Our Canada

Why Population Growth Is an Issue in Canada

The myth that won’t die – it’s time to lay it to rest

Who among us has not heard that Canada is underpopulated: a huge country with “vast open spaces” and a small population? Indeed, dividing Canada’s land area of about 9 million square kilometers by its population of 40 million results in a low average population density of about 4.5 people per square kilometer (or 12 per square mile). However, this simplistic equation in no way reflects where and how Canadians actually live. The urbanized densely populated southern parts of Canada suffer from exactly the same problems as overcrowded regions in the rest of the world. Nevertheless, the myth that Canada can accommodate a virtually infinite number of people seems to be resistant to whatever the data may show about the enormous ecological, economic, and social stresses its rapidly growing population is creating.

It is long past time to lay the myth of Canada being “underpopulated” to rest. Unfortunately, it is a myth with very tenacious promotors, not least the government of Canada itself, which is bent on continuously and rapidly growing Canada’s population through immigration.

Canada has the fastest population growth rate of the G7 countries. Among developed countries, only Australia has been in the same league as Canada in terms of per capita population growth in recent years.

The dangerous fantasy of non-stop growth versus the reality of carrying capacity

Regardless of what the ruling economic paradigm may hold, infinite growth in any finite space is logically impossible. A region’s carrying capacity is defined as the population that it can sustain in the long term without degradation of the environment. Prior to European settlement, Canada’s aboriginal population survived by hunting, fishing, and gathering, with some small-scale farming. Such means of subsistence cannot support a large population. The introduction of modern agriculture and international trade in commodities made it possible for Canada’s population to grow substantially. However, this growth came at a significant cost to its environment and biodiversity. Growth is driving the loss of Canada’s farmland and wildlife habitat, with the concomitant depletion of wildlife, and the pollution of its land and water. In other words, Canada’s growing population is not sustainable.

Canada is no more exempt from the limits to growth than the planet as a whole. The limiting factors will ultimately be renewable resources such as water, soil, forests, and fisheries, and non-renewable resources, including metals, minerals, and fossil fuels, on which the infrastructure, machines, and operating systems of our civilization depend.  It is oil, in particular, that has allowed the human population to skyrocket. Oil is used to run agricultural machinery, transport food to distant locations, and produce fertilizers and pesticides. Oil made the “green revolution” possible. The fast-growing and drought-resistant crops of the green revolution tripled or quadrupled the global production of various crops and averted the mass starvation that Paul Ehrlich foresaw in his 1968 book The Population Bomb. Unfortunately, humanity did not use the bonanza of food that the green revolution brought about as a “breathing space” during which “the frightening power of human reproduction [would be] curbed”, as Norman Borlaug, its “father,” had hoped; instead, the green revolution further escalated the rate of population growth. But green revolution crops require heavy irrigation as well as large quantities of fertilizers and pesticides. As the age of cheap and abundant oil draws to a close, and water resources everywhere become depleted and polluted, concerns about global food security again loom large.

Every country must take responsibility to ensure that it is on track to a sustainable population. Given that Canada’s total fertility rate has been at or below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman since about 1970, Canada could stop growing and gradually decrease its population with more moderate levels of immigration. Had it pursued a policy of balanced migration (immigration = emigration) since 1970, Canada’s population would have stabilized at about 28 million. However, while the people of Canada have spoken by having fewer than the replacement number of children, the purveyors of the growth mantra and their captured politicians are driving ecocidal policies of rapid population growth through immigration. There is even an organization called the Century Initiative whose raison d’être is to promote a Canada of 100 million people by 2100.

Immigration – the prime driver of Canada’s population growth

While historically Canada’s immigration levels varied widely, depending mainly on perceived economic needs, the government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1990 set an immigration target of 250,000 annually. This target was maintained by all subsequent governments, regardless of political party. The government of Justin Trudeau (elected in October 2015) raised those levels even higher. In October 2017, it established targets of up to 340,000 by 2020. Due to COVID, the actual number of newcomers in 2020 was only 184,000. However, in November 2022, it announced that Canada had welcomed 405,000 newcomers during the past year and set targets for the next three years that culminated in 500,000 by 2025. In fact, the actual number of newcomers who arrived in 2022 and 2023 exceeded one million each year, since government targets included only permanent residents, and the combined number of temporary foreign workers and foreign students who arrived in Canada in both years exceeded that of permanent residents.

This strategy of growing Canada’s economy by growing its population has not resulted in an increase in overall per capita prosperity. On the contrary, during the last several decades, income inequality has greatly increased, housing has become less affordable for most people, debt levels have risen, and the quality of jobs overall has decreased. The usual economic arguments for growing Canada’s population do not hold water. Our “aging population” is another oft-cited bugbear, but immigration has not had and will not have a significant effect on Canada’s age structure.

