Comments by "alex smith" (@alexsmith-ob3lu) on "CBC News: The National" channel.

A friend of mine started in the skilled trades (electrician) back in the mid 1990s, in Alberta oil and gas. He told me he was and still is well paid due to nobody wanting to go into the trades. Even these days, it’s hard to get in without a union or relate work experience.
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Canada used to take in 200k immigrants per year. Now we’re headed up to over a million per year, without any extra housing being built.
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@dankburgers Thanks of that info. Do you have any sources? Same thing can be said with everything else. Hardly any public transit is being built, so everyone is resorting to driving private cars which creates more traffic congestion on highways.
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Here are the “issues”: 1) More people benefit from high housing costs than vice versa. If you are a business owner or employe or self-employed in banking, insurance, local government, contracting, developer, real estate agent, home owner, landlord who owns several triplex rental units etc. you benefit massively from high home costs. Only people who do not benefit are the poor and renters. 2) Stagnant zoning codes are a big problem many do not see. Especially permitting and taxes associated with new construction that adds up the base price. 3) New built condos will always be expensive no matter what. New construction has always been like that. 4) Labor shortages in skilled trades and engineering are another contributing factor to high home costs. Everyone knows of the shortage of experienced plumbers, electricians, carpenters, cement masons, and HVAC techs, but highly specialized engineers are in short supply too. Especially HVAC engineers who are desperately needed for designing the complicated HVAC systems for new built condos.
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High housing prices tend to benefit many in key positions of the economy. For starters, governments get more property tax revenue with high housing prices, insurance companies earn more money, developers earn more profit, real estate agents earn larger commissions, and you can be a terrible contractor in a high housing market because of so much speculation. The only people this does not benefit are the poor, renters and the younger generations coming up.
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@CGravely-in2sl Yes, you are partially correct. There are some trades that are very demanding, and not worth the pay. For example, Canada has a shortage of skilled carpenters because carpenters are considered a "volunteer trade" where you're forced to build houses in accordance to market fluctuations and government policy. It's an extreme boom and bust cycle for carpenters. On top of that, most carpenters leave their trade after their mid 30s because as you age, you can no longer keep up with physical demands.
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You hire cheap workers, you get cheap and bad quality results. Simple as that. High quality will always be expensive.
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@opencommentsbbcnewsnight1704 Yes and no in regards to "mass immigration." Immigration back in the early 20th century was done incrementally and in line with what the local/national economy needed. Canada/USA absorbed many Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Italians, Scandinavians etc. because an industrial economy is very inclusive and requires large amounts of competent labor. With massive deindustrialization in recent decades, there is no need for that many people because there are hardly any jobs to go around.
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