Two big ideas

Shane Parrish shared some ideas on Twitter for what he thinks Canada should do to accelerate economic recovery following this COVID-19 fiasco. Most had to do with supporting tech entrepreneurs and workers, and most came with an implied price tag.

I’d like to add two ideas of my own, which I think would greatly improve our future outlook, and which would cost the relevant levels of government less than nothing to implement.

First, we should make it much easier to immigrate to Canada. This is especially true of so-called high skilled immigration.

Second, we should make it much easier to build housing in our major cities, including Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal.

For both, we should set a target of 2-3x current levels. That is, something like 750,000 – 1,000,000 new immigrants per year and at least 75,000 new units completed in Toronto per year.