In 2011, Herbert Grubel and Patrick Grady published an article called Immigration and the Welfare State, which calculated that recent immigrants receive $18 to $23 billion more in government services (such as language and skills training, and welfare) each year than they pay in taxes. In a 2015 paper (Immigration and the Welfare State Revisited), Grady and Grubel updated their estimate for 2014 to $27 to $35 billion.

The economic arguments for population growth are unsound. It is used as an easy way to grow the economy, but per capita wealth has not increased even as Canada’s population has ballooned. Further, as if its immigration policy operated in a vacuum, the government carries out no assessment of the environmental impact of its policy of mass immigration.

Sprawl

Perhaps the most obvious indicator of Canada’s growing population is urban sprawl and the concomitant loss of farmland, wild lands, and urban greenspace. Although advocates of perpetual growth like to pretend that sprawl can be avoided with “smart growth” and densification, in fact no growing city has ever avoided sprawl, even as it densified and sprouted ever more high-rises. Densification rarely improves the quality of life in a neighbourhood. Many Canadians have been voting with their feet, leaving big cities for smaller towns, only to find that growth follows them. Almost all urban and semi-urban centres in Canada are slated for significant population growth, ultimately driven by federal immigration policies which are established without consultation with the municipalities that must deal with the consequences of these policies.

While the proponents of perpetual growth may argue that sprawl is driven by falling population density (“per capita growth,” through bigger houses, bigger lots, more single households etc.), in fact in recent decades it is population growth that has had by far the greatest impact on sprawl. A 2014 US study (Vanishing Open Spaces, by Kolankiewicz et al.), found that in recent decades over 90% of sprawl was due to population growth.

Agricultural land

It is no accident that the pioneers settled along Canada’s southernmost rivers where the best farmland is located. Much of central Canada consists of the Canadian Shield, an area covered with rock and forest and subjected to a harsh climate. This makes central Canada unsuitable for agriculture. Not surprisingly, about 90% of Canadians live within 150 miles of the US border. Imagine a straight line that starts at approximately the western end of Manitoulin Island in Georgian Bay and extends eastward north of both Ottawa and Montreal, bisects the US state of Maine (which projects northward into Canada) and then continues eastward north of St. John, NB, and through Nova Scotia to the Atlantic Ocean. Close to half of the population of Canada lives in the small part of the country found south of that line (“Brilliant Maps”).

Before the advent of refrigerated trucks, fueled by plentiful energy, food had to be grown close to settled areas. Cities were built on Canada’s southern, arable land. As Canada’s population grows so do its cities, and therefore more and more of its arable land falls to development.

Unfortunately, Canada does not have a lot of good agricultural land. Only about 7% of its land area is suitable for any kind of agriculture, including pastureland. And only about 0.5% is classified as “class 1” with no significant limitations to farming.  Despite this, governments have permitted large tracts of these most fertile lands to be used to meet urban demands. This loss is especially grave in southern Ontario where over half of Canada’s class 1 agricultural land is located and which is also the site of its largest metropolitan area, the rapidly growing “Greater Toronto Area,” or GTA.

According to the Ontario Farmland Trust: “In the GTA alone, more than 2,000 farms and 150,000 acres of farmland were lost to production in the two decades between 1976 and 1996. This represented approximately 18% of Ontario’s Class 1 farmland. Although farmland loss is not tracked as extensively today as it was in previous decades, we know that the amount of farmland in the GTA decreased by at least 50,000 acres between 1996 and 2001 and that Ontario lost at least 600,000 acres of farmland between 1996 and 2006. It can take thousands of years to produce one centimeter of the topsoil needed for agricultural production. For this reason, Ontario’s farmland should be seen as a limited natural resource, to be managed and protected.” The Ontario Farmland Trust says that Ontario is still losing 319 acres of farmland to non-agricultural uses, such as urban development and aggregate extraction, each day.

As erosion, salination, and desertification take significant amounts of the world’s best agricultural land out of production, Canada continues to deliberately grow its population through immigration. Despite the much touted but fraudulent strategies of densification and smart growth, farmland continues to be lost at a distressing pace. Future generations, in Canada and beyond, will have to contend with more expensive non-renewable energy sources affecting both the cost of growing food and transporting it. With much of the world’s farmland already under severe stress, and with large parts of the world increasingly affected by water scarcity or drought, any expectations that imports will compensate for the loss of Canada’s own agricultural productivity seem unrealistic.

Water

Canada is blessed with 6.5% of the world’s renewable fresh water supply, but only about 40% of that amount (or 2.6% of world’s supply) is available in the south where most of the population lives. Canada also has about 20% of the world’s fresh surface water (which includes lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands and reservoirs), but this figure is also misleading, since over 70% of surface water flows north to the high Arctic and Hudson’s Bay, not to the south where most people live. In the continuously expanding southern metropolitan regions, water is in ever-greater demand and increasingly polluted – both factors making it more costly to supply.

