In LISPOP’s survey of Ontario voters in the 2022 election, we focused on attitudes toward housing. One of the series of questions that we asked respondents was to name a cause of the recent increase in house prices and rents. The next graph shows how different voters responded. On average, Liberal and NDP voters were mostly likely to blame government inaction (low rent control and low levels of public housing). In addition, there is actually a strong partisan consensus that investor speculation is a significant cause of the problem.
But take a look further down the graph and it becomes apparent that the second leading cause of housing costs named by PC voters is immigrants.
Now, the Ontario 2022 election didn’t feature a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric and Premier Ford probably deserves some credit for not going down that road.
But there is a way in which these data show that there is a potential for some significant conflicts down the road. Keep in mind that the federal Liberals have promised to increase immigration to 500,000 people per year. That is a 25% increase per year from what Canada accepted when the Liberals came into office 2015. Canada is facing a serious shortage of housing supply, and a dramatic increase in home prices. To date, we have avoided ugly xenophobic politics blaming immigration for that.
But people who voted for the Ontario Progressive Conservatives already blaming immigrants for increasing housing costs. What will happen when immigration starts to increase even more and an entrepreneurial right-wing leader starts to cater to this sentiment?
There is a way in which this could get very ugly, very quickly.