Canada 2060 Assignment- Davina G
What will Canada look like in 2060?
Introduction:
Immigration
Demography
First Nations
Immigration: Current Status
- Canada takes in 250, 000 immigrants a year.
- Most of the immigrants are economic immigrants (include skilled workers and business immigrants. Come to Canada to work and improve the economy).
- Canada also takes in a lot of refugees.
- Our pull factors (reasons for someone to be attracted to a new country) are our universal healthcare, human rights, equality ,education, and many more.
Most of the immigrants go to Ontario or British Columbia for their big cities with ethnic enclaves (geographical areas with high concentrations of people with the same culture, tradition, language, foods, and religion). They also go to places near America like Windsor because most of their relatives are in America. They go to places like Ontario and British Columbia because the flights are cheaper from Asia to British Columbia and most of our immigrants come from Asia. Also, they want to meet people of the same culture, religion, and people who speak the same language as them, which are typically found in ethnic enclaves. They go to Toronto, Windsor, and Vancouver because those are the cities with the most ethnic enclaves and diversity, as well as the most job opportunities.
The immigration was the highest during the Great Expansion of the West (1905-1913, when Canada wanted to populate its land by giving out free land to immigrants) and the lowest was during the Great Depression (1930-1945, when Canada's stock market crashed). Currently, our immigration rate is pretty constant with 250, 000 immigrants a year as well as our refugees (Someone who fears cruel or inhumane treatment in his or her home country). Most of our immigrants are coming from Syria as refugees due to the many wars in Syria as well as Asia. They leave Asia for better education, more job opportunities, and a better quality of life. Our emigration rate is 29, 100 people. Our push factors (reasons for someone to want to leave a country) are people missing their family and striving to be in more warmer areas with more job opportunities. The people who leave go to Europe and Asia, because they miss their families or they want to try international education.
Immigration: Future Predictions
I think the immigration rate will increase drastically in Canada because as we quickly move into Stage 5 of the Demographic Transition Model (a graph that is used to study the demographic past of a country), we will have less and less people to do jobs and our economy will crash. This means that Canada will have to take in many more immigrants to take on these jobs and compensate for our decreasing population. Also, in the year 2060, Canada's dependency load (the ageing and youth population in ratio to the working population) will be really high because all the adults will grow up and become the elderly and since the birth rate is decreasing, that means that there won't be enough kids that will grow up and go into the working load and therefore there will be too many people dependent on the small working force. The Baby Boomers (large cohort of babies born after WWII) will also be reaching old age, and they account for a large chunk of our working population so once they retire, we would gain MANY more people in our dependency load. This is also another reason Canada will have to take in more immigrants, to fix the dependency ratio and get more people working in order to support the large dependent load, increasing the immigration rate. Currently, we take in about 250,000 immigrants and I think it will increase to 300,000-350,000. Also, I think the immigration rate will increase because Canada is made of immigrants so there's so many people who want to reunite with their family, get better education, and follow the trend of their family so Canada will have to let in people for the sake of the people already here. Then, there will always be refugees to let in and shelter for the sake of humanity. Although other countries are also developing, there's always wars leading to people needing escapes- thus creating refugees. Plus, Canada will continue having a lot of pull factors like our universal healthcare, human rights, equality, safety, education and more.
- Currently, the emigration is 29,100 people.
- I believe it'll decrease to 15-20,000 people.
This is because in the future, Canada will continue working on their:
- healthcare system,
- inventing new technologies
- putting money towards education
- advancement of our country.
This means they will find ways to make the air cleaner, make us healthier, and find ways to prevent diseases. With all of this in mind, people won't have a reason to leave Canada and they'll just want to stay. There won't be that many push factors, except maybe people missing their family and wanting to go to a warmer area. The emigration rate in Canada in 2016 is already low so I can only imagine it getting lower as Canada keeps on getting better.
In regards to the new immigrants, I believe they will continue going to provinces like Ontario and British Columbia because:
- That's where their families are so they want to reunite with them,
- There's more job opportunities,
- Many Ethnic enclaves,
- Many Language schools.
When a new immigrant comes to Canada, they typically come from somewhere with an extremely different culture and language so they would gravitate to cities where lot's of their families and ethnic enclaves with cultural food and traditions are, like Toronto, Windsor, and Vancouver. Plus, although all of Canada will keep advancing, Toronto and Vancouver will always be the most advanced because that's where everything happens first- making it an ideal place for new immigrants. Ethnic Enclaves (geographical area with a high concentration of people from the same background and heritage) have a lot of traditional foods for the new immigrants to eat, cultural and religious practice areas, and people speaking the same language. This will help them feel less scared, more welcomed, and adjust better. Toronto and Vancouver have MANY ethnic enclaves, which is why so many immigrants go there, and will continue going there.
