“It hurts”: the discourse on immigration and housing bothers

In recent weeks, politicians and economists have been warning the public against immigration, which is in part responsible for the “housing crisis.” At the heart of the discussions, numbers are invoked — reception capacity, math question — but asylum seekers and people who work in immigration see this as a risk.

La Converse called on them to react to the possible effects of the ambient discourse.

Nina Gonzales* has a slight trembling voice. The subject that is currently in the news is causing her some outrage.

“Politicians are capable of speaking and saying harsh and cruel words against immigrants. People forget that we fled our country of origin [...] and that if we talk about temporary workers, it's because we are coming here to try to improve our quality of life, for us and our family,” says this activist for the rights of workers without status on the phone. “It hurts! ”

A single mother herself and without status, she cannot explain the current discourse well.

Recall, among other statements, that the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilièvre, repeated that the reception of immigrants should be linked to the construction of housing.

Beyond the housing issue, the burden of immigration, especially irregular immigration, on social services is also mentioned. All this in the wake of the publication of a National Bank study on reception capacity, which estimates that Canada is rushing into a “demographic trap.”

Then, on January 18, 2024, the Prime Minister of Quebec, François Legault, sent a letter to Ottawa asking for help in the face of “the influx of asylum seekers” which could lead La Belle Province to a “breaking point”.

Since then, Canada's Minister of Immigration has announced new assistance for provinces to receive asylum seekers in the amount of $362 million.

As for the Table de consultation of organizations serving refugees and immigrants (TCRI), there is no question of staying silent. The grouping of more than 155 organizations working with asylum seekers and refugees denounced the instrumentalization of the latter “to explain the crisis in public services” and said that “announcing a “breaking point” means ignoring the multiple roots of this crisis” in a press release published the day after Quebec sent the letter to the federal government.

“Presenting the arrival of asylum seekers as a crisis for the Quebec state sweeps under the carpet the fact that these people are themselves in crisis and that they are fleeing situations of persecution and violence in several forms,” nuances Louis-Philippe Jannard, coordinator of the Protection component of the TCRI in an email sent to La Converse.

“From the start, it's not about denying the housing crisis. This is a real issue that creates challenges for a large number of people, including newcomers, in all immigration categories.”

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Drifts and dangers

“It is not at all with a debate like this that we will solve any public policy problem whatsoever. I think that the fact that this debate is biased like that and that it can be interpreted in such a way as to target specific communities has only negative effects,” says Adèle Garnier, professor in the Department of Geography at Laval University. “I absolutely do not see the positive side of this debate. It is positive to talk about immigration in a public space and to want to discuss the situation and the importance of temporary migration.”

The researcher from the Research Team on Immigration in Quebec and Elsewhere (ERIQA) deplores the inaction of governments in the face of calls from specialists in the field who declare that it is necessary to look into immigration planning. The current discourse simply leads to “further stigmatizing these communities [immigrants or asylum seekers]. This endangers social cohesion and does not solve the problems of the housing crisis at all,” she said.

A fear shared by several of our interlocutors, including Nina Gonzales.

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Numbers that don't tell the whole story

For her part, retired researcher and professor of sociology at the University of Montreal Carole Yerochewski recalls a statement made by former Quebec Immigration Minister Jean Boulet on immigrants. During the 2022 election campaign, he said during a radio debate that “80% of immigrants go to Montreal, do not work, do not speak French or do not adhere to the values of Quebec society.”

Therefore, mentions Ms Yerochewski, “you can express yourself like that in the public square; you can start to reconnect with speeches that are in fact xenophobic”.

“[Immigrants], we come here to improve our lives and the lives of our children. It's appalling and unacceptable that people say that so easily in public,” adds Nina Gonzales.

After speaking out, Ms. Yerochewski continues, “the second step is for economists to come up with figures that support these short sentences. The problem is that you will always find economists to support what you say and others to go against [your idea] because economics is not an exact science.”

The third step, again according to the sociologist, is the appearance of measures.

“We could say for decades that the housing crisis was coming, but the current scene is very strong.”

Moreover, given the confusion in migration statuses — between permanent residents, temporary workers, asylum seekers, international students — it is difficult to say who this discourse is aimed at.

That said, one in three non-permanent residents lives in housing that is not suitable, according to a document published by Statistics Canada. This means that they live in a home with fewer rooms than the size of their household. A figure far from 9% for the general population.

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Beware of amalgam!

In Quebec, some commentators quickly picked up on the hazardous “amalgam” between immigration and the housing crisis, such as columnists Michel C. Auger, Aurélie Lanctôt, Paul Journet, and Émilie Nicholas to name just a few.

“People tend to mix it all together, all these statuses,” says Richard Ryan, an affordable housing consultant and former city councillor in Montreal from 2009 to 2021.

