Earlier this month, in a New York Times interview, Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked whether Canada would reverse the limitations his government had put on immigration, since he has since described population decline as an economic problem.
asserted
he → ask → problem
He lightly brushed at the subject.
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He → brush → subject
“Now the question starts to become: When do we resume some controlled increase in the population, which is the nature of Canada?
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which → start → Canada
So that will happen, and we just want to make sure that we’ve got it under control,” Carney said.
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Carney → happen → control
Conservatives reacted like Carney had touched a stove.
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Carney → react → stove
Pierre Poilievre talked about “mass Liberal Immigration.”
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Poilievre → talk → Immigration
Michelle Rempel Garner, the Conservative Party of Canada’s shadow critic for immigration, gave a speech and wrote on X: “that’s crazy.
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that → give → X
Immigration needs to go down.
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Immigration → need → ?
Those, broadly, are Canada’s competing visions: more immigration, or, along with the United States, less.
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Those → compete → States
Under Stephen Harper the number was closer to 0.6 per cent, but Conservatives have not given a target.
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Conservatives → give → target
At the height of Justin Trudeau’s time as PM — the temporary foreign worker program, aided and abetted by Ontario but Ottawa’s call, was probably the worst policy mistake of the Trudeau era —
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program → aid → era
population increases soared as high as 3.2 per cent between 2022 and 2024.
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increases → soar → 2022
And while details of immigration policy matter a great deal — see the three-part series by the Star’s Nicholas Keung — the bigger picture is a stark, non-negotiable choice.
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picture → matter → Keung
Yes, an EKOS poll earlier this year showed 50 per cent of Canadians believed immigration was too high, including an eye-popping 88 per cent of conservatives — up 15 points since 2018 — and 63 per cent of Bloc Quebecois voters.
“I think government’s got to act very, very carefully here, and be extra aggressive on housing, just because of where Canada’s mood is on immigration right now
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mood → show → immigration
,” says Mike Moffatt, one of the nation’s foremost housing experts and the founding director of the University of Ottawa’s Missing Middle Initiative.
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Moffatt → say → Initiative
Without housing, Carney is playing a dangerous game.
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Carney → play → game
But Canadians need to realize the literal future of the country is at stake, because demographics really are destiny.
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demographics → need → stake
“I think Canadians are still kind of the mindset that everything is going to grow, and the shocking news I think almost no Canadian will really appreciate is that between now and the end of this decade, which is just so short an amount of time, we’re going to hit zero natural increase,” says Dan Hiebert, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, and one of the nation’s leading scholars on immigration.
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Hiebert → think → immigration
“And from that point on, the only component that’s going to raise the Canadian population is immigration.
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that → go → population
And that has just massive implications in terms of scale of education, scale of the workforce, the functions of the welfare state.
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that → have → state
It’s existential, basically: it’s really serious, and I think very few people comprehend that.
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people → ’ → that
Sadly, I also don’t think very many people in Parliament comprehend that.
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people → think → that
Most of the world outside Africa has seen declining fertility, and therefore fewer young people.
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Most → see → fertility
Some of that decline can be attributed to a reduction in teenage pregnancies, and an increase in educational attainment for women.
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Some → attribute → women
Some will advocate for pro-natalist and affordability policies, which, sure.
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Some → advocate → policies
Without increases in housing supply and other social infrastructure, resentment toward immigration grows in a country with a scarcity mindset.
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resentment → grow → mindset
Japan has the world’s leading old age dependency ratio, or OADR, at 48 per cent — “Japan has nine million empty homes,” says Hiebert — which becomes a heavy budget burden, and is projected to lose as much as a third of its population by 2070.
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which → have → 2070
In low-fertility scenarios, Japan’s population could drop from 122 million to as low as 51 million by the end of the century.
uncertain
population → drop → century
That’s disaster, and decline.
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That → ’ → ?
A key Hiebert paper last year showed that at annual increases of 0.6 per cent Canada’s population declines long-term, and Canada surpasses Japan’s world-leading OADR by 2071.
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Canada → show → 2071
At 0.9 per cent we simply match Japan’s world-leading ratio of seniors in the same time frame.
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we → match → frame
The higher you go, the lower the future impact — it is never eliminated — but if 1.2 per cent outpaced Canada’s state capacity, Carney doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room unless our housing future changes, too.
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future → go → room
So Canada needs more people, and therefore more housing and more everything despite the difficulties of co-operative federalism, and along with the MAGAfication of the United States, it amounts to a society-defining challenge.
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it → need → challenge
We have, of course, failed this kind of slow-motion public policy test before.
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We → fail → test
The baby boom generation was no secret, and yet investment in long-term care failed to meet the challenge.
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investment → fail → challenge
Canada’s future starts now.
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future → start → ?
The Aporia
