High inflation hitting new newcomers harder

By Tazeen Inam
New Canadian Media

There’s a reason Jenan Al-Kubaisi and her middle son have compromised on their settlement needs and opted to work as production operators in a Brantford factory, while her two other children are continuing their education.

“We have to feed six family members, my children, parents and myself,” she said.

“It’s a rotation that I and my son decided to do until the other two finish their education, then they will work and we will study.”

Al-Kubaisi escaped sectarian violence in Iraq and arrived in Mississauga in 2020 as an immigrant. She recently moved to Brantford, Ont. for a job and more affordable living.

“Mississauga has no jobs and I can’t find a large basement for the same price that I am paying for a mortgage for a house in Brantford, and it’s $2,500,” she said.

She quit in-person English language classes due to her relocation and plans to join online classes but, her shift work may hamper it.“I was a high school physical education teacher in my country and want to pursue my career here,” Al-Kubaisi said. “The language classes are so important for me.”

Inflation affects Canadians differently and the people who struggle most are the recent immigrants, according to Mikal Skuterud, professor of economics, at the University of Waterloo. “Because they are competing for jobs and housing in the same market.” This includes the historic number of immigrants who arrived in 2022.

The Bank of Canada, while managing inflation by increasing interest rates, has adversely affected the housing rental market across the country. The average rent has increased 12 percent in November compared to a year ago. This is more than double the annual hourly wage increase of employees, which was 5.6 percent.

The average cost for rental housing in Canada stands at $1,976.

Though job numbers have improved, according to Statistics Canada, other factors like housing create inflationary pressures. Employment numbers released on Jan. 6 revealed an increase of 0.5 percent in December 2022. Job growth was led by youth aged 15 to 24.

“A piece of broccoli is $8 and lettuce is $6, how do you expect people to put food on their tables?” says Shaz Afzal, founder and director of INI-SHE-ATIVE-Canada. The non-profit organization in the Greater Toronto area helps support refugees and single women in precarious states with its six-month grocery program by connecting them to shelters.

“My client gets a welfare amount as child tax benefit between $500 and $600 and it hardly covers her basement rent which is $1,250 excluding hydro,” Afzal said.

She shared the story of one of her immigrant clients, who left an abusive marriage and lived for three months in a shelter with her daughter.

“She does Uber-eats and tutoring to meet her grocery needs.”

By November 2022, the Consumer Price Index (CPI, an index that measures inflation) was at 6.8 percent on a year-over-year basis, compared to 6.9 percent in October 2022.

According to Statistics Canada, excluding food and energy, prices rose 5.4 percent in November. Slower price increases for gasoline and furniture were partially offset by faster growth in mortgage interest and rent costs.

Skuterud suggests that Statistics Canada’s inflation number may not reflect immigrants’ and refugees’ consumption behaviour “because refugees and immigrants spend a large part of their household budget on necessities, in particular, housing and it’s particularly rent.”

He said that while inflation has affected Canadians in general, the number suggested by Statistics Canada is much lower than the reality for immigrants coming to Canada.

A report by Canada Without Poverty (CWP) released in December 2022, estimates that poverty rates in 2022 are potentially double what Statistics Canada reports.  The Canadian government has provided some inflation benefits, but “these benefits will not reach individuals who did not file 2021 taxes,” the report says.

CWP says that people who have precarious immigration status do not have bank accounts or mailing addresses, so these populations are experiencing hidden and deepest forms of poverty.

CWP is a non-profit organization dedicated to ending poverty in Canada. It is led by a board of directors with lived and living experience of poverty, and for over 50 years they have been advocating that poverty is a violation of human rights.

“No inflation benefit provides people with any lasting or adequate relief during this cost-of-living crisis in 2022,” is the key message from CWP’s latest report.

Elie Bahhadi, says refugees are the ones who are suffering the most. Bahhadi is a former Syrian-Armenian refugee now working as a communications and events manager at Jumpstart Refugee Talent in Vancouver, a refugee-led non-profit that supports newly settled refugees to build a future in Canada.

“Particularly refugees who are fleeing their country without anything at hand are in desperate situations,” he said.

“Mostly refugee claimants don’t have a work permit for at least a year.”

In Quebec, Accompagnement des femmes immigrantes de l’Outaouais (AFIO) currently has 61 people  on the centre’s waiting list for social housing.

A social worker at AFIO, which is a settlement service for women, says that some women leave their French classes to find any job, way below their capacities, because of their need for money even though many immigrants who come to Québec have university degrees.

“We would like the immigrants to have the same privileges and rights as Canadian citizens,” said the social worker, who did not want her name disclosed to maintain her clients’ anonymity.

Many of the clients she helps have difficulty paying their rent and use food banks to feed their families. Some are challenged to pay for transportation and other essentials.

Bahhadi said newcomers are challenged by the current price hikes in everything from groceries to transportation;  they also struggle to find a place to live.

“They come here in pursuit of a better lifestyle and get hit by inflationary challenges without having a fairly good idea on how to manage it,” he said.