Have you heard, Canada’s population surpassed 40 million last week. We are growing faster than ever before.
With a low birth rate and a sluggish immigration process it’s actually a surprising accomplishment.
Some of us are celebrating, others are not, because population growth in our communities adds to the pressure on our low housing supply. Demand goes up and so does the price.
My husband employs two Ukrainian refugees, who with their wives and children, plan to stay here once the war is over.
Like so many immigrants, they arrived in Vancouver with skills we desperately need, but they had to be housed and require intensive family services.
It’s a burden, but it’s also a necessary burden because we need workers. We can not sustain our quality of life without more people here to support our economy.
The provincial government recently released a naughty list of municipalities who must increase their production of mixed housing such as townhomes, condos and below market housing.
Delta is on that list because the housing ministry believes we are a municipality that is seeing growth. Excuse me, they can’t be referring to South Delta, they must be referring to North Delta.
South Delta is not growing. We are experiencing stagnant growth, mainly because there is a desperate shortage of housing in Ladner and Tsawwassen, both affordable and unaffordable.
It’s a catch-22, population growth is dependent on housing supply. If we don’t have supply, no one will come.
The naughty list feels like a shaming tool. We don’t need lists, we need incentives to encourage developers to build mixed housing for people who work in all cross sections of society.
This is such a beautiful part of the Lower Mainland to live, but in order for us to prosper we need more people to move here. Let’s build more and embrace population growth, whether it’s newborns or newcomers.
Ingrid Abbott is a freelance writer who puts Canada’s population into perspective when she reads that Tokyo’s population is 37 million.
