The parallels between the Canadian and Australian governments on immigration and housing are remarkable.
In 2022, Canada’s then-immigration minister, Sean Fraser, viewed immigration as a competition for global talent that he was determined to win.
Canada had just witnessed a record population increase of approximately 800,000. Fraser declared that Canada will accept 465,000 permanent residents in 2023, 485,000 in 2024, and 500,000 in 2025.
“If we don’t do something to correct this demographic trend, the conversation we are going to have 10 or 15 years from now won’t be about labour shortages; it’s going to be about whether we have the economic capacity to continue to fund schools and hospitals and public services that I think we too often take for granted”, Fraser stated in 2022.
Canada then experienced a record immigration boom, increasing its population by more than 1.2 million last year, resulting in an unparalleled housing shortfall.
This enormous disparity between population demand and supply drove rental vacancy rates to all-time lows and rental inflation to new highs.
Despite creating Canada’s housing crisis by unsustainable immigration levels, slick-talking Sean Fraser was appointed housing minister in July 2023.
“I know we are going to solve the housing crisis because I know what Canadians are capable of”, Fraser stated during his appointment.
There is a significant mismatch between Canada’s population increase and the time required to provide housing, services, and infrastructure such as health care, schools, roads, public transportation, etc.
Shortages impact all levels of society, but they are most obvious in the cost and availability of housing.
Australia has charted a similar course.
In 2022 and 2023, then-Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil promised to increase immigration, citing skills shortages and a “race for global talent”.
O’Neil argued that immigration had been the “special sauce in our national story” and advocated for more.
She stated that Australia needed to transition “away from a system which is almost entirely focused on how we keep people out to one that recognises that we are in a global war for talent”.
Australia thereafter experienced the largest increase in net overseas migration in its history.
A huge imbalance emerged between population demand and housing supply.
Rental vacancy rates plummeted to historical lows, while asking rents surged.
After causing the rental crisis through reckless immigration, slick-talking Clare O’Neil was appointed housing minister in August 2024.
O’Neil even had the audacity to state, “Australia is in a housing crisis because we have a housing shortage. To answer this crisis, our country needs to build more homes”:
O’Neil intentionally ignored the fact that Australia is experiencing a housing shortage because, as Home Affairs Minister, she imported nearly one million net overseas migrants in just two years, overwhelming supply.
It is almost as if Australia’s Albanese government drew inspiration from Canada’s Trudeau government.
Both countries are grappling with housing crises that will take years (if ever) to resolve and stagnating productivity economies with plummeting living standards.
Both nations have experienced severe “capital shallowing” as a result of population growth driven by high immigration rates outpacing investment in business, infrastructure, and housing.
Australian capital shallowing
Canadian capital shallowing
Canada and Australia are textbook examples of what not to do if the goal is to improve incumbent residents’ living standards.
Canada’s mass immigration folly has seen the Trudeau government collapse in the polls and face electoral oblivion.
After engineering the largest increase in immigration in history and the rental crisis, Canada’s former immigration minister turned housing minister Sean Fraser has resigned from cabinet and will not run in next year’s election.
Australia’s counterpart, Clare O’Neil, should do likewise, and the Albanese government deserves to be booted from office for engineering the rental crisis via reckless immigration levels.
