Commentary
There’s been a lot of talk lately about immigration as people and provincial governments feel the impacts of Justin Trudeau’s decade as prime minister.
Between 2016, his first full year in charge, and 2024, his final full year at the nation’s helm, annual average immigration hit 1.4 million, considerably more than double the 617,800 averaged between 2000 and 2015. Prime Minister Mark Carney has begun to dial that back but nevertheless there is talk of more, with the Indian High Commissioner suggesting Canada needs another 15 million newcomers. Little wonder immigration was among the questions in Alberta’s recent referendum.
There’s little doubt that Canada will need more people. The host population, after all, has chosen to demographically extinguish itself. The current birth rate is at the extreme end of low, having hit 1.25 per woman recently, while the basic rate required to simply replace, let alone grow, the current population is 2.1. Without immigrants, in other words, Canada can’t survive if it insists upon not reproducing. The choices may be individual, but the consequences are collective. Long gone are the days when staunchly Roman Catholic francophone Quebecers and others were fuelling a national baby boom. For instance, the year I was born—1955—the birth rate was 3.82 children per woman….