CERC Migration · Digital Storytelling

Immigration Narratives
in Crisis

When Canada's housing crisis collided with record immigration, what did the online conversation actually reveal?

0
Posts Analyzed
0
Peak Month Posts
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Hand-Coded
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The Build-Up

How we got here

The collision between Canada's housing crisis and immigration discourse didn't happen overnight. Here's the pressure building.

2005 – 2020

Housing prices surge 80%

Canadian home prices outpace income growth by nearly 3x, squeezing affordability nationwide.

2022

Canada sets record immigration targets

Over 1 million newcomers per year — the highest per-capita rate in the G7.

Early 2023

Housing and immigration start merging in public discourse

Social media posts mentioning both topics begin climbing. Mainstream media follows.

July – August 2023

Media frenzy peaks

Nearly 1,000 newspaper articles cover immigration and Canada, with 465 linking it directly to housing.

August 21, 2023

Housing Minister Sean Fraser blames international students

The first federal-level statement linking immigration directly to the housing shortage. Social media explodes.

The Context

A country under pressure

Canada has long been one of the world's most welcoming countries for immigrants. But by 2023, a deepening housing crisis was testing that consensus.

0%
increase in average home prices (2005–2020)
vs. only 30% income growth
1M+
newcomers per year in 2023
record immigration levels
The research question

Researcher Nicholas Fraser at Toronto Metropolitan University set out to answer a critical question: Did social media amplify xenophobia among Canadian users — or did it reflect existing partisan divisions?

The Framework

Two competing explanations

Hypothesis 1

Amplification

Social media amplifies xenophobia — users express hostility toward immigrants and construct anti-immigrant narratives blaming them for the housing crisis.

Hypothesis 2

Reflection

Social media reflects partisan frustration — criticism targets government policy failures rather than immigrants themselves, driven by a small number of politically active users.

Canada is a crucial case: a historically pro-immigration country now under strain. What happened on social media offers a window into how democracies process crisis.

The Data

The August 2023 explosion

Fraser analyzed 71,971 English-language posts on X (Twitter) by Canadian users from October 2022 to October 2023. Posts linking immigration and housing surged dramatically in the summer.

Twitter/X Posts Linking Immigration and Housing in 2023
Monthly volume of posts mentioning both immigration and housing by Canadian users

Nearly 1 in 5 immigration posts (18.75%) mentioned housing. The August peak of 3,638 posts became the focal point of Fraser's qualitative analysis — using VADER sentiment analysis, Detoxify toxicity scoring, and hand-coding of a random 10% sample.

The Language

What words appeared alongside "immigration"?

Word association analysis reveals the terms most likely to co-occur with "immigration" — and they tell a story of political framing, not direct hostility.

Words most strongly associated with "immigration"
Correlation scores (0–1) for terms co-occurring with "immigration" in August 2023 posts
What this tells us

Users invoked indirect markers — "airports," "veiled," "socioeconomic" — rather than targeting specific groups. Political terms like "conservatives" appeared frequently, suggesting partisan framing drove much of the conversation, not grassroots xenophobia.

The Central Finding

Who did Canadians actually blame?

Of 124 hand-coded posts from a random sample, the answer was overwhelming — and surprising.

How tweets placed blame for Canada's housing crisis
Hand-coded sample of tweets linking immigration and housing (n = 124)
88
posts blamed the government
71% of all coded posts
14
posts blamed immigrants
just 11% of coded posts
The negativity was real — but it was aimed at politicians, not newcomers.

The overwhelming majority of criticism targeted the Trudeau government and mainstream political parties for allowing high immigration to exacerbate the housing crisis. Immigrants themselves were rarely the target.

The Distinction

Negative does not mean hateful

Automated analysis of all 3,638 August posts confirmed the hand-coded findings — and revealed a crucial nuance.

0%
Negative
Critical, dissatisfied
0%
Positive
Supportive, constructive
0%
Neutral
Factual, detached
💡 The key distinction

Negative sentiment means expressing critical opinions or disagreement — a legitimate part of political debate. Toxicity means overtly abusive language: insults, threats, hate speech. The Detoxify analysis found low toxicity across the dataset. Canadians expressed deep frustration without frequently resorting to hateful language.

The Voices

A small number of influencers dominated the conversation

Of the 19 most viral posts, half were authored by just three people — all politically aligned with the Canadian right.

Maxime Bernier
Leader, People's Party of Canada
248K followers
7,838 total engagement
Eva Chipiuk
Lawyer, Trucker Convoy representative
46.5K followers
3,503 total engagement
Joe Blo
Right-wing political influencer
34.5K followers
2,818 total engagement

These three influencers earned more combined engagement than CBC News and the National Post combined — despite having a fraction of their followers. Political actors routinely outperform legacy media in shaping online immigration discourse.

The Content

What the top voices actually said

The most viral posts offered provocative fragments — not coherent anti-immigrant policy narratives.

Immigration to Canada must be HALTED IMMEDIATELY.

— Joe Blo, Aug 23, 2023 Provocative demand, no policy rationale

Are you ready to be forced to take immigrants into your home? Politicians in Canada are already hinting at this.

— Maxime Bernier, Aug 14, 2023 1,038 likes · 520 reposts · 266 replies
Most viral post in the dataset

Canadian universities are not selling education — they're mostly selling the right to work and an easy path to permanent residency.

— Maxime Bernier, Aug 23, 2023 Blames institutions, not students

No one can and should blame people from around the world wanting to come to Canada. The people to blame are those who set levels of immigration without ensuring we could welcome, absorb and integrate immigrants within our means.

— Norman Spector, Aug 23, 2023 Defends immigrants, criticizes government

Only 2 of 19 top posts mentioned international students. None directly referenced Fraser's August 21 comments. The discourse was driven by pre-existing partisan grievances, not a response to specific policy events.

The Verdict

Social media reflected partisan anger — not xenophobia

Not Supported

H1: Amplification

Only 14 of 124 posts blamed immigrants. Toxicity was low. Most criticism targeted policy, not people. Social media did not create or amplify xenophobia.

Supported

H2: Reflection

Social media reflected partisan frustration with the Liberal government, driven by a small number of politically aggressive influencers who used immigration as a vehicle for political criticism.

Why this matters

Dismissing all immigration criticism as xenophobia risks alienating citizens with legitimate policy concerns. A small group of politically motivated influencers can disproportionately shape what appears to be public opinion. Understanding this asymmetry is essential for policymakers, journalists, and anyone interpreting online discourse about migration.

Social media didn't create xenophobia during Canada's housing crisis — it revealed where political frustration was really directed: at the government, not at immigrants.

Based on research by Nicholas A. R. Fraser
Toronto Metropolitan University
CERC Migration Narratives Challenge

About This Project

Golda Ruth

Golda Ruth

Storyteller · Editor · Video Content Designer

Golda Ruth is the Editor-in-Chief of PRISM International, Western Canada's oldest literary magazine, and an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Their work sits at the intersection of storytelling, equity, and community — from producing experimental films that have screened internationally to facilitating equity and inclusion programming with UBC's Indigenous Initiatives team.

This scrollytelling piece was created for the CERC Migration Narratives Challenge, translating Nicholas Fraser's academic research into an accessible digital experience. It reflects Ihomehe's commitment to making complex research tangible, human, and available to the audiences who need it most.

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