Canada in 2060
By: Benny Yan
Introduction
Canada in 2060 will look different than Canada did right now. It will look different from now since Canada will have a different population growth trends, as well as the First Nations, Metis & Inuit people having a bigger impact on the population.
Immigration Trends
Asian Immigration
The current immigration trend shows that Canada's main source of immigrants come from Asia, as from 2006-2011 coming from Asia according to statistics Canada around 661,600 or 56.9% of immigrants during that period came from Asia(http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm). Most of the 56.9% of these immigrants came from China, India and the Philipines. This is to say that because of Canada's booming economy that the immigrants that are coming from Asia are attracted to Canada, therefore immigrating to Canada. This I believe will not change even when in 2060 as the amount of people immigrating from Asia is still increasing slowly but steadily.
Steady Increase
Secondly, another trend that is currently going on is that over the past two decades Canada's immigration has been pretty steady. Canada during the last two decades has received on average more than 200,000 immigrants per year during that span. Furthermore, Canada's population has sky rocketed during 2006-2011, in this time frame Canada received around 1,162,900 foreign-born people immigrated to Canada. These recent immigrants made up 17.2% of the foreign-born population and 3.5% of the total population in Canada.(http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm). The amount of people immigrating to Canada will also slowly increase too due to the fact that Canada is a developed country as well being a country with a booming economy. In 2060, the amount of immigrants will also be the key to Canada's economical growth as Canada by 2060 would have a much lower natural rate of increase thus making immigrants more and more in need of for the economy to grow further.
Bigger Cities more immigrants
Lastly, the immigrants all tend to look for the bigger cities and provinces to settle in when they immigrate to Canada, such as Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver. Over the 1.2 million people who immigrated to Canada around slightly over three-fifths (62.5%) of these recent immigrants chose to settle in the three largest census metropolitan areas – Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver. In contrast, slightly over one-third (35.2%) of Canada's total population lived in these three CMAs.(http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm). Thus also proving that the two provinces with the largest shares of people born outside the country were Ontario, where around 3,611,400 immigrants or 53.3% lived, and British Columbia, where about 1,191,900 immigrants or 17.6% lived. Overall, their share of immigrant population was higher than their share of Canadian population. (http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm). This would also continue when it gets to 2060 as immigrants will expand these cities bigger while also expanding the nearby cities of the huge megacities in the process of expanding the city. Like how Mississauga is close to Toronto and would very likely be more highly populated by 2060 due to more immigrants coming to Toronto while finding no room and so moving to the alternative of which is a close by city that is also rapidly growing.
Population Trends
Natural rate of increase
The current population trend is that Canada's population's natural rate of increase is getting lower and lower. Between 2001 and 2012, there were 4,262,454 births and 2,795,940 deaths in Canada, resulting in a natural increase of 1,466,514(http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/.3ndic.1t.4r@-eng.jsp?iid=35). But this number is expected to be much different, such as the number of birthes is very likely to stay around the similar amount even in 2060 but the deaths will be much greater due to the fact that the baby boomers would be very old by this time which often means that there will be a spike in the number of deaths in Canada by 2060 compared to right now. Thus leading the natural rate of increase to be greatly reduced compared to what it is right now. By that time in 2060 the natural rate of increase would be so low that Canada may start decreasing its population by that time. The highest TFR value seen in Canada in 2011 was recorded in Nunavut (3.0). In contrast, British Columbia, in 2011, had the lowest value, namely 1.4 children per woman.(http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/.3ndic.1t.4r@-eng.jsp?iid=35).
Growth Rate
So far the growth rate for Canada during the past three decades have been relatively low at around 1.1% on average during each of the three decades. This is because during the past three decades Canada has been a relatively calm country, in terms of wars. After both the world wars Canada no longer required to have as many new born into the population for the wars and so the population growth greatly slowed after the world wars. But with this in mind, Canada has had its population growth severely limited due to a mind set for the Canadians so that they would likely have small families, this way of thinking has caused the Canadian population growth to be greatly smaller and slower than it was during the wars, although this is because Canada does not require a rapid increase in population as it is currently not within any type of great war that would decrease our population by much. With this in mind Canada is very likely to be an even slower growing population country in 2060, as the Canadians are likely to have the same mind about having smaller families so that they can be more ecomically stable. Therefore in order to increase our countries population we will require more immigrants to compensate for the Canadian way of thinking, as the immigrants are likely to bring already born children over.
Slow growing 0-64 and fast growing 65+
First Nations, Metis & Inuit
The Aboriginal peoples population in Canada has grown at an extremely high rate over the past couple of years as they are increasing at 6 times the rate they were increasing in the past compared to now. This is shown as their presence in the Canadian population used to only be around 3% in 2001 but now it is almost 4% of the Canadian population. This 4% further proves that the aboriginal population is likely to increase their population even more in the coming years all the way up to 2060.Between 1996 and 2006 the Aboriginal population grew at a much faster rate than the non-Aboriginal population at 45% and 8% respectively. The Métis had the highest growth rate of all Aboriginal identity groups with their population nearly doubling between 1996 and 2006. The First Nations population grew by 29% while the Inuit population grew by 26%. The growth rates for each of the Aboriginal identity groups were much higher than that of the non-Aboriginal population at 8% from 1996 to 2006 (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-645-x/2010001/growth-pop-croissance-eng.htm). So therefore I believe that in 2060 there will be almost a 8% of the population in Canada that is aboriginal of origin compared to the 4% right now because the population of the aboriginal people are increasing at an extremely fast rate. Having so much more people in Canada would be very good as it will allow the Canadian economy to run more on native Canadians to fuel the economy instead of completely relying on the immigrants.
The Aboriginal population in Canada is much younger than that of the rest of Canada, as around 50% of the Aboriginal population is 24 years of age and lower. Having young people in the population could mean that the population is going to grow even more therefore boosting the Canadian population more than it is right now, mostly compensating for the aging baby boomers who are by 2060 nearly completely gone. The baby boomers that had made up of most of the Canadian population for the past decades pass on and so we would need more Canadian and people to fill the void. While the non-aboriginal people won't be enough the young aboriginal people would likely add more to the population for the Canadian economy to grow. So my prediction for 2060 is that the young aboriginal of today would likely create more and more new aboriginal people to fill in their spots very likely to be more than it is today, in short they will be the main cause of Canada having an increasing population still even after the baby boomers passing away and decreasing the Canadian population by alot.
When compared with the rest of Canada the aboriginal people have a much shorter life expectancy than the regular Canadian would. So much as to the Inuit having a life expectancy of 64 years old for a male and 73 years for a female who is an Inuit person, compared to 79 years old for a male who is Canadian and 83 years old for a female who is Canadian. This short life also applies to the First Nations and the Metis as the the First Nation have an expectancy of 73 years for a male and 78 years for a female, the Metis have 74 years for a male and 80 years for a female Metis. Although the aboriginal people have shorter lives when compared to regular Canadians, they make up for it by having a much higher birth rate when compared with the regualer Canadians. Although right now the relationships between the aboriginals and the rest of Canada is getting stronger so it is likely that by 2060 the aboriginal people will have a more closer expectancy to Canada by then. Therefore my prediction is that in 2060 the Canadian population will have more aboriginal people than they do right now due to the fact they have a higher fertility rate even if they do have an lower life expectancy they aren't affected by the Canadian mind set of having only a small family, and so they have bigger families than the average Canadian would.
Conclusion
Bibliography
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/population-of-canada-projected-to-2060/article643507/
http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/.3ndic.1t.4r@-eng.jsp?iid=35
http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-645-x/2010001/c-g/c-g013-eng.htm