commonplace in Canada on his retirement earnings.
Phil Triadafilopoulos, a political science professor specializing in immigration on the College of Toronto (UofT), mentioned fast immigration is exacerbating the housing scarcity.
“It isn’t shocking then that individuals who have choices… both go to a different nation or return dwelling having had a style of the state of affairs in Canada,” Triadafilopoulos mentioned.
Final month Trudeau’s authorities capped its goal for brand new residents at a half million per yr from 2025 onwards to ease strain on the housing market.
However for some it’s too little too late.
Justinas Stankus, 38, who got here to Canada from Lithuania in 2019 to pursue a doctorate in political science on the UofT is contemplating relocating to Southeast Asia the place the price of dwelling is decrease and the place he might nonetheless pursue his analysis.
Stankus, who pays C$2,000, together with utilities, for a one-bedroom condominium, mentioned rising dwelling bills has made it troublesome to afford primary requirements.
“With a graduate scholar’s funds, it isn’t sustainable,” Stankus mentioned.
Cara from Hong Kong says she feels trapped and desires to go. “Each time I get an opportunity to go away, I’ll take the possibility.”
($1 = 1.3718 Canadian {dollars})
(This story has been corrected to handle Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by his full identify and title, and so as to add that Scarborough is a part of Toronto in paragraph 9)