Real estate still hot topic in Canada
Speculators, paper flipping and foreign investors are the new norm in real estate, while home seekers are being shut out. Real estate is still out-of-control in the country. Local/domestic buyers are moving farther and farther away in Toronto and Vancouver downtown areas until they can find a home that they afford.
The average selling price for all homes in Greater Toronto are surged to a 33 percent rise from the year before. In 2017, prices are up by 19 percent. A simple semi-detached house in the city is now worth more than $1 million. Prices are growing even faster in the surrounding suburbs. The same applies in Metro Vancouver, sometimes even more.
Canada is deeply reliant on real estate. The industry accounts to over 12 percent of its gross domestic product. In Alberta, a recession and a 9 percent unemployment rate did damage house prices in Calgary and Edmonton. The steadily raising prices have convinced many Canadians that owning a home is a good, stable investment. Canadian culture value home ownership as a stepping stone to adulthood.
The B.C. Council for foreign students cited that British Columbia hosts 130,000 international students with four out of five are housed in Metro Vancouver while two of five now come from China. B.C. is home to 31 percent of all foreign students in Canada. Twenty-four percent of UBC Vancouver’s 54,238 students in 2017 were foreign nationals.
There is controversy looming with reports that the university is allowing international students with lower qualifications into some academic programs. There are some Canadian-raised students who are failing to gain acceptance into in-demand career programs that are in some cases being filled by full-paying foreign students.
The problem of access for domestic students is acute in many of the programs most popular with foreign students, such as economics, business and engineering. The number of professors at UBC has risen marginally, a total of 2,424 in 2016.
A recent laptop incident aboard an American airline may prompt a US ban on large personal electronics on flights from Europe could have benefits for Canadian carriers because Ottawa is not compelled to follow the Americans.
US announced last March an electronics restriction on devices larger than a smartphone on inbound flights from 10 airports, including Turkey, Egypt and United Arab Emirates. The airline industry has raised concerns about the possible expansion of the ban. But it could provide a boost for Canadian airlines if the federal government choose not to follow when it comes to electronic restrictions on flights.
If this ban is implemented in Europe, there is the possibility that Air Canada and Westjet to raise their fares from Europe via Canadian gateways to the United States. Many travelers, specially business passengers would patronize those airlines just to keep their electronic devices. Many are expected to forego their frequent flyer miles if it means that they can be more productive.
However, if there is enough intelligence between the various agencies about threats and increased accidents about exploding laptops, Canada would be compelled the follow the ban initiated by the Americans.
The country is experiencing the fastest rate of ethnic change of any country in the Western world, according to international demographers and Vancouver Sun. Almost seven of 10 Vancouver residents will be visible minorities or non-whites in less than two decades. Statistics Canada confirmed this fact by suggesting that Canada as a whole, at the current rate of immigration will be almost 80 percent non-white in less than a century.
The cities or region that will have the highest levels of of visible minorities will be Greater Toronto, Metro Vancouver, Calgary, Abbotsford-Mission Edmonton and Winnipeg. Victoria and Kelowna will remain less than 25 percent non-white along with Quebec, the Maritimes and rural Canada.
It is expected that minorities will move into relatively white areas and whites generally don’t move into strongly minority areas. A study is currently underway to monitor how whites tend to “unconsciously” move out of areas when non-white immigrants move in. The white depopulation has already occurred in Richmond and Burnaby, Markham and Scarborough in Ontario. It is a fact that while the ethnic population in Richmond, B.C. grew by almost 80,000 people in the last few years, the white population declined by 28,000 people.
The white withdrawal is not yet a problem but newcomers will have less contact with the historic majority of a country. Canada is still a welcoming country and to use the pattern as “white flight” is wrong because the move is not motivated by racism or xenophobia. About 300,000 immigrants arrive each year in this country of 35 million people. The US=\ per capita immigration rate is only one-third to one-half as fast as Canada. Europe is also reducing the in flow of immigrants.
By 2106 it is projected that the vast majority of Canada’s population will be descendants of immigrants who arrived after 2006. If the projection is correct, Canada will be 20 white, 65 percent non-white and 15 percent mixed race. It will become a “majority minority” country by 2060.