[M II A II R II K]

Immigration won’t solve Toronto transit woes


May 17 2010

Thomas Graff

Read More: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters/article/810707--immigration-won-t-solve-toronto-transit-woes

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Carol Wilding, of the Toronto Board of Trade, points out the seriousness of the transportation challenges facing Toronto over the next 20 years, but she doesn’t directly say that this is all from the expected population growth. Yes, our transportation system is struggling to serve the people who are already here, and if we need to spend an extra $50 billion over the next 25 years, and population is going to grow by 50 per cent, this means that those already here will have to pay $33 billion of this. And this is just to build transit lines. Transit doesn’t pay for itself; someone will also have to pay for the ongoing operating losses too.

As one would expect from the Board of Trade, there is no questioning of the underlying premise — that we need, or want, more population growth, almost all of which comes from immigration. A bigger population doesn’t make those who are here any better off — if anything, the labour surplus we now have is lowering wages and increasing rates of poverty and unemployment. This is on top of congestion and high housing costs, all of which are making the GTA less desirable and less livable than it was just a few short years ago. Instead of just pleading for money from other governments, proposing tolls, or proposing to sell off assets, the candidates for mayor should be talking about pushing the Ontario and federal governments to reduce immigration, and to force more immigrants to settle in places outside the GTA.

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[Mapleson]

The driving concept of Western Capitalism is continual growth. Without growth, the 'economy' stagnates. Without a combination of immigration and birthrate to exceed migration and deaths, the population will age and then decline. If you limit the amount of immigration to the GTA, you limit the geopolitical importance of Toronto and Canada. Given the high proportion of unemployment in Toronto compared to Canada, restricting job growth further seems counterproductive.

We need to go back to core guiding principles in cases like this. Is our immigration rate set to combat poverty? Ensure economic growth? Pay for retiring baby boomers healthcare costs? Otherwise, we just make all these decisions in isolation and never build a consistent strategy.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Wow, this is terrible. Because we're too lazy to get to work on building transit, we instead block people from entering the city so we don't get any new congestion? Great idea

We need immigration as Canadians. It'll not only make the country much, much stronger, but (I think more importantly,) it'll make Canada a more culturally rich country by creating a truly multiethnic and multicultural society, as well as giving a lot of us the type of amenities that exist in other countries that only come through density of scale. And, while I don't agree with it and I hope it changes soon, Mapleson's right that the current Capitalist system is based on growth. Without immigration, Canada would currently be losing people and our economy would decline.

But Mapleson's also right that we need to figure out to do with immigrants, and may I add, with the country in general. Canada's got all this potential, yet we act on none of it. I'd like to see the a leader come up and propose a comprehensive plan to achieve the greatness we could have. Immigration would undoubtedly be an important part of that. But at the core, if we want to solve Toronto's transit woes, why don't we just build transit? If we need more, then just build more. Charge taxes, and make people actually pay for it, in a similar way that everyone pays for roads and highways.

 

[kEiThZ]

SIP,

I don't think it's about restricting immigration in so much as encouraging them to settle in other parts of the country that can handle the influx. If our governments aren't willing to pump in the billions needed to build the infrastructure that's needed, it's (sadly) a valid question to ask if Toronto should be taking in that many people.

 

[Automation Gallery]

Wow, this is terrible. Because we're too lazy to get to work on building transit, we instead block people from entering the city so we don't get any new congestion? Great idea

We need immigration as Canadians. It'll not only make the country much, much stronger, but (I think more importantly,) it'll make Canada a more culturally rich country by creating a truly multiethnic and multicultural society, as well as giving a lot of us the type of amenities that exist in other countries that only come through density of scale. And, while I don't agree with it and I hope it changes soon, Mapleson's right that the current Capitalist system is based on growth. Without immigration, Canada would currently be losing people and our economy would decline.

But Mapleson's also right that we need to figure out to do with immigrants, and may I add, with the country in general. Canada's got all this potential, yet we act on none of it. I'd like to see the a leader come up and propose a comprehensive plan to achieve the greatness we could have. Immigration would undoubtedly be an important part of that. But at the core, if we want to solve Toronto's transit woes, why don't we just build transit? If we need more, then just build more. Charge taxes, and make people actually pay for it, in a similar way that everyone pays for roads and highways.

