Little is known that a Toronto pressure group, the Century Initiative, has launched a campaign to triple the Canadian population by the year 2100.
The population of Canada (37 million inhabitants at the 2021 census) is projected to reach 53 million in the year 2100, according to a normal natural demographic progression and an average immigration policy. However, the group of Toronto businessmen and journalists called the Century Initiative proposes that this last figure be doubled to reach 100 million inhabitants in the year 2100. To do this, the government would have to Justin Trudeau adopts an ultra-massive immigration policy.
With such a demographic scenario, the population of metropolitan Toronto would increase from 8.8 to 33.5 million inhabitants, that of metropolitan Montreal would swell from 4.4 to 12.2 million inhabitants, and so on.
We can predict that the implementation of such a project, in addition to profoundly upsetting Canada in its demographic composition, would cause many other consequences: congestion, pollution, overload of public services in health, education and infrastructure transport, ghettoization, linguistic conflicts, criminality, insecurity, etc.
A weak argument
Let’s take a closer look at the goals and arguments put forward by the Toronto lobby group. The first objective cited is the increase in the growth rate of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP). Can “size for size” be a worthwhile objective for fundamentally transforming the demographic structure of a country? With such an argument, we arrive at the dubious idea that the level of gross domestic product (GDP) and bulimic growth should be at the center of public policy. What about the quality and standard of living of the people and their happiness?
With free trade with the United States since 1er January 1989, Canada does not need a very large population for its economy to function effectively. In this commercial context, Canadian companies are by no means limited to the Canadian market alone to sell their production. They are in a position to reach high production levels, generating economies of scale, by exporting part of their production to the large American market.
When a population grows too rapidly, it may well be accompanied by a general decline in the standard of living.
A rapidly growing population requires additional infrastructure (housing, hospitals, schools, universities, infrastructure of all kinds, industrial facilities, etc.) and savings and capital are needed to achieve them. It is calculated that, in an industrialized country, infrastructure capital represents four times the annual national income.
It is also established that the standards of living in the world are in no way linked to the demographic size of the countries. The reality is quite the opposite. This is shown by the United Nations Human Development Index, which is a measure of living standards and quality of life around the world.
In 2019, for example, the three countries at the top of the list for standard of living and quality of life were all countries with less than 10 million inhabitants: Norway (5.3 million), Ireland (5.0 million) and Switzerland (8.5 million).
The second objective pursued by the coalition is to allow the Canadian government to play a more important role on the international scene. There are many countries with large populations in the world, but they are often relatively poor countries, and their demographic weight hardly guarantees them an enviable place on the international scene. A relatively small country like Switzerland has more importance in the world than many countries with large populations.
The third objective is to remedy the aging of the population and the shortage of labour. Studies show, however, that immigration as such hardly changes the age structure of a population, mainly because the majority of immigrants arrive in the country as adults and because of the family reunification program, which makes sure to bring in immigrants who are already elderly (spouses, parents, grandparents, etc.).
As for the shortage of labor in certain sectors, massive immigration creates an increased demand for labor to build and equip additional infrastructure, which is likely to accentuate the overall demand for labor work. The economy can then face an endless spiral of labor shortages with permanently tight labor markets, artificially created and inflated by a population that grows too rapidly through immigration.
The Initiative of the Century group has paid little attention to the consequences of its extreme immigration project on French Canadians in general, and on the only political majority they occupy in Quebec. If the Canadian government were to pursue the path of a “Canada of 100 million inhabitants” by appealing to ultra-massive immigration, the place of French Canadians in Canada could only drop considerably over the decades to come.
As for Quebec, one of the four founding provinces of Canada in 1867, its demographic weight in Canada as a whole could fall below 10% by the end of the century. In Quebec itself, Francophones could find themselves in a minority on the territory of their ancestors, for the first time in 500 years.
All in all, the Canadian federal government should officially reject the Century Initiative lobby project. If it were to draw inspiration from it implicitly or explicitly to develop its immigration policy, it is a veritable migratory tsunami programmed that the Canadian population will have to face over the next few decades.