Canada’s Weak GDP Growth Despite Population Surge

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Canada’s GDP growth has been flat or weak throughout 2023 despite growing population by 3.5%.

Early data points to 0.5% growth in final quarter of 2023. There was no growth from May to October 2023.

The mayor of Vancouver proposed pro-growth rules to reduce the barriers to building and streamlining regulations. Ken Sim released a seven-point motion that would direct city staff to prioritize new housing construction, allow for increased density around transit hubs, speed up a plan for 26 villages in the city and increase enforcement of short-term rental regulations.

There will be new rules to reduce delays for building more homes.

The rules will be similar to rules in Burnaby. The rules allow for automatic approval of high rises near skytrain hubs.

In October, the Ontario government unveiled plans to establish transit-oriented communities (TOCs) at six upcoming transit stations in Toronto, five along the forthcoming Ontario Line 3 and one along the Scarborough Subway Extension to Danforth Line 2, providing approximately 5,900 new residential units. The government’s stated objectives are to enhance transit accessibility, generate over 1,900 jobs, and embed affordable housing options close to high-speed transit in eastern Toronto.

The Canadian federal government has reached an agreement with the City of Toronto, Ontario, to fast-track nearly 12,000 new housing units over the next three years. This work will help spur the construction of more than 53,000 homes over the next decade and help meet the demand in Toronto.

Under the Housing Accelerator Fund, this agreement will provide over $471 million to eliminate barriers to build the housing faster. It will allow for more housing options in the city, including multiplexes of up to four storeys and four units. The Housing Accelerator Fund is helping cut red tape and fast-track the construction of over 380,000 new homes for people in towns, cities, and Indigenous communities across Canada over the next decade.

Toronto has had planning meetings on how to handle more population growth.

12 thoughts on “Canada’s Weak GDP Growth Despite Population Surge”

  1. I thought Canada was only letting in ‘advanced degree’ immigrants? Wasn’t that the big talking point to differentiate their type of immigration from the U.S.?

    Although, if you bring in lower-education workers for agriculture and construction, as well as service work (restaurants, hotels, warehouses, etc.) you might free up advanced human capital (knowledge workers, engineers, technologists) to be more productive and generate more economic value.

    Economists have been arguing about this for decades.

  2. Doesn’t Canada have work requirements and financial requirements for new Canadian citizens/ immigrants. Aren’t many well educated engineers ?

  4. If Biden had left the Keystone 2 project alone,Canada would have a higher GDP,so would the US,we’d have less inflation, and the Russians would have less money to buy incendiaries to drop on Ukraine.

  5. At this point Vancouver is flat out overwhelmed with people. Population growth here is outpacing new buildings by an amazing amount.

    Rent for a two bedroom 800square foot is approaching 3000 in suburbs outside city centre. Houses are approaching 2M near city centre and only dropping to 1M range about 1-2 hour drive from city. Transit is overloaded with busses passing people on street with ‘bus full’ signs. No one has family doctors as there just aren’t enough doctors to go around. The wait list to get a family doctor is years.

    The problem is the growth is so fast that services have fallen so far behind that multiple public sectors are at or past their breaking points. QoL for people in the system has suffered

  6. Perhaps there is an absorption issue where new immigrants stake time to integrate into the economy and start producing or similarly the economy has to adjust to handle the particular types of work that the immigrants can contribute.

  7. It’s the average IQ of the immigrants that determine the GDP output.
    A country like Sweden believed that immigration would be an economic benefit, but the immigrants it received were the least intelligent in the world, so it became a disaster for them.

    • In 2023 Sweden was in the top 3 countries for quality of life (it is quite normal to be in the top 10). I live in Sweden (ostergotland) and i laugh at people randomly bashing Sweden.

      • It wasn’t random. We love Sweden. We too have lots of immigrants ,some of whom also came to work in agriculture,they bring benefits and challenges.
        But we love Canadians above all else, and it is very surprising their GDP would not have risen much much more.
        People with Swedish ancestory do very well here,actually,everyone does very well here,but we’d like to dampen the flow of people from South of the border, they come millions a month.
        Once they cross the border they have all the rights of the constutiution,as it includes everyone, not just citizens,and we really don’t want to send anyone back.

  8. GDP isn’t a product of raw population, you know. It’s a product of the nature of that population, and of how fertile the ground is for economic growth.

    Perhaps they’re adding the wrong sort of people? Or maybe the regulatory burden is such at this point that GDP growth is all but impossible.

    Maybe both…

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