Right on, Canada can start with a welcome to the Great White North tax....

 

[Hipster Duck]

What the author fails to account for is that an infrastructure deficit is endemic to the whole country. There is almost as great a need for better transportation in Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver as it is in Toronto, so, in theory, the cost to higher governments would be the same, only distributed to other communities. Of course, the need for infrastructure investment in Antigonish, Nova Scotia or Thunder Bay is not as great, but those places aren't really the great economic lure that immigration destinations need to be.

 

[Second_in_pie]

SIP,

I don't think it's about restricting immigration in so much as encouraging them to settle in other parts of the country that can handle the influx. If our governments aren't willing to pump in the billions needed to build the infrastructure that's needed, it's (sadly) a valid question to ask if Toronto should be taking in that many people.

This is a bit better of a solution, but Toronto still needs to grow. We're so close to being in that giant cities that control the earth zone.

Actually, that could be a good thing. People that like Ontario can settle in the towns and cities down here. Otherwise, they'll mostly set up camp in the West, probably in the end filling up the country a bit more evenly. A big pro I see to that is it'd allow us to finally get our transit and development plans sorted out, so when we start letting people back into the GGH, we'll be able to build the infrastructure and sustainable development that'll make this city great.

But that's the silver lining. I'm wondering myself why we can't get in more immigrants, boost the economy, and build Toronto sustainably all at the same time. And Hipster's right, the transit debt is the same throughout the country. The only difference is that Toronto's the biggest, and so sees the effects of congestion the most.

 

[CityPainter]

Really, we're blaming immigration for our underfunded transit infrastructure? Because to me, that's what this argument seems to amount to.

In order to keep our high standard of living we need immigration. The baby boomer generation will soon be retiring en masse: they are already beginning to transition into part-time work and cash in on their hard-earned CPP contributions. Millions of them will be living here for another 20 years or so, paying little to no income tax during that time even as they rely ever more heavily on our health care system AND on public transit as they become less able to drive. Since taxes are what fund transit, and all our other infrastructure, we should falling over ourselves to encourage new immigrants to come to Canada, work hard, prosper, and pay taxes on that prosperity. The birth rate in Canada is quite low. Without immigration we will fall into population decline. Countries like Japan, where both the birthrate and immigration levels are low, are already beginning to panic about about what this will mean for their future. Canada most definitely does not want to voluntarily go down that road.

In my opinion, reducing immigration in an attempt to solve our traffic congestion woes is laughable. Let's take responsibility for our own mess, and start trying to reallocate our tax dollars away from the dead-end sprawl of past decades and towards a more sustainable transit-oriented infrastructure. The money is there, it's just a matter of making the tough choices and sacrifices it will take to spend it properly so we can all benefit in the longer term.

 

[GraphicMatt]

I think the whole article is ridiculous, especially the headline. As if someone anywhere was saying "Immigration will solve our transit woes!"

I suspect that if there's a problem with immigration in the GTA it's that many are settling in low density suburbs (Markham, Brampton, etc), working downtown or in other low density suburbs, and our transportation infrastructure can't keep up.

But, really, we could just take the immigration issue off the table and say that density is the problem. I think that's closer to the truth.

 

[Mapleson]

Places to Grow has set the benchmark for improving density.

I was thinking about this on the subway ride home. I don't think any mayoral candidate would do too well advocating restricting immigration when 43.7% of people in Toronto were born outside of the country.

The main positive side effect I can think of as a silver lining for the idea is that robotics would take off in Canada like it has in South Korea and Japan.

 

[EnviroTO]

Are under utilized roads spanning large distances through rural areas with low population density really more cost effective than rail based transit in high density areas on a per capita basis? I somehow doubt it. People baulk at the cost because every project is show as a total cost, not a per capita cost. If funds were actually divied out on a per capita basis or per use basis I would expect there to be a lot more money available.

 

[hbl33]

The main positive side effect I can think of as a silver lining for the idea is that robotics would take off in Canada like it has in South Korea and Japan.

I don't think the unions here would appreciate this. It would be like UAW/CAW labour saga in North America!

 

[Mapleson]

The trick to gain union support is to promise no new hires, no workforce reduction (except due to gross incompetence), and payraise of inflation +0.5%. Time would whittle them down as robots took on the growth portion of the workload.