Canada’s Immigration Cut Is Lowering Rent And Increasing Wages

Canada has slashed permanent resident admissions by 21%, slammed down caps on the international student and foreign worker streams, and bolstered various restrictions across the board.

While our immigration rate is still disproportionately high compared to other developed countries, and severely out of sync with our own historic rate, these cuts are having an effect on overall population growth – especially because of the significant outflows of temporary residents with expiring visas. Statistics Canada reported that population growth cratered to 0% in the first quarter of the year.

I have long maintained that cutting immigration levels would bring numerous benefits to Canadians of all backgrounds. Recently, I listed ten benefits our new 0% population growth rate should bring about, and suggested that Canada make 0% immigration-driven population growth a permanent policy going forward.

So far, two of the benefits I proposed in that article have been backed up by such eminent Canadian institutions as the Conference Board of Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

Lowering rent

Quoting from a July 8th CMHC report discussing trends in Canadian rental markets:

“The impact of slower international migration is observed in the recent decline in advertised rents. After peaking around mid-2023, advertised rents fell more in CMAs [Census Metropolitan Areas] most exposed to such changes like Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax….The cap on international student intake and adjustments to their provincial distribution are influencing rental demand in British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia…[bolding mine]”

Increasing wages

Quoting from a July 7th Globe and Mail article which discusses a recent report from the Conference Board of Canada:

“The Conference Board of Canada expects wage hikes will pick up speed in the coming years as the pace of population growth slows down…the board also said the federal government’s efforts to throttle immigration levels are starting to show up in the labour market…The labour force grew at a slower pace than total employment in the first quarter of 2025, the report noted, the first time that’s happened in more than two years…

Businesses are going to struggle more to find talent in the coming years as a result, which the Conference Board said will force employers to hire more from Canada’s existing labour pool…More competition among businesses for scarce workers will drive up Canadians’ pay, the think tank argued…[bolding mine]”

Immigration restrictionists were right all along

In June 2024, then Immigration Minister Marc Miller declared that he was “fed up with people always blaming immigrants for absolutely everything” after Quebec Premier François Legault attributed “one hundred per cent of the housing problem” in his province to “the increase in the number of temporary immigrants”. Earlier this week – a little over one year after that comment – Miller tweeted a link to the CMHC’s finding that immigration restriction has eased housing costs: “Immigration caps are contributing to lower asking rents in Canada, CMHC says – The Globe and Mail”.

Why did it take Canada’s political elite so long to publicly acknowledge the connection between population growth and housing? An access to information request from the Canadian Press revealed that public servants warned the government about the impact of mass immigration on housing unaffordability as early as 2022.

If the government had heeded this warning, how many more young Canadians would have been able to buy a house and start a family? How many fewer seniors would have been forced from their homes because of rent increases?

Why not make 0% immigration-driven population growth permanent?

The law of supply and demand – a basic principle taught in first-year economics classes – is finally uncontroversial. We can now begin to question why Canada’s immigration cut is designed to “pause population growth in the short term” only to return to immigration-driven population growth roughly two years from now.

The benefits of immigration restriction are being demonstrated in real time – instead of a mere pause, why not double down on a good thing by making even deeper cuts to reap even greater benefits? After all, while permanent resident admissions are set to decline from 395,000 this year to 365,000 in 2027, these rates remain very high compared to the Harper era – and astronomical compared to Canada’s historic rate.

Canadians are beginning to see the benefits of population stability in real time. The small number of corporations and individuals whose business model depends on infinity population growth – notably banks, real estate developers, speculators, cheap labour employers, and immigration consultants – will be working overtime to regain control of the narrative. To put it bluntly, they will tell Canadians to not believe their lying eyes when it comes to the substantial economic and social benefits of immigration restriction.

For a solid refutation of the growth lobby’s most common argument – the famous “ageing society” – check out this article on the subject by environment and population expert John Meyer.