Canada 2060
What will Canada look like in 45 years?
How does our future look?
Canadian Demographics
Our Aging population
Canada's population is aging, and it's aging fast. Our mortality rate is decreasing, and life expectancy rate is increasing. Today, Canadians live up to 81 years on average. With our seniors living longer and fewer and fewer babies being born, there are now more Canadians aged 55-64 than young workers aged from 15 to 24 (Kembhavi, 2014). With lower natural increase rates and the baby boomers quickly reaching retirement age at around 2026, Canada's population is more dependant on immigrants than ever.
As shown in the chart below, Kembhavi projects that by 2041, seniors will be almost a quarter of our population. That's pretty insane if you ask me..
How quickly is our population growing?
A good sized population is key to a healthy economy, not too over-crowded, but just enough workers to fill important jobs to improve our quality of life. Surely with all the talk about over population, Canada's population must be increasing incredibly fast, right? After all, we're a very developed country with one of the highest quality of life ratings in the world! As it turns out, that is simply NOT the case. Canada's natural increase rate is in fact slowing down. The chart below is provided by well-being.esdc.gc.ca. As you can see, fertility rate is in fact quickly declining
Most families these days are only having one child, as the previous need for larger families due to high infant mortality rates is no longer there. Not only is this leading to the aging population trend shown above due to less kids being born, but its eventually going to bring our natural growth rate to a halt! How, you may ask, will our country's population increase when this happens? Worry not. Based on trends in our population, I feel that in the years to come, migration will be a large contributor to our population, and might just be our only hope, because at the rate fertility is decreasing at, the amount of deaths are sure to catch up with births. Although our natural increase rate is being slimed down, that doesn't mean immigration is too. In fact, its quite the contrary. The graph below provided by statcan.gc.ca supports this theory. As you can see, from 1951 to 1961, more and more of our population growth came from immigrants, and from 2001-2011 we have more growth from immigrants than natural births. It is projected that this trend will only continue in the years to come.
-Between 1851 and 1991, our natural increase rate was the main factor behind Canada's growth
-Since 2001, natural increase rate dropped to only a third of population growth
-There was a decrease in fertility rates
-As the population was aging, deaths increased
-From 2011 to 2031, the baby boomers should be reaching the age 80, which is statistically the age the average Canadian lives to
-From that point on, it is projected that population growth will rely on immigration.
According to statistics Canada, over the next 50 years our population should reach anywhere from 40 to 63 million people.
First Nations
There are many differences between Aboriginal versus non aboriginal demographics.
-The aboriginals have higher percentages of their population near the bottom of the pyramid meaning that they have a much younger population
-Non aboriginals have a much more balanced Pyramid, our ages are more evenly spread out
-There are more aboriginal children aged 10-14 than any other age
-Non aboriginals have high percentages of people aged 40-44, and another large chunk over the age of 75
-In both cases, females tend to live longer
Some of the reasons why I think we're seeing these trends are because-
-Aboriginals are catching up to the rest of Canada industry/technology wise, which leads to low death rates
-Aboriginals have a lower life expectancy than the rest of Canada, so they have smaller percentages of older Aboriginals.
Due to these trends, although the first nations people have a much smaller population in comparison to us, they have a MUCH higher growth rate, with a growth rate of 44% in 2006. That's INSANE.
How were the First nations people treated throughout history?
The First Nations people were treated cruelly in the past, from rip-off agreements and taking their land, to trying to strip them of their culture and language in the residential schools. Many Canadians don't even realize what was taken from the First Nations people to give us what we have today, and I'm sure that they're unaware that the very land they're living on is being negotiated with the First Nations right now, or should I say, should be being negotiated. Unfortunately, it's just not as high on their priority list. The very people who helped shape the country we live in today are still viewed as "unimportant" to many Canadians today. The video below feautures Wab Kinew, a status Indian speaker who addresses some First Nations stereotypes and why we should get rid of them, while briefly going over some important parts of Native Indian history.
Immigrants
An immigrant is someone who moves into a new country from their old one, as one of four classes.
-Buisiness class immigrants
-independant/economic class immigrants
-family class immigrants
-refugee
A large majority of immigrants coming to Canada are economic immigrants, immigrants with skills that would be beneficial to our economy. Every year Canada accepts 250 000 immigrants into our country, which is an insane amount! Approximately 20% of Canada's population are all immigrants that came from other countries! We value our immigrants here, and without them our population would plummet and fall. As explained previously, Canadians are having less and less children, whether it be because of improved health conditions, of because of less opportunities to have kids, as more and more people are spending a lot of time getting a good education, the death rate would quickly catch up to births unless we can grow our population another way.
The chart below provided by immigrationwatchcanada.org shows the trend of how many immigrants are coming each year, and the numbers are definitely rising.
-Citizens get free health care
-Canada has one of the highest qualities of life in the world
-It has a good economy
-They're accepting a lot of immigrants
-Low crime rate
-High education
-Good climate
-And many other reasons why Canada is a great country, like our reputation for being kind.
It's not just economic class immigrants, Canada is also accepting refugees, people leaving their country in fear of persecution, at this current time in history, we're getting many refugees coming from Syria, and Canada is doing the best it can to let in as many as they can.
Conclusion
However, according to Andrew McAfee, it is estimated that almost 50% of the current jobs in existence will be automated, replacing many workers with machines.... Yeah, that's an issue for another time.
Works cited
"Fact Sheet - Urban Aboriginal Population in Canada." Aadnc-aandc.gc.ca. Government of Canada, 15 Sept. 2010. Web. 14 Oct. 2015.
"Facts and Figures 2014 - Immigration Overview: Permanent Residents." Cic.gc.ca. Government of Canada, 1 Aug. 2015. Web. 14 Oct. 2015.
"Framing Canada." Collectionscanada.gc.ca. Library and Archives Canada, 2011. Web. 2015.
"Immigration Watch Canada." Immigration Watch Canada. N.p., 2010. Web. 14 Oct. 2015.
McAfee, Andrew. "What Will Work Look like in 50 Years?" ForumBlog. World Economic Forum, 11 Nov. 2014. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.
"Population." The Canadian Encyclopedia. N.p., 7 Feb. 2006. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.
"Population Growth in Canada: From 1861 to 2061." Www12.statcan.gc.ca. Government of Canada, 18 Dec. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2015.
"Population Growth in Canada." Statcan.gc.ca. Canada's Government, 28 Jan. 2008. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
Sorensen, Chris. "The Future of Jobs in Canada." Macleansca. Rogers Media, 19 Mar. 2013. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.