I think the provinces with the least amount of immigrants will be Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and New Brunswick because they are colder and more isolated from the rest of society. The population is also lower in those areas so there won't be as many ethnic enclaves. I think there will be a lot of immigrants from countries in Africa primarily because it's a developing continent and therefore people will try to escape it to a place that is already completely developed. Also, I think places in Asia like India and China will also provide a lot of immigrants because those are manufacturing countries and there's lots of pollution and bad air quality. They are the same countries as currently because immigrants have a reason to move- reuniting with family and those areas have the most push factors. This causes a lot of health issues making people want to come to a country with better healthcare and a higher life expectancy (the number of years someone is predicted to live in a country).
Within Canada, I think there will be a lot of interprovincial migration because as more and more immigrants come to Ontario and British Columbia and make it overpopulated, the Canadians who have been here for long will move to less densely populated areas so that they have more land and free space. I also think there will be a lot of interprovincial migration (people moving within the country. I.e to a different province or territory) because when they first come to Canada they want to be in a warmer area but after being here for years, they're used to it and are more open to the ideas of going to Alberta and Saskatchewan where it is a little colder. They may also want to experience new places in Canada that will have new jobs in the future to solve new problems that may arise.
Demography: Current Status
- Our birth rate (the number of live births in a country per 1000 people a year) currently sits at 11 births per 1000 and 1.60 children per woman. This is because women are staying in school longer, and the longer a woman stays in school, the less children she will have. Also, there's lots of family planning and late marriages in Canada, leading to lower birth rates. Overall, people focus on getting their careers settled before thinking of children, hence the low birth rates.
- Our death rate (the number of deaths per 1000 in a population in a year) is 8.54 per 1000. This is a fairly low death rate and it's caused by the advanced healthcare system, and new technologies and vaccinations to cure diseases and prevent other sicknesses. Also, we have a high life expectancy, because of better quality of life, so there's less deaths.
- The natural increase (refers to the difference between the number of live births and the number of deaths occuring in a year). is 2.41 per 1000 and the growth rate (the total population increase resulting from the interaction of births, deaths, and migration in a population) is 7.4 per 1000. These are both fairly low due to the low birth rate and the death rate being greater than the birth rate. The only reason our population is increasing is because of immigrants coming in to increase our population. In fact, our current net migration rate is 7.2 per 1000. This is because Canada is currently taking in a lot of economic immigrants to improve our economy as well as refugees to give them shelter and safety.
Demography: Future Predictions
I predict that the demography of Canada will not change drastically. I do not think the birth rate will increase. This is because in the future people will continue:
- pursuing their dreams,
- getting higher education,
- getting great jobs, and having a family won't be one of their priorities.
The need of having children that was so important in the past is slowly diminishing as people shift their focus more into their education and careers. So many people want to be doctors, scientists, inventors, etc and they want to take on full-time jobs that require a lot of thinking, determination, and work, so they may not feel like they are prepared to have a family. This would typically lead me to believe that the birth rate would decrease.
However, I realized that sometimes although people may not want to start a family they may feel socially inclined to because of what they see on media, family pressure, friend pressure, and simply because they don't want to break tradition. They may also want someone to pass on their stuff to and their significant other may also feel inclined to have children. If you take the prospective busy lives and add the social pressure, it leads to my personal prediction that the birth rate will stay the same, if not decrease slightly. Specifically, our birth rate is 11 births per 1000, I think it will go to 10 births per 1000.
Next, I believe the death rate will decrease drastically in Canada. I think it'll go from 8.54 deaths per 1000 to 6-7 per 1000. As I mentioned before, Canada is a developed country but it still strives to get better and better because there's always room for improvement and the government spends a lot of money improving it and so I believe this will lower the death rate. To illustrate, there is a lot of money put towards Canada's healthcare and charities raise a huge amount too for research so I truly believe after years of attempt, they will have new vaccinations and medications for diseases and sicknesses, causing the death rate in adults to decrease significantly. Furthermore, they'll also have new technologies that will better monitor babies in mother's stomachs which will help them keep the babies healthy, significantly lowering the infant mortality rate. Stat Canada has even predicted the infant mortality rate to drop from 3.018 in 2030 to 1.490 in 2060.
I also believe the life expectancy will increase drastically because of all these new technologies and research break throughs that will make us healthier, thus making us live longer. Continuing on, I believe Canada's natural increase rate will also increase drastically because the death rate is going to drop and birth rate won't change significantly, resulting in a natural increase that is much more than it currently is. I predict the natural increase rate to go from 2.41 per 1000 to 4.82 (doubling population). Similarly, the growth rate will also increase due to the high natural increase rate AND more immigrants coming in to get jobs, universal healthcare, and better education. I think it'll go from 7.4 per 1000 to 11-14 per 1000 (doubling our population). To support all that I have just said about the population increasing, according to the rule of 70 (that tells us how many years until a population doubles in size, assuming all factors remain the same), Canada is expected to double in 58 years. From now until 2060, it would have been 44 years, meaning we would be close to almost double our current population, proving and supporting my predictions of increase.