Groundwater

In 2009, the Council of Canadian Academies warned that groundwater, then serving 10+ million people, was threatened by misuse and contamination caused by “rampant” urbanization, industrialization, and intense agriculture. It listed 28,000 contaminated sites. Since 2009, many more have been added and, since groundwater moves only slowly through porous rock, the impact of contamination takes decades to be revealed. Since the publication of the 2009 report on groundwater, several million more “contaminators” have moved into Canada’s urban centres.

The Great Lakes

The Great Lakes Basin is the largest freshwater system on Earth, with 18% of the world’s fresh surface water, and is home to about 40 million North Americans. About 35% of the surface area of the Great Lakes is in Canada. Experts warn that despite its impressive size, the Great Lakes Basin ecosystem is experiencing serious and worsening degradation from urbanization, climate change and invasive species. Elevated levels of pathogens and harmful pollutants, an increase in untreated sewage, higher water temperatures and more frequent oxygen-poor conditions – all linked to population increases – have led to concerns over water quality threatening fisheries, recreational use and drinking water safety.

Rivers

Canada’s many rivers are important sources of fresh water. However, almost every major river has some measure of control to ensure a constant supply of water and/or hydropower while providing flood control and recreational opportunities. Yet, damming rivers often destroys wildlife habitat and fish spawning grounds. In addition, rivers are also used for other purposes. For example, the Athabasca River is essential to Alberta’s oil sands operations. The water that is used to extract bitumen cannot be released back into the environment and ends up in tailing ponds of harmful pollutants.

Biodiversity

Sadly, negative environmental trends in Canada replicate those in most other parts of the world, with flora and fauna disappearing as human habitation and land use expands. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) warned in 2020 that 810 Canadian wildlife species (animals and plants) are now in some category of risk (endangered, threatened, special concern) or extirpated in Canada (in addition to 19 species that are extinct). Of the approximately 460 bird species found in Canada, 87 are at risk, while 2 are extirpated and 3 are extinct. The populations of some bird species have been reduced by 80% or more.  Some mammals have also suffered severe declines. The Peary caribou (a subspecies of caribou), numbering about 40,000 in the 1960s, now numbers about 13,200. All efforts to mitigate species loss are compromised by relentless human population increases.

Witness the Prairies

Agricultural development in the 1800s and 1900s devastated the Prairies’ natural grassland habitat and associated biodiversity. Over 90% of tall grasses, 80% of the fescue, and 67% of the mixed grass prairie habitat were lost to farming. Approximately 70% of wetlands, critical for wildfowl and migratory birds, were also lost. Bison (“buffalo”) herds, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, were killed. What remains of natural prairie today are relatively small, protected islands surrounded by non-native vegetation, thus reducing available habitat and impeding the movement of wildlife in search of food and shelter. Almost half of Prairie organic matter and natural nutrient content has been eroded, oxidized, or otherwise displaced by farming. Resulting soil degradation has led farmers to increase fertilizer use. This in turn has resulted in further soil quality loss, water contamination and greenhouse gas emissions.

Energy

Given its northern location, Canada is one of the highest per capita energy users in the world. In 2017, Canadians used 7534 kg of oil equivalents per person per year (vs. 7051 in USA; 1695 in China; 263 in Haiti). This use produces over 15 tons of greenhouse gasses per capita annually. Long winters and an exceptionally cold climate lead to high housing, clothing, and utility costs, while Canada’s size and the great distances result in correspondingly high transport costs.  Expenditures all increase, often exponentially, the further north one goes. Per capita energy consumption has been relatively stable in recent decades, and it is Canada’s growing population that is now the primary driver of our rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Social services

As Canada’s population has grown, so have the stresses on its infrastructure, housing costs, social services, and society in general. In addition to greater density, there is more traffic, more noise, more construction, less greenspace, and longer commutes.

Many people have noticed longer wait times for almost any kind of medical service. There is a chronic shortage of hospital beds. Many educational institutions have had to increase classroom size and cut back on the number of programs offered as they struggle to accommodate the needs of students from many different backgrounds. Infrastructure in many Canadians cities is showing signs of wear and tear.

While the government actively promotes the arrival of more newcomers, many new arrivals struggle to survive as they encounter unaffordable housing in areas where they can find mostly low-paying jobs, while in more affordable rural areas there is no public transportation. Long-time immigrant settlement worker Eduardo Queiruga argues that this situation sets up new economic class immigrants for failure and exploitation by unscrupulous employers. Queiruga suggests that government policies are influenced by corporations and other “stakeholders” (we might call them profiteers of growth) and that if there were a genuine shortage of workers in this country, wages would rise across sectors.

