`` The Highest Bidder `` : How Foreign Investors Are Squeezing Out Vancouver 's Middle Class

Canada, is well known for being immigration friendly over the course of history and it is an ideology that Canadians value. Immigration offers an opportunity for Canadians to seal in crevasses within the Canadian economy and stabilizes it from leaks which causes inflations and recessions. However, as opportunity presents itself, trade-offs are likely to follow. Today, Canadians are facing challenges regarding unemployment rates as well as increases in the cost of living. According to Collacott Martin, a senior at Fraser Institute who represented Canada in the department of external affairs, the housing prices are rising due to an increase in population among large cities in Canada. Collacott, predicted that newcomers of Canada cost between

Canada 's housing market is at an all-time high, they are known in Vancouver for having the most expensive housing market. This expensive market is not just a Vancouver problem, it is an issue growing throughout the nation and is depriving the average citizen to be able to purchase a house in their lifetime. There is a major issue with the state of the market and how it affects the current citizens. Issues have been rising where the average wage in Vancouver is estimated at seventy-one thousand per family household, according to the Vancouver Sun (2014), yet the average costing home as reached between five hundred thousand in the municipality to over one million within Vancouver, according to articles by Beth Lindsay (2015) of the Vancouver Sun, and Troy Landereville (2015) of The Maple Ridge Times.

There is a growing discrepancy of wealth in Canada. “The gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to grow. Seventy percent of wealth in Canada belongs to the most affluent section of Canada's population (Mojtehedzadeh, 2014)”. Many believe that Canada is not going through such a dramatic disparity between rich and poor in comparison to other countries. However, the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer. The gap between the wealthy Canadians and the rest is constantly growing and the primary reasons are the rising unemployment rate in Canada, globalization, inequality in wages and salaries, and high education rates.

There is a lot of discrimination and wide separation of those owning housing and those who are homeless to try and get housing. The article states, “The supply of affordable housing has not kept pace with the needs of the population. There has also been a decline in the amount of affordable rental housing in many cities. Combine that with declining incomes and a widespread reduction in social benefits for low-income Canadians, and you get a population that has to spend a greater percentage of its income on housing.” This is a huge imbalance of those owning the house and having the money to own versus those renting the

Academic research provides us with valuable information on the topic of racism, housing and discrimination across Canada. The impact that immigration has on housing markets makes it one of the key drivers of the housing demand (Teixeira 174). Most surface level studies suggest that Black and Indigenous peoples suffer the most from discriminations when seeking housing across Canada (Dion 532). Housing discrimination is largely due to conflict theory where access to power is unequal across races and ethnicities. We are able to look deeper into this by accessing data and shared stories of racialized people. The data for such research is obtained from Statistics Canada, interviews and conducted studies such as the one held in the 1990s by the

Canada is considered a first world country, ranking well above the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Better Life index average in all categories. Canada is safer and Canadian citizen are healthier, happier, and better educated than the majority of other countries. In spite of this, at any given night 30,000 Canadians do not have a home. An estimated 200,000 people are homeless every year, and 50,000 every night are staying with a relative or friend and have no permanent housing. In 2013, a one bedroom apartment was approximately 38,000. 55% of parents, 31% of couples and 69% of single people make less than this. In Toronto, lack of affordable housing affects one in five renters. This is an issue is becoming increasingly relevant and more people try to find jobs in the city, where

According to this weeks readings and lecture, I learn more about the history of Canada’s labour movement in the 19th and 20th century. As a developed country, I did not realize that there are such uneven developments in Canada. Canada is a well developed country and doing well about social welfare on my mind. Compare the wages of labours between Canadian and Chinese, Canadian labours have higher paid and minimum wages ensure their basic cost of living. In China minimum wages does not exists and labours do not have movement because of the state system and polity. Canadian labours dare to protect their interests by movements. These movements show that problems exists between the poor and wealthy in Canada. The problems come from different classes

