Canada’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland presented the 2024 federal budget to Parliament.
Canada publishes a budget annually that sets the tone for spending in the upcoming fiscal year. It plays an important role in how the lives of everyone in Canada, including newcomers, will be managed.
For example, the Budget outlines the national spending plan across all federal services and provides an idea of what to expect for Canada’s economy in the next fiscal year.
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Understanding how the government plans to spend the money is a key factor in making Canada’s immigration policies make sense in the future.
This year’s budget included $53 billion of new spending and has a strong focus on improving housing affordability in Canada, as well as defense spending and improving the productivity of Canada’s workforce to support the economy.
Immigration spending was not a major component of this year’s budget. However, some new spending and additions to existing measures from previous budgets can help newcomers to Canada find affordable housing and get jobs in critical sectors.
Affordable housing
Prior to today’s announcement, Minister Freeland and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made several announcements about how the federal government plans to help with the current housing affordability crisis.
Many of the measures are aimed at millennials and Generation Z, who are often negatively affected by the cost of housing in Canada.
The announcements included a Tenant Bill of Rights and increased funding for the existing Apartment Construction Loan Program, bringing the total to $55 billion. The program aims to incentivize developers to build more apartments and rental housing, including student residences and long-term care facilities.
Minister Freeland also announced that starting April 16, first-time home buyers will be able to use $60,000 from their RRSP to purchase their first home, almost double the previous maximum of $35,000. They will also have five years to start repaying them.
Aligning immigration with housing in Canada
The 2024 budget also reiterates recent changes that Canada Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (IRCC) has done keeping in mind the housing shortage.
For example, the next Immigration Tier Plan The 2025-2027 period will also include, for the first time, objectives for temporary residents. This includes temporary workers and international students.
The government says it expects a reduction of up to 600,000 temporary residents over the next three years. This is expected to reduce demand for Canada’s limited housing supply.
Recognition of foreign credentials
Following an initiative included in the Fall 2023 Economic Statement, the government has committed to spending $50 million on the Foreign Credentials Recognition Program. The 2024 budget shows that half of the funding will go towards housing construction to help skilled workers obtain the credentials needed to work in Canada or the province where they settle.
The other half of the funding will go to the healthcare sector. The federal government says this can help “provinces and territories accelerate the removal of their barriers to the recognition of foreign credentials.”
This investment is added to the investment of 115 million dollars included in the 2022 Budget.
Immigration and the Canadian economy
The Budget talks about how immigration has impacted Canada’s economy. He says that in recent years newcomers are narrowing the initial income gap between themselves and non-immigrants.
It says that “since newcomers typically earn less than the average Canadian upon arrival, a large one-time increase in the number of newcomers has weighed on national average income and productivity in the short term.”
However, he notes that during the most recent 10-year period, it took six years for newcomers to reach the Canadian median income, but at the end of those ten years, they surpassed that median income by 10%.
reference: www.cicnews.com