Collaborative Proposal Creation
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Proposal text
WHEREAS Canada’s population growth has been the highest in the G7 (double the US rate in 2019) because Canada drastically increased immigration rates after 2015, likely to meet the goal of 100 million in 2100, based on the corporate-funded Century Initiative (target of 500,000 immigrants/year, or 1.25% of population) . This is neither environmentally nor economically sustainable.
BE IT RESOLVED that Canada needs to reduce population growth to modest levels (i.e., cut permanent economic immigration, Temporary Foreign Workers & foreign students, after the numbers of refugees and family class immigrants have been determined).
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Canada's population should only grow by the minimum or modest amount necessary to meet our demographic and economic needs (maximum 0.5% of population).
Type of Proposal
Public policy that the party would represent
Objective / Benefit
Canada must have an immigration policy that is compassionate, but when people move to Canada, their environmental foot increases, including raising increasing Canada's GHG emissions, increasing our dependence on resource extraction, and increasing urban sprawl and loss of wildlife habitat.
While GDP is a flawed measure, we need to aise Canada's GDP/capita, reduce the cost of living, and be greener (saving farmland, lower emissions, etc.) by cutting immigration to pre-2015 levels or closer to US levels. Canadian might want our country to be more generous than our neighbour, but there is no justification for canada to grow at a rate double that of the US, or more.
Our immigration policy to be designed to reassure Canadians that it:
Is environmentally sustainable
Will not increase unemployment
Will not lead to underemployment
Will not be inflationary
Will not increase home prices or rents
Will not lower GDP/capita, particularly for people already here with permanent status/citizenship.
Will not mean major personal sacrifices by Canadians or see us fall farther behind the US on GDP/capita or their expectation of a middle class lifestyle
Will not add to inequality/make the rich richer at the expense of the rest of us.
If your proposal replaces an existing policy or policies, which one does it replace?
N/A
List any supporting evidence for your proposal
Traditionally, environmentalists were opposed to population growth and the idea of perpetual economic growth - read "Limits to Growth" for example, or the work of environmentalists like Herman E Daly who proposed that eventually we had to have a "steady state economy".
Yet, Canadian elites in business, media and government seem to think that bigger is better. Canada has a low birth rate rate, but so does the US and most other developed countries and even Japan and Italy are shrinking. Yet, the trudeau government has taken immigration policy to an extreme - doubling the already high 250,000 immigrants in 2015 under Harper to 500,000 in 2025, and in fact, we brought in 1.05 million in 2022. This seems in line with the goals of the Century Initiative, a bank and corporate funded group founded by Dominic Barton, thar want Canada to have 100 million people in 2100 - on the basis that bigger is better. Yet, global population will peak at 9.7 billion around 2064 then drop by a billion by 2100.
Does this proposal affect any particular group and what efforts have been made to consult with the group or groups?
N/A
Jurisdiction: Is this proposal under federal jurisdiction?
Yes
Please indicate the language the proposal is being submitted in.
English
This proposal is being evaluated
Posted on the Continuous Motion Development Vote tab for member review prior to the all-member vote.
Amendments (1)
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Created at
16/06/2024 -
- 2
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Conversation with Brian Graff
100 million by 2100, when global population will peak in 2064? You must be a supporter of the Century Initiative and frankly bigger is not better - read Limits to Growth or Herman E Daly.
"Canada can and should be looking to increase population by at least 5% per year short term, because we need to rebuild the infrastructure for both current and future surging population here."
There are only 1-2 years when Canada was over 5%, just before WW1. Canada grew by about 2.7% in 2022, over a million people.
So 5% means increasing housing and infrastructure capacity by 5% a year - when we already have problems with housing from current high growth.
Canada's exports are mainly in commodities, or are branch plants that serve the entire North American market - adding more people doe snot increase this exports or only at a huge cost of lower productivity.
Commodities and agriculture suffer from "decreasing returns" - increasing production costs more for each unit or these are finite limits like with fisheries or forests. We need to be expanding jobs in areas of "increasing returns" like manufacturing or IT. But Canada has too much foreign ownership and high wages so adding capacity also means lower wages or a lower currency.
I also suggest reading "How rich countries got rich.. and why poor countries stay poor" by Norwegian economist Erik Reinert, or read Ha Joon Chang's books. Short answer - countries get rich by neo-mercantilism, free trade only works for countries that are dominant in manufacturing.
Even if the global population peaks in the 2060s, our regional population will keep growing. As the climate warms and more catastrophic storms occur regularly, the equator becomes unliveable for the average income family so people migrate north and south. There isn't much southern landmass but Canada has massive low density population. The other alternatives are Russia and Greenland, as permafrost opens up. Permafrost doesn't tend to yield very productive farmland and it is difficult to travel seasonally, making living more expensive. So the highest standard of living among developed northern countries with relatively low population density and reasonably accessible growth areas is Canada.
I would not be at all surprised if the global population actually starts to fall after 2050 , leaving to increased conflict and deadly land wars. This would speed up migration even more, hence our need to prepare.
By 2064, the only continent that will be experiencing growth with be Africa - see these Lancet projections https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)30677-2/fulltext
Canada and the US will not experience much growth as birth rates will be below replacement and Canada doesn't have a land border with Mexico. Europe may continue to experience migration but Japan, South Korea, Taiwan will have few people fleeing climate change - many of th emigrations will be internal and most likely shifting from the coastlines to incland or away from areas with drought/water shortages. These are already happening and Canada is insulated.
The policy essentially calls for a return to immigration levels slightly below those under Harper. Canada can handle moderate migration but remember that people who come here adopt out wasteful high CO2 lifestyle.
Canada is huge, but just like Greenland, most of it is tundra, ice or permafrost, plus we have mountains, muskeg etc. - we have little agricultural land except in the prairies which will likely become hotter and drier themselves.
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