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Are Immigrants Really to Blame for Canada’s Housing Crisis?

We’re far too eager to pin high prices on newcomers. It doesn’t get to the root of the problem

As housing has become increasingly unaffordable in Canada, Canadians have come to see high levels of immigration in recent years as the primary driving force behind the trend. The 2025 Environics Institute survey of attitudes toward immigrants showed that a majority (56 percent) of respondents thought there was too much immigration. Among those respondents, 27 percent named the pressure immigrants put on housing supply and prices as the reason for their opinion.

So, to what extent are immigrants responsible for Canada’s housing problems? The short answer is that immigration does increase the demand for affordable housing. However, it is not the main cause of the current “crisis.”

Over the past thirty years, national and international developments have reduced housing supply and changed people’s ability to access the housing market. For example, governments have withdrawn from housing supply management, and economic restructuring has affected household income and housing affordability. These changes have occurred in tandem with the financialization and globalization of property markets.

As a result, reducing immigration may reduce the demand for housing, but improving affordability requires more than that. There may also be significant downsides to reducing immigration. For example, it could exacerbate other issues, such as the aging workforce and the shortage of skilled workers in sectors like construction and health care, as well as higher education funding.

Not all problems that involve immigration are primarily “immigration problems.” What else is going on that’s affecting housing affordability?

What are the effects of declaring something a crisis? In this instance, declaring an affordable housing crisis implies that housing was affordable until now but is suddenly not. Is that true (for everyone)? It also implies that the source of this error can be identified and should be fixed.

The reality is that explaining the decline in housing affordability in Canada is complicated because the factors involved are complex and hard to separate. Neoliberal economic policies, which prioritize free markets and limit government intervention, have taken root. Such policies involve privatizing industries, deregulating the economy (e.g., loosening labour laws), cutting welfare programs, and reducing labour union power. This affects housing affordability because poorer labour conditions and reduced welfare affect people’s incomes. Such policies also impact house prices by moving housing supply out of government control and reducing regulations on construction and real estate, including foreign investment.

Theoretically, neoliberal policies benefit states by encouraging increased market activity. This, in turn, expands tax revenue (even under lower taxes), boosts employment and consumer spending, and attracts foreign direct investment. The trade-off to these benefits, however, is the abdication of state control in the economy and social provision, which means that it is hard for governments to step back in and address any acute problems in housing provision that may arise.

The shift toward neoliberal housing policies in Canada has gone hand in hand with the financialization of real estate. Financialization refers to the growing influence of financial motives, markets, and institutions on the economy. Housing is viewed less as a basic need and more as a financial asset for generating profits.

Canadian governments actively promoted the country’s real estate as an investment opportunity, particularly to Pacific Rim countries like China, starting in 1973. Large business networks, such as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, facilitated real estate investment, especially from Hong Kong ahead of its 1997 handover to China. This helped turn cities like Vancouver and Toronto into “global........

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