As I understand it, the government sets targets / limits for immigration, and sets goals for housing. While the latter may be somewhat informed by the former, these two goals are not mathematically linked, and if housing construction falls short of the goal, that's just treated as an "oh well, we'll try again next year" scenario. I agree that "unhinged" is dramatic, but I would say this is not very coordinated or effective.
A more direct method would be to apply hard caps to the following year's immigration numbers based on the previous year's actual measured housing completions. I think this would much more powerfully align pro-immigration interest groups with pro-housing-construction interest groups, resulting in much more home construction, whereas presently there is substantial conflict between the two (especially landowners who benefit from rising demand for scarce housing).
> sets goals for housing
I don't think the federal government does that at all but please someone correct me. Immigration is a federal issue that gets decided mostly on the federal level. Housing is not a (direct) federal responsibility, again correct me if I'm wrong. The government can give incentives but it can't dictate how much housing needs to be build by the provinces/territories, municipalities, etc.
Here's an example, how the BC government is explicitly trying to get more housing built: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/housing-tenancy/local-gov...
Edit: It's actually not that simple as I thought. This is a good read about the topic: https://theconversation.com/housing-is-a-direct-federal-resp...
There's a lot of jurisdictional overlap when it comes to housing, but Canada certainly does have a federal Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, the office of which is currently occupied by Sean Fraser (who was formerly the immigration minister). But even if housing were entirely out of the federal government's hands, that wouldn't be an obstacle to them mathematically linking immigration targets to measured housing builds; they can link it to any variable they want to, even the weather on Mars.
You're right, I've changed my mind a bit about this now.
That's a reasonable idea. I wonder how units that are operating as AirBNB rentals would or could be accounted for under that policy, though.
I'm not sure they would need to be accounted for. I think opposition to AirBNBs is a product of severe housing scarcity* and in a scenario where housing is abundant and rents are low, people would be much more welcoming of AirBNBs.
* (Or in some places like Kyoto and Venice, it's due to over-tourism complaints, but I don't think anywhere in Canada is struggling with that problem.)
Tourism is a major industry in Montreal, probably as much as venice and Kyoto with year long festivals and the fact that it is an Island is also an issue.
If opposition to AirBNB in Montreal is mainly coming from locals being upset about the excess of tourists rather than the deficiency of rental vacancies, then I stand corrected.