100 Million Canadians - A Reasonable Response to Demographic Decline?
Niall Moan, Online Branch, Staff Writer
March 21st, 2023
Over the past seventy years, the combined forces of slowed population growth and increased life expectancy have contributed to Canada’s shrinking working age population and rising share of seniors. If this trend continues, Canada will face the dual challenges of a growing strain on social services like healthcare, and a smaller tax base from which to fund them.
In light of this demographic challenge, organizations like the Century Initiative, a Toronto-based advocacy group, have begun to sound the alarm.
The Century Initiative warns that Canada’s aging population and shrinking workforce will inevitably lead to a decline in annual GDP growth, as well as declining influence on the global stage.
What is the Century Initiative’s proposed solution? Tripling the population with mass immigration.
At present, Canada’s population is approaching 40 million and if current trends continue, our population will grow to 53 million by the year 2100. The Century Initiative advocates for policies which aim at 100 million as the target for 2100. This would create so-called “mega regions” centered around our cities. The population of metro Vancouver would grow from 2.6 million to 11.9 million. Montreal would grow from 4.3 million to 12.2 million. Toronto would grow from 8.8 million to 33.5 million.
The Century Initiative claims that a gargantuan Great White North would help to better fund the services required to support our seniors, while also stimulating the Canadian economy and boosting GDP growth.
But is 100 million Canadians a worthy goal, or a misguided one?
In answering this question, it is important to consider two key factors: infrastructure and economic growth.
If Canada were to pursue a policy of mass-immigration over the next 77 years, we’d need to invest heavily in infrastructure. New housing would need to be built, as well as hospitals, educational institutions, roads, and countless other infrastructure projects. As the economist Herbert Grubel warns, “in theory, the supply of all these things could be expanded reasonably rapidly. In practice, expansion is slow.”
This lag between demand and supply is largely due to incompetent planning and blundering bureaucracies. For a real-world example, we need look no further than our nation’s capital. In the late 90s, plans to revamp Ottawa’s transit system began to brew and by the 2010s they were put into action. The $2.1 billion project to replace Ottawa’s gas-guzzling busses with a world-class, environmentally friendly, light rail system marked the most expensive infrastructure project in the city’s history.
Eleven years into the project, Ottawa has little to show for what’s been described as “a local disgrace and a national joke.” The project is currently $4.6 billion over budget and is less than halfway complete.
This calamity occurred without any pressure to create the “mega regions” called for by the Century Initiative. If our public institutions can’t adequately manage the development of infrastructure projects under present-day circumstances, can we reasonably expect our nation to undertake the mammoth infrastructure undertaking required to accommodate 100 million Canucks?
As journalist Brett Popplewell writes regarding the Ottawa project, “This is what happens when a city that dreams of becoming more than it is meets the crushing reality of how cities are actually run.” Replace the word ‘city’ with ‘nation’ and this statement becomes an ominous foreshadowing of Canada’s potential fate.
In addition to the practical questions about far-reaching infrastructure development, a combination of scholarly work and common sense makes quick work of the economic claims made by the Century Initiative.
First is their claim that increased immigration will grow the workforce, allowing us to better fund social programs, and support our growing share of seniors. This misplaced optimism ignores the fact that Canada has an “extremely generous family sponsorship program,” which makes it easy for permanent residents to bring parents and grandparents into the country.
What this means is that for every working-age immigrant coming to Canada, there will be untold numbers of older dependents who require health care and other social services. This, in turn, requires more public spending, and it’s disingenuous to claim all tax revenue from new immigrants can be used to support Canadians in their golden years.
The bottom line? Immigration will not significantly alter Canada’s age demographics, and therefore has no effect on shaping the ratio of dependents to non-dependents. Contrary to claims made by the Century Initiative, mass-immigration will increase the strain on our social programs, not alleviate it.
Now, what is to be made of the Century Initiative’s claims of increased prosperity? Spoiler alert: not much.
The Century Initiative uses overall GDP figures to support its economic growth claims. However, as David Green, a professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, notes “setting out to maximize GDP or population is not an obviously worthwhile pursuit” unless a link can be shown between “increasing the total size of the economy and individual well-being.”
In other words, what we should focus on is GDP per capita – the share of national income per person – rather than the overall national income.
The Century Initiative claims that “if we stay the course on population, our GDP growth will be only 1.6% in 2100 at 53.7 million people. But with 100 million people, we could reach a healthier 2.6%.” However, when we adjust for population, we find that per capita growth is larger with a population of 53.7 million (2.9%) compared to 100 million (2.6%).
Using the Century Initiative’s own numbers, we see that a population of 100 million Canadians would be less prosperous than the naturally occurring population of 53.7 million.
The Century Initiative also claims that immigration would increase the Canadian workforce, thereby increasing “innovation, and dynamism.” However, it is widely accepted among economists that increased immigration rates have “little impacts on wages and employment in the medium to long run.” Meaning that mass-immigration will do nothing to stimulate the Canadian economy, or meaningfully grow our labour force.
100 million Canadians is neither practically advisable, nor economically beneficial, regardless of what the Century Initiative would have us believe. While it is true that we must find a solution to our aging population, advocating for mass-immigration is irresponsible.
Finally, many other Western nations are facing the same issues of declining population growth, yet only in Canada do we find claims that tripling the population offers some magic solution. We must be wary of too-good-to-be-true solutions. Especially those proposed by organizations founded by corporate investment giants, like the Century Initiative.
I urge you: reject the Century Initiative. Reject mass-immigration. Canada will be better for it.