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PROSPEROUS CANADA IS DYING
There is a huge elephant in the livingrooms
of our nation. We talk around it, and over it, but seldom
acknowledge its presence. The huge elephant we are reluctant
to talk about is our rapidly declining population.
Although we are ignoring the problem today,
we can’t do so forever. Our population decline is sending
out only tiny insignificant waves now, but it is going to
eventually swamp us like a tsunami wave, as early as 2015.
The current birth rate in Canada is about
1.5 children per woman. According to a Statistics Canada report,
released in December 2005, the number of seniors in Canada
will outnumber children by 2031. That is, according to Statistics
Canada, seniors will, in 2031, account for about 25% of the
population (8-9 million) while the number of children under
15 years of age in 2031 will only range from 4.8 million and
6 million. Quite a startling difference. We are destined to
become a nation of oldsters. By 2031, there will be more deaths
than births in Canada. By 2040 social benefits to the elderly
alone (including our highly prized [by some] medical health
system) will comprise 22.9% of our Gross National Product
(GNP). This will be an unwieldy and ever mounting expense.
These mind-numbing statistics are screaming
a message to us. Watch out! If we don’t start working
on the problem now, almost every area of our society, health
care, pension benefits, social programmes, education, investments,
immigration and our standard of living is going to have to
be fundamentally changed to adjust to the fact that we just
won’t have enough workers to provide the money necessary
to sustain Canadians at their present level of comfort.
Why the Rapid Decline in Population?
Before we can arrive at any solutions to this
question, we first have to determine why families are having
so few children today. Our economy is at a 50 year high, thanks
to the exporting of our natural resources, especially oil
and gas, and we have the lowest unemployment rate (6%) in
thirty years. So why are Canadians unwilling to have children
in these good times?
What are the factors that have caused us to
go from a baby boom high of four children per mother in 1960
to our dismal 1.5 children today? Demographers have obligingly
given us a number of explanations as to why Canadian women
have collectively decided to give motherhood a pass. The explanations
they provide are many.
The introduction of the birth control pill
in 1961 permitted an almost infallible method of controlling
births for the first time in history.
Increased education of women encourages women to first focus
on their careers before giving birth. This delay in motherhood
provides less time to have children.
Increased education of women provides women with career opportunities,
which gives them economic independence and an alternative
to motherhood.
Less advantaged women delay pregnancies because they can’t
afford to support children and must work, even though they
don’t necessarily want or have a “career”.
According to Statistics Canada, the average full-time wage
for women in 2004 was $25,000, most of whom work in mainly
clerical, retail or call centre work.
Massive migration of the population over the last century
from rural to urban areas has changed the perspective of Canadians
in regard to children. Rural populations everywhere in the
world encourage births because they view children as an economic
advantage in providing a future labour supply and also a retirement
package for support in old age. In urban areas, children have
little opportunity for work and are more likely to be an economic
drain on parents.
Increased use of pension plans, insurance policies and financial
markets has provided financial security in old age, rather
than having to rely on one’s children for support.
Increased divorce and co-habitation without marriage have
caused less security in relationships and have created less
reason for having children.
Unrestricted access to abortion has led to the death of well
over a million Canadian babies since the abortion law was
initially widened in 1969.
All these explanations are valid. Globe &
Mail columnist, Margaret Wente (who by the way, with her common
sense, practicality and good humour would have made an excellent
mother if she hadn’t, according to her own admission,
decided against it) discussed in a recent column (May 13,
2006) why she and her female friends don’t have motherhood
in their resumes. She listed a number of explanations.
Why didn’t we have children? We’re
not really sure. We had interesting jobs. We liked our independence.
We never did see ourselves as happy-housewife types. It was
never the right time. It seemed like too big a sacrifice.
Children are expensive, and they need a huge investment of
parental energy. Couldn’t find dad material that we liked.
And so on.
Ms. Wente went on to say that she doesn’t
believe the decreased births are related to our loss of values
in our secular, postmodern culture because fertility rates
have also plunged below replacement levels throughout South
America and East Asia, including poor nations, such as Vietnam
and Burma (now called Myanmar), Algeria, Lebanon, Tunisia
and Iran, which all have below replacement level birth rates.
Even the teeming cities of Calcutta, New Delhi and Bombay
(now called Mumbai) have below replacement birth rates. In
fact, more than half the countries in the world have a below
replacement level birth rate. What’s going on?
Pope Benedict XVI addressing Canadian Catholic
Bishops in May 2006 warned that, contrary to Ms Wente’s
assessment, Canada’s plummeting birth rate is due to
the pervasive effects of secularism. No longer, he says, is
there trust in God’s providence and care which helps
couples to see the good in one another and human society and
to trust in and hope for the future.
Instead, there is uncertainty and fear and
moral ambiguity that follow in the wake of a secularist ideology,
which makes couples uneasy. To many, it’s safer and easier
living for the moment, for the here and now, and to ignore
a future that includes children and the responsibility and
costs involved in raising them.
What Should Canada Do?
First and foremost, we should put this difficult
problem out on the table for discussion. We must come to grips
with the problem. This means not dismissing it as did Globe
columnist John Ibbitson (Globe May 11 – 2006), who claims
that all our population problems can be “fixed”
by a wide open immigration policy. We all realize that Canada
needs immigrants. We always have and always will. Last year,
Canada took in 260,000 immigrants. We also took in more refugees
than any other country in the world (35,768). Wide open immigration
policies raise many other issues, however, such as national
security, as well as the problem of family immigration that
makes little economic contribution to Canada, while straining
our social services and especially, our health care system.
Further, high immigration creates assimilation problems, especially
in the major cities of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to
which immigrants migrate and where in 20 years’ time,
Europeans will become a visible minority.
Government Must Take Immediate Steps
When considering the problem of our declining
population, it is essential that the government take at least
some tentative steps now to ease the situation. Special, innovative
benