There is a hell of a lot of talk, lately, about immigration — mostly on account of the fact that excess levels of immigration are upsetting the balance of our society economically, socially, and in other ways too. And Canadians are noticing. When Liberals sniff a poll not going their way, they quickly change even their supposed core principles and act like they care.
But we’re overlooking or forgetting the reason for these high immigration numbers — or at least what we’re told is the reason for it.
Why does our government strive for immigration? Because Canadians aren’t making enough babies to maintain our population — a population that is also aging of course (as a result of not making babies) and this will result in an inability to care for our population in the future. Our country could sink.
“With an aging population, people living longer, families having fewer children, Canada imperatively needs immigration to rebalance our demographics and support the growing need for workers,” federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday.
“Today, we’re laying out our plans to build an immigration system that can meet the future demands of our country,” Miller added…”
—Miller lays out federal priorities for improving immigration | CTV News
So we need to maintain our population by replacing those who are old and those who die, with fresh blood, to put it inelegantly.
But why, then, is our population growing at an enormous rate? So much so that even immigration-loving (and some would say utterly unfettered, as in open-borders-style immigration-loving) progressives like the long-governing Liberal/NDP Party itself are considering the increasingly apparent negative ramifications, including but not limited to housing, health care, the effect on wages, job availability, and so much more. Look:
“Canada’s immigration system has faced scrutiny recently as high levels of newcomers drive population growth and put pressure on the housing market. Last year’s immigration plan, released in November, said would see Canada welcome 500,000 immigrants per year by 2025.”
Why we strive for so much immigration is a bit of a tangent, but it may be connected. It may be that they’re not merely trying to maintain our population, but to add to it and “diversify.” Not a day goes by when a progressive doesn’t announce that “diversity is our strength.” (A stupider notion is hard to come by, in my opinion.)
What happened to making babies?
As my jumping-off point for this current rant, I’m using the two articles in the news today, both of which land hard on immigration as our salvation. Politicians speak only to immigration, and never to making babies. Which is beyond bizarre to me.
“Canada’s future prosperity depends on immigration,” the study reads, citing past research by the Conference Board of Canada that has shown immigration leads to GDP growth, improves the worker-to-retiree ratio and eases labour shortages that add to inflation.
—Study reveals Canada is struggling to retain immigrants – CTV News
How come “Canada’s future prosperity” doesn’t “depend on”… making babies? It actually does, of course. And making babies and raising families also “leads to GDP growth, improves the worker-to-retiree ratio and eases labour shortages that add to inflation” every bit as much as immigration does.
“Among the changes outlined in the report is the need to develop a “whole-of-government” approach to immigration growth. “
“According to the latest Focus Canada public research survey conducted by the Toronto-based Environics Institute, a growing proportion of Canadians is sharing the belief that the current rate of immigration to Canada is too high,(opens in a new tab) citing concerns about how newcomers might impact the availability of affordable housing.”
—Immigrants increasingly leaving Canada for greener pastures: study | CTV News
They go on and on fretting about and creating immigration “studies” about how to make life more comfortable for immigrants so they stay here forever in comfort and happiness. No mention of the notion of making conditions better for young Canadians to entice them to start families and ensure that they may flourish here. In fact I don’t remember the last time I heard a political platform that spoke to enticing people to start families and then help them flourish, but I hear endlessly about immigration and making immigrants feel good.
As a policy matter, I think families, and making Canadians feel good and positive about starting families and enabling them to flourish, should be at the root of every government policy.
People will say “we already do encourage having babies with tax deductions and other such benefits” — well clearly, it’s not working. At all. It’s failing. Badly. So, clearly more — or better ideas — need to be considered to encourage the birth rate, so we don’t have to rely on immigrants for our own country’s salvation.
The basics: A fertility rate of 2.1% is required to maintain populations.
Japan’s fertility rate is in crisis. It is pointing to a failed state status, as their population is set to drop dramatically unless they start making babies —or importing people, which they aren’t inclined to do in order to maintain their unique culture.
Japan’s “fertility rate” or birth rate is 1.34 per woman. They are in trouble. The country is literally dying more than they’re birthing.
Canada’s birth rate? 1.4. Almost the same.
Canada, though, has an immigration policy to replace those we don’t make ourselves and maintain our population. But again, apparently we have a policy that far, far exceeds that, as our population is not just staying at 0% growth, it is ever-rising. So it’s out of balance, unless it is designed to accomplish another task — different than what they are talking about openly. Like growing our population and not just maintaining it, and/or watering down our evil “colonialist” “settler” population (they’ll call it “diversifying”) with people who aren’t “heritage” Canadians — people who aren’t like us. Diversity is our strength!
(Yes I do understand the humanity of accepting our share of refugees, and I do believe in “growth” as a general matter, so cool your jets.)
Most of Europe and China are suffering the same consequence of not making babies. China’s population, according to most sources, is set to be cut almost in half by 2100. One source, Pew Research, provides an even more startling stat about the whole picture scenario: “And in the UN’s “low variant” scenario – where the total fertility rate is projected to be 0.5 births below that of the medium variant scenario – China’s population is projected to fall to as low as 488 million by 2100.” They’re at 1.4 billion now.
Have we given up on that idea of home-grown Canadians? Is there something wrong with home-grown Canadians? Is it not preferable? Seems the answer to both of those first two questions is yes, in at least this government’s mind. But not so the third question. Immigration seems to be their preferred method of maintaining our population and growing it (for whatever reason). They should come clean about why that is.
Sure immigration at these levels instead of organic homegrown baby-making will turn Canada into a completely different place over time. It’s already changed a lot in the past couple of decades in what Justin Trudeau calls a post-national state” “with no core identity” and no “common values” and whatnot —as if that is all a good thing. But that’s what they have decided. I’d love to know why they seem to want to do that, and maybe someday I’ll explore that with you here, but not right now.
UPDATE 6:48 PDT:
…making me wonder all the more: what the F is up?
EXTRA READING! I did a search for “make babies” here at PTBC and up popped some of my writing and other columnists from ye olde days of yore (as far back as 2006 as best I can tell, but I could have gone further):
CBC reporter explains that it would be “better” if burqa-wearing women became “commonplace”?
Maclean’s helps Canada rid itself of those thorny liberal pests: children
MUST READ: Pete McMartin – on the Canadian family census numbers
Muhammad is #2 new boys name in UK this year; predicted #1 next year
State-owned CBC changes WHO’s wording from “pregnant women” to “pregnant people”
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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