It was widely believed that Chinese immigrants were “forcing the working people out of industries by the cheapness of their labour,” and therefore were a “great menace” to both Canadians and Canadian values (Goutor, 2007, 550). The portrayal of Chinese immigrants inherently having a lower set of living standards was accepted by mainstream society; they were seen as having loose morals and social habits, which is what made them able to accept and survive on the low wages they were offered. “Asian immigration was perceived as undercutting the standards of living of Canadian workers,” living and working in conditions that “civilized Canadians” would never accept (Goutor, 2007, 554). It’s clear that much of the narrative for economic reasons against Asian immigration was closely tied with the existing prejudices in people’s minds. The exploitation and mistreatment that Asian immigrants faced in the labour market were ignored and many took on a racist perspective that placed the blame on the immigrants and their allegedly less civilized

Michael Lewis exposes the truth about the American real estate problem. Millions of American have bought homes they cannot pay for it. Banks have lent out mortgages that people cannot pay it. Propagandists have promised that real estate value will always rise. Some days it seems that partial of the nation is financially under water. Michael Lewis wrote this article to acknowledge the consequence of the horrific real estate crash, and the financial consequences that will get to the middle classes of people.

The Downtown Eastside once an important land landmark of Vancouver has become a neighbourhood of crime, drug trade, prostitution, mental illness, and poverty. Metro Vancouver homeless count has stated, the minimum number of homeless people in Vancouver doubled between 2002 and 2005 from 630 to1,300 people and is increasing alarmingly. As more people become homeless because of the inflation in Vancouver; the DTES becomes a dumping ground for the homeless. Shelter is tougher to obtain as the number of the homeless has risen. Furthermore, Vancouver hasn’t been able to keep up with the demand of stable housing neither funding for support services; resulting in unsuitable accommodations for the homeless.

Participant P8 was an entrepreneur who had a high school education, with some college courses. She immigrated to Canada with her husband, who held a B.Sc. degree in computer science; and their baby daughter, who was one and half years old. The couple had owned and operated a successful computer retail and repair store in Shenzhen. According to her description, they were a happy upper-middle-class family before arriving in Toronto in 2000. The main reason that P8’s family, and other China-born middle class immigrants migrated to Canada was because they want to pursue their Canadian dream with improved and better (a) education system to their children, (b) medical care, (c) social or welfare and retirement

In Haiti, once a French colony, people became inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution to press for freedom and civil rights. As they saw that people in France demanded and fought for these rights themselves, the hypocrisy of colonial exploitation became very obvious to the Haitians. In 1804, the Haitian Revolution made Haiti the first freed colony. Decolonization of places formerly controlled by Europe peaked after World War II sapped the strength of European countries. As a result, between 1945 and 1981, 105 newly freed nations joined the UN (McMichael). But even with this newfound freedom, there was still the issue of enormous economic inequality. The First World was rich, while the Third World, not yet able to begin recovering from years of exploitation, was very poor. The remedy would be development, which would take capital. So, new nations would pursue economic growth with First World assistance. This assistance would be facilitated by institutions that would be founded during the Bretton Woods Conference in

To begin, a brief history recap of the financial crises in 2008 will be given. Following that will be a breakdown of how the financial systems were set up in Canada and the U.S. We will then, in detail, discuss the Canadian and the U.S financial markets, in particular, the housing market and how each country was affected by the 2008 financial crisis. Lastly, we will proceed to evaluate the overwhelming differences between Canada and the U.S; from their core financial system to mortgages that allowed the Canadian market to remain excluded from the dire consequences of the US market recession, which followed shortly after the financial crisis.

China is one of the major economical players in today’s international market. China’s economy is the “seconds largest in the world after the United States” (Joseph, 63). This is a striking achievement due to fact that China is a “developing country”. China has achieved a great amount of success through the collaboration of political and economical regimes. The economical growth in China led to “one of the biggest improvements in human welfare anywhere at anytime” (Kristof, 15). Currently, China is experiencing a real-estate bubble. This eventually will hit a climax, disrupting the real-estate market within China. This real estate bubble that China is undergoing is considered one of the "biggest housing

After researching the foreign markets, our department proposes that Canada would be our direction to go with to expand our business. The selection that we made is due to many factors. One of the factors involved is that Canada’s housing starts for 2012 is down by only percentage points. (Centre for the Study of Living Standards, 2012) This allows us to believe that the economy is still strong in the Canadian foreign market. There is new construction going on in Canada and there is potential for the market to go back up.