Furthermore, I believe the net migration rate (the net effect of immigration and emigration on an area's population. The amount of extra people) will also increase as I mentioned because as Canada keeps on getting better and progressing, there will be more and more pull factors to Canada, making people want to immigrate here. Finally, as per the Demographic Transition Model, Canada is supposed to be going into Stage 5 soon. This means that our population will start declining. We are also supposed to become top heavy on our population pyramid which means there will be more old people than young people. This is due to our population of baby boomers (large group of babies born after WWII) reaching old age. I do believe in these predictions, however I don't think it will have an overall effect on our population growth rate because I feel like Canada will just take in more immigrants to compensate. The immigrants will add to the working age, fixing the dependency load and evening out our population pyramid (a pyramid that shows a country's population, divided by age group and gender).
Video
First Nations: Current Status
- The Indian Act, that states that only Aboriginal people with statuses will get certain rights and privileges, is still intact. The act makes it super hard to be given the First Nations title and it is easily revoked from you if you marry out or one of your partners dies.
- Wab Kinew, an aboriginal activist and spokesperson, explained that the Aboriginals want this act removed because although they get some privileges, the basic concept is that the second you segregate a group of people from the rest of the community, bad things will occur. So he is working hard to get rid of it.
The First Nations communities are living mostly in peace, but they are not happy. There are many small protests and complaint letters being written, as well as heavy tension in the air. In regards of the rest of Canada, many Canadians are opposed to First Nations rights and they don't think First Nations should get additional rights. They are starting many petitions against it. In regards to Canada as a whole:
- The new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is working on finding lost Aboriginal women and incorporating First Nations needs into daily Canadian life.
- The NDP party also wants to increase the funding for Aboriginal education, encouraging more First Nations people to go to school and become a part of the Canadian society.
First Nations: Future Predictions
First Nations communities play a big role in Canadian history. First Nations were here in Canada before any of us, and they did so much for us. They shared their land, taught us how to survive in harsh weather, and traded with us. Even after taking most of their land, they didn't retaliate. They've given up so much for us and yet we continue treating them badly. Although we can't stop how we treated them in the past (residential schools, assimilation, and abuse) we definitely do NOT have to continue treating them poorly currently with racism, unfair treaties, and open ends that have yet to be mended. Fortunately, I can truly and gladly predict that the First Nations will be much happier in Canada in 2060. This is because in our current year of 2016, I can already see many positive changes being made that will definitely affect the First Nations positively in the future. For example, with our new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. Trudeau is very much aware of the harsh treatment and unfair laws still in place for the First Nations people and he is already doing things to change that. To illustrate, he has started a detailed search for the 200 Aboriginal women that have gone missing in the recent years, which Harper had never planned on doing. He's also looking into ways of incorporating more Native people into the government, so that their voices can be heard too.
Also, at schools, learning about Aboriginals has been integrated into our curriculum, so now kids from a young age are learning about Canada's disappointing history. Although everyone may not do something about it, the education system hopes that at least a handful will grow up and bring about change, which I definitely think will be the case as the more educated and understanding people are, the more likely they are to voice their opinions and bring change.
Furthermore, there are many Aboriginal people already sharing their stories and creating community centres where kids of aboriginal families who have forgotten their culture can go and relearn their language, traditions, culture, and belief. This will help mend the broken bond between Aboriginal families and help restore their culture. This will also play a major role in helping Aboriginal people be proud of their culture, leading to more people identifying themselves as First Nations because a lot of people hide their identity.
To support my prediction, it was mentioned on Stat Canada that the Aboriginal population will increase from 1.3 million people currently to 1.7-2.2 million people by 2060. This is a significant increase and it indicates that the First Nations people are more happy with Canada which is why they want to start families again. I think that there won't be any specific First Nations reserves or communities. They'll just live within the rest of Canada, get the money and rights they deserve, and they'll feel much more welcomed and happy. There'll also be less hate towards them because they will play a major role in government and our lives- making people more supporting them. This will happen through Justin Trudeau, spokespeople, and educated people wanting to bring about change. The Indian Act will also disappear- as Trudeau is planning, eliminating many problems First Nations and non First Nations have. I believe Canada and the First Nations will work hand in hand to make the best possible decisions for Canada.
Audio
Challenges Canada Might Face
Conclusion: The Future?
Summary: First Nations- 2060
Summary: Immigration- 2060
Summary: Demography- 2060
Bibliography
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