Interestingly, and supporting Queiruga’s arguments, in October 2016 then finance minister Bill Morneau told Canada’s youth to get used to a “job churn,” i.e., jumping from one job to another, with few benefits and little job security. One might hope that looking after Canadians, whether recently arrived or long established, would be a priority, rather than driving population growth for the sake of a bigger GDP. Yet one year after finance minister Morneau told young Canadians to get used to a job churn, immigration minister Ahmed Hussen, at a November 2017 news conference, confirmed the government’s intention to progressively raise the target of new immigrants to 340,000 by 2020.

Does the government of Canada believe in science when it comes to population growth?

In 1976, the Science Council of Canada produced a report, Report no. 25, called Population, Technology and Resources. In the introduction, the report’s authors write: “The Report draws attention to the way a rapidly growing population would exacerbate the stresses caused by existing patterns of production and consumption. It notes the probability of greatly increased pressures on Canada’s urban areas, transportation systems and related social and political institutions. Uncertainty about the extent of non-renewable—especially energy —resources is noted, and the potentially adverse effects of climatic fluctuation on Canada’s renewable resource base is considered.” The report was very clear about the fact that Canada’s resources were not only finite, but under pressure.

In 1991, the Intelligence Advisory Committee with input from Environment Canada, the Defence Department, and External Affairs, produced a confidential document for the Privy Council, called The Environment: Marriage Between Earth and Mankind. It states that “Controlling population growth is crucial to addressing most environmental problems, including global warming” (p. 9). With respect to Canada, the report says that “It is, because of its harsh climate and long distances, the most energy-intensive of the free-market industrialized nations. Canada is endowed with vast water resources, but with 90 percent of its population concentrated within a band up to 100 miles of the USA border, water resources in these areas are already being utilized to their fullest. Polluted water has become an everyday concern. …. Although Canada’s population is not large in world terms, its concentration in various areas has already put stress upon regional environments in many ways. Canada can expect to have increasing numbers of environmental refugees requesting immigration to Canada, while regional movements of the population at home, as from idle fishing areas, will add further to population stresses within the country.” (This report was obtained through an access to information request and is not available online.)

In 1997, the results of a study on the Fraser River Basin of British Columbia led by Michael Healey of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver were published. The $2.4 million Fraser Basin Ecosystem Study concluded that the rapidly growing urban environment would overwhelm the natural resource base. As indicators of serious environmental decline, the report noted high nitrogen pollution in groundwaters and the presence of visible abnormalities in more than 90 percent of the fish samples taken from the Fraser River. As many as 50 streams in the greater Vancouver area that had once supported runs of Pacific salmon had been turned into storm sewers. Many of the remaining streams were being degraded because of pollution from automobiles, agriculture, and other sources. At the time, the population level in the area was considered three times above the sustainable level. When the report was released, principal investigator Michael Healey said, “The lower Fraser basin exemplifies all the social, environmental, and economic problems of modern industrial nations. These problems are not going away, and it is high time that we faced up to them.”

Rather than heed the scientific advice, which has consistently recognized limits to growth and advocated for stabilizing Canada’s population, Canada’s leaders have pursued policies of recklessly driving population growth, while never addressing the negative consequences of continuous growth on the environment, urban infrastructure, the cost of housing, access to social services, or human well-being in general.

The Future

The decisions we make today will affect what kind of a country our descendants will live in. According to a Statistics Canada assessment of 2019, Canada’s population in 2068 would be between 44 and 70 million. The extreme levels of immigration in the early 2020s resulted in Canada already reaching a population of 40 million on June 16, 2023. Less than one year later, by April 1, 2024, it was over 41 million.

A bigger Canada will almost certainly not be a better Canada in terms of quality of life. Based on its impact to date on the cost of housing, the price of energy, taxation rates, debt levels, fiscal balance, quality of available jobs, quality of social services, environmental sustainability, and food security, growth has negatively affected the quality of life of most working people. As Canada has grown, income inequality has also become much greater.

PIC believes Canada should seek to become a model sustainable society in an environmentally stressed, increasingly resource-strapped, overpopulated world. To do so, it must stabilize its own numbers and encourage other countries to do likewise. Rather than driving population growth through immigration, Canada should support ethical family planning programs in its foreign aid and adopt a balanced migration policy to stabilize and eventually reduce its own population. Only by pursuing these objectives will Canada achieve the goal of a sustainable future for generations to come.

The global economic paradigm of continuous growth, embraced by all of Canada’s major political parties, is depleting resources and tearing apart the web of life on Earth. In doing so, we are destroying our own life support system. And, as has often been pointed out, there is no Planet B.

References

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