Collaborative Proposal Creation
Create, improve and sponsor proposals in a respectful, fully bilingual environment. Grow proposals in the "Hothouse", for promotion to the "Workshop", to become official GPC policy.
Reduce Canada's population growth to a moderate sustainable level
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
List of Sponsors
Amendments (1)
-
Created at
16/06/2024 -
- 2
We're building a new kind of politics. One that is open, participatory, and people-powered
If you believe in what we're doing, please consider making a small donation to help us build it
Report inappropriate content
Is this content inappropriate?
Comment details
You are seeing a single comment
View all comments
Conversation with Mr. Colin Griffiths
Where will details be provided?
HI Colin,
I am new to this process of the membership actually writing out a policy. In my first post I outlined many details. I assume the membership can suggest details to add to the policy. I am guessing that a formal policy would be crafted based upon our input ? Are there formal committees that carefully craft the wording of a policy before it is voted upon ?
Loading comments ...