“Those who don't come in through the front door now outnumber those who come in on a regular basis. The issue of immigration thresholds, which is mainly linked to the concept of regular immigrants, is being removed.”

The man who has also worked on integration with newcomers explains that this shortcut is very popular with politicians, because it allows them to “remove the real sources of the problem.” Joined to her Quebec office, Adèle Garnier deplores the fact that this is simplifying a “very complex” question. “There is a kind of focus, a visibility of the numbers. And that's really [present, for example with] the question of thresholds — with numbers. That, for me, is still quite new in the Canadian debate,” she maintains. This strategy of numbers allows politicians “to avoid xenophobia” because they do not blame any particular community, but rather “categories”.

“We say, for example, that there are too many temporary migrants,” continues the professor in the Department of Geography at Laval University. However, I think it is dangerous [because of] the impact on public debate, because it is clear [...] that there will be individual impacts and that some communities will feel more targeted than others.” For Louis-Philippe Jannard, from the TCRI, there is also a danger in confusing immigration with social problems.

“Now, immigration would be responsible for the disastrous state of health and education networks, in addition to explaining the housing crisis. These associations are false and likely to fuel certain anti-immigration currents or movements, in particular with regard to people seeking asylum, who are already among the most marginalized populations.”

Nina Gonzales also notices this and is worried about herself and for those who are in the same precarious situation as her or who are without status in the country.

“A newcomer does not know his rights, he does not know the regulations. This climate can create space for landlords to allow themselves to be abusive, to increase the rents to their liking,” adds Nina Gonzales, recalling that newcomers and immigrants already often experience discrimination in housing.

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An affordability crisis

While the lack of housing seems to be a factor mentioned in political discourse to explain the “housing crisis”, this reading ignores affordability issues, according to some people consulted by La Converse.

“The affordability crisis is distinct from the supply crisis,” believes Richard Ryan, who recalls that “the crisis is multifactorial.” “[It is] as complex as the immigration issue. Tomorrow morning, you may say: “We are going to welcome fewer immigrants”, but where are you really going to cut? ”

The Institute for Research and Socio-Economic Information (IRIS) also recalls that the average rent increased by 3.6% in Quebec from October 2021 to October 2022 when the tenant remained the same, but by 13% when the tenant changed.

“This difference highlights the fact that rental housing owners take advantage of the end of a lease to increase the rent to a level that exceeds the increases recommended by the Administrative Housing Tribunal”, reads the IRIS report.

The same organization also published a warning in December 2023 in a blog post entitled “Housing and immigration: beware of shortcuts.”

“This way in which politicians say that migrants are behind all the problems of society... it's heavy... putting all the weight on our shoulders like that...” says Ms. Gonzales.

“It is a government that is not capable of building social housing; it is not the fault of the immigrants, it is the fault of the governments, it is a crisis that has been there for a long time. Canada is a country of immigrants; therefore, it must develop its vision for the future.”

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Regularization of people without status: the fear of an about-face

In December 2021, the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, asked the then Minister of Immigration to propose a way to regularize the situation of people without status. Urged by organizations working in the field, such as the Migrant Rights Network, Minister Marc Miller finally announced in December 2023 that a “broad program” to regularize undocumented migrants would see the light of day. There are estimated to be 500,000 people without status in Canada (it is impossible to confirm these figures).

A question, however, arises: will the current speech cause the minister to back down? This is what some of the people we consulted fear.

“The problem is that we are seeing the prospect of a regularization program recede and, it must be emphasized, this does not make the cause of regularization sympathetic, which was very popular at the end of the pandemic, recalls Ms. Yerochewski. We knew that they were undocumented migrants and asylum seekers who had continued to work and to expose themselves. This speech no longer makes them friendly...”

Describing the current discourse that combines the housing crisis and immigration as quite “violent,” Ms. Garnier is not surprised. “This discourse is part of a dynamic of polarization of immigration in Quebec [which we have observed] quite a bit since 2018.” A polarization that opens the door to a change of direction, even within public opinion.

Professor Garnier cites a survey conducted last October by Environics. “Canadians are now significantly more likely than a year ago to say that there is too much immigration in the country” — a reversal of a trend that has been observed for 30 years. “For the first time, an increasing number of Canadians are questioning the number of immigrants coming to the country, rather than their identity and origin,” the researchers point out.

Faced with this hardening of public opinion on the issue of immigration, coupled with some announcements made recently (think of the measures that will affect international students, in particular the 35% reduction in federally granted study visas), the promise of regularization seems weakened.

“But during the pandemic, it was immigrants, temporary workers, it was us who were there,” recalls Nina. We think that we can fix our situation in Canada, [...] but in the end it is difficult for people without status or immigrants to live as if we were criminals. [...] I don't understand, we left our home because of the war, but to say that housing is the immigrants [...] I think politicians are living in a bubble.”

• An alias intended to protect the anonymity of this asylum seeker.

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