【家和】2026.02.28 (Sat) 新春親子同樂日 (粵) Lunar New Year Family Day (Cantonese)

FREE 免費
Ages 5/+ 歲
有賀年小食及應節遊戲
Festive food & games

查詢 Inquire 416-979-8299
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【家和】兒童語言及社交課程
CFSO Communication Training for Children by Speech-Language Pathologists

March 17 - April 15, 2026
3:45-5:15pm

語言治療師主理
無需 OHIP
無身份要求
符合大部分保險報銷條件
No OHIP or Residency status required
Eligible for most insurance policies

Register 報名

咬字發音班 逢星期二 (Tues) Articulation Class
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc7BglKGC1SbHuHnJBOx6uVY8ntgKJJ_AT6mu2GUpK9YP2jmA/viewform

語言社交班 逢星期三 (Wed) Language & Social Buddies Club
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfr9s3XSa-uURMYCp7tkqT_7QddplmDEy2YsEZZeHuwbyfFdA/viewform

【UNI-Commons x 家和】 2026.03.15 (Sun) 基本生命支援術證書課程 (廣東話)
費用: $80 (PR 及 公約難民 免稅)
* 適用於醫護專業人員，如護理人員、護士、急診醫師、消防員、急救員、牙醫、醫療保健提供者等、及1年有效期將屆滿的證書持有人
查詢 Inquiry: 416-979-8299
報名: https://form.jotform.com/241496941016256

Workplace Communication in Canada (WCC) Bridging Program at Toronto Metropolitan University is now accepting applicants for the March, 2026 intake.

The WCC program supports internationally trained immigrants in Ontario to seamlessly integrate into Canadian workplaces. The program focuses on experiential learning through projects and presentations, giving participants real-world practice in navigating Canadian workplace communication.

Program Eligibility: You must be residing in Ontario as a Naturalized Canadian Citizen, permanent residents, protected persons and approved temporary residents
Duration: 4 months
Classes: 16 Saturdays, 10 am – 2 pm online
Cost: Over $3,000 (Free for applicants eligible for the Ontario Bridging Participant Assistance Program bursary)
Outcome: Graduates receive a Professional Development Award (PDA) from The Chang School.
Program Start Date: 2026.03.14

Register: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdjIol2TVzmgqqaQ7u1Qny7ZX2-JWsIUUlCRU93TB65boHDmA/viewform

Reality check: Did Trudeau and Carney’s immigration cuts make housing cheaper? Here’s what actually happened

The immigration minister said Canada is seeing positive impacts and rents are trending down. But experts and some data point to other factors.

Feb. 26, 2026 Toronto Star By Ghada Alsharif Immigration and Work Reporter

As Canada’s immigration tightens, politicians and social media posts are increasingly crediting a decline in temporary residents for easing rental prices in cities including Toronto, long considered one of the least affordable housing markets in the country.

Just last week, Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab said Canada is “already seeing positive impacts” from immigration caps, citing rents that are “trending down in general” and emphasizing cooling rents here in Toronto. In October 2024, amid declining public support for immigration, then prime minister Justin Trudeau and immigration minister Marc Miller announced a 20 per cent reduction in permanent resident admissions over the following three years, citing housing pressures as a key justification for the policy change. The decision reinforced an already growing national narrative, echoed by both Liberal and Conservative politicians, that curbing immigration would help ease housing shortages and improve affordability.

But immigration levels are only one part of several factors contributing to recent declines in rental prices, according to experts and data from the government and private sector.

“You can’t attribute complex economic phenomena to one factor,” said Wendy Cukier, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and academic director of the Diversity Institute, who has researched immigration and housing prices.

Toronto rent is the lowest it has been in four years, with the average asking rent falling 4.5 per cent in January compared to the same time last year, to $2,504 a month, according to a recent National Rent Report.

At the same time, Canada’s population saw the largest decline on record in the third quarter of 2025, with a dip of 76,068 people, according to data from Statistics Canada. This drop was caused, in part, by a cap on international students allowed into the country introduced by the federal government in starting in 2024, which has resulted in a decline in enrolment at Ontario colleges and universities. The November federal budget contains plans to continue to limit new international student permits with a target of 150,000 this year.

However, economists say falling rents cannot be explained by immigration policy alone, pointing to factors including rising rental supply and interprovincial migration trends.

“Immigration just talks about the demand side of things,” said Rachel Battaglia, an economist at RBC. “The supply side is equally as important – We’ve had, in Canada’s housing market, a chronic undersupply of rental housing and right now we’re beginning to fill that hole.”

Toronto’s rental construction boom

Rental construction in the Toronto area has hit its highest point in half a century, according to a November report from market research firm Urbanation.

As of late September, 24,893 rental units were under construction across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, including 5,475 units that broke ground in 2025.

Some 61 projects with already submitted condo applications have adjusted their proposals to build purpose-built rentals, in the face of a cratering condo market that has seen sales and prices slump. Those projects include more than 27,000 units, and do not include nearly 1,800 others that switched to a rental model after launching their unit sales.

At the same time, many condos are being rented out by investors.

The average asking rent in the city fell 4.5 per cent in January compared to the same time last year, to $2,504 a month, according to the latest National Rent Report.

Randall Bartlett, deputy chief economist at Desjardins, said that while immigration caps have helped take some pressure off the rental market, the impact is only temporary if longer-term housing pressures like supply are not addressed.

“It’s a temporary reprieve, not a long-term solution,” Bartlett said. “That long-term solution is supply — the more supply you have on the market relative to demand, the more it helps keep prices more affordable.”

He added that much of the increase in purpose-built rental construction stems from “intentional government policy” aimed at boosting supply, including removing the HST on purpose-built rental housing and “providing cheap financing” through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

Migration within Canada

It’s not just international migration affecting rental demand, said RBC’s Battaglia. Interprovincial and intra-provincial migration are also playing a significant role, as rising living costs push many Toronto residents to cheaper housing markets in Ontario or elsewhere in Canada.

“We have more folks living in Toronto who are leaving and going to smaller (municipalities or jurisdictions) within Ontario rather than the other way around,” Battaglia said. “We also have a lot of people from Ontario opting for smaller provinces like East Coast provinces, and Alberta, too.”

Battaglia also noted that as the labour market weakens, more Toronto residents are “either moving back home or rooming with others to save on those expenses.”

Between July 2024 and July 2025, the Toronto census metropolitan area had a net intraprovincial migration loss of nearly 64,800 people to the rest of Ontario, according to Statistics Canada.

What Immigration Department data says

Cukier pointed to a 2025 report by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada that found that new immigrants accounted for about 11 per cent of the increase in average home prices and rents across all municipalities with populations of over 1,000 between 2006 and 2021. That was based on an analysis of four census periods comparing the share of the population made up of recent immigrants.

“The connection between immigration and housing prices varied over time and across regions, highlighting that immigration is not the solitary factor influencing housing prices,” the report said.

“Its impact is often conditioned on local economic conditions, housing policies, and supply challenges, along with other regional factors that change over time.”

Echoing the report’s findings, Cukier said changes in housing prices cannot be explained by immigration trends alone, warning that this narrative contributes to misinformation and anti-immigrant sentiment.

“Over-indexing on immigration as a factor driving demand ignores the long-term issues around housing supply,” she said. “There are a number of different forces that drove prices up, and there are lots of processes that are driving them down.”

【家和 + Hospice Toronto】 照顧者午餐 (國、粵)

🎟免費
2026.03.06 @ 12:30-2:30pm
CFSO @ 4051A Gordon Baker Rd, Scarborough M1W 2P3

歡迎55/+歲，曾經/現正照顧任何年齡層親/友的女士
希望透過是次的午聚了解您們對未來需要及活動類型

查詢 416-979-8299x210 ILeung@cfso.care
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【家和】兒童語言及社交課程
CFSO Communication Training for Children by Speech-Language Pathologists

March 17 - April 15, 2026
3:45-5:15pm

語言治療師主理
無需 OHIP
無身份要求
符合大部分保險報銷條件
No OHIP or Residency status required
Eligible for most insurance policies

Register 報名

咬字發音班 逢星期二 (Tues) Articulation Class
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc7BglKGC1SbHuHnJBOx6uVY8ntgKJJ_AT6mu2GUpK9YP2jmA/viewform

語言社交班 逢星期三 (Wed) Language & Social Buddies Club
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfr9s3XSa-uURMYCp7tkqT_7QddplmDEy2YsEZZeHuwbyfFdA/viewform