JamesM

I've come to the conclusion that retail food shopping, retail clothes shopping and retail banking (pretty much anything involving retail) would dramatically be improved if Canada's population was not so sparse.

Then I read this interesting article in "The Globe and Mail".

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...2436609/page3/

How would you feel about Canada expanding it's immigration program to accelerate population growth?

Tangram

Damn immigrants.

Jingsamichty

Better defended? Come on! It's Canada, defended from what?

Anyway, the fact is that, any huge population growth in Canada would be likely to come from Asia.

The US just reported that, last year, white births were in the minority - that would soon happen in Canada too. So what would all the Brits who flee to Canada to escape the hordes of immigrants make of all these new millions of Chinese arriving with them?

CanadaJimmy

Part of the Globe and Mails "Immigration Answer" series. I don't really think Canada needs more immigration than it has right now. Despite the doom and gloom stated in that article, as time goes on, yes there will be more elderly people needing support, but the world of 2080 will be very different to the world of today, with better technology and so on. Just inviting in hundreds of thousands of people to act as a bottom of the ladder labour force seems like it could do some real damage to the fabric of Canadian society, and we should be encouraging alternative answers instead. Look at Japan which has the same aging population issue, and is an incredibly hard place to immigrate to, and they are making more and more advances with robotics and replacing human jobs with machines as their method of solving the problem. Sure they've got a long way to go, but it goes to show that lax immigration law isn't the only option.

EDIT: What is interesting is in another article it states the UK is the #1 source for immigrants in Canada, I guess that makes sense from an "of all time" perspective:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...22/?section=8&

el_richo

Canada would be ****ed with that population.

JamesM

There would be a lot more infrastructure put in and more businesses would locate here as a result creating more opportunity.

Novocastrian

Perhaps. But the article suggests Canada in a similar position without it.

I'm not sure of my position, but it's a thought provoking article.

MikeUK

Best way to improve the retail issue is to be come a state, It also solves any "defence" issues, cross border taxes, trade barriers etc

el_richo

I'd agree if the huge influx was to the prairies or the less densely populated areas as they are now. Vancouver can barely function with what we have now, and the growth it's contending with.

Steve_

That article is complete drivel, for example in Alberta there's only enough fresh water for Calgary to get to about 2 million people.

I'm not sure Canada could actually cope with a population that large and I'm not sure you could even get that many immigrants anyway unless they made it really open. Back when the points were at 75, they couldn't meet the quota of 225,000 which was why the score was dropped to 67.

If the US ever actually engages in some sort of rational immigration reform, it will be really hard for Canada to get those immigrants, imv.

The total number of people granted PR status in Canada is around 230,000 a year and in the US it is nearly a million, well obviously that is four times the Canadian rate and the US has nine times the population. If the US went to the current Canadian rate I seriously doubt indeed Canada could get 450,000 people a year to immigrate.

Steve_

There's a reason they're less densely populated, lack of water and arable land being the main reasons. But I agree Vancouver and Toronto cannot cope with the current influx.

Novocastrian

If that's the case you could drink oil, in the sense that your province could barter oil for water, which is plentiful elsewhere in Canada. On your second point, they perhaps could if the economies of other parts of Canada weren't being ruined by over-concentration on stuff Albertans happen to have under their feet.

Almost Canadian

Ooohhh, a Mulcair fan!

Novocastrian

No, an independent thinker. Does Mulcair agree? I'm glad.

If you scroll back as it were, you'll find I've been making this point for years.

Added later: Can you think of any other country in the world where any particular region of a country has complete control over the exploitation of mineral resources under their feet with no substantial control by the national government? I can think of two. Post "Shock and Awe" Iraq and the Congo.

Hardly shining examples of the right way to go about things.

JamesM

I thought Canada had more fesh water than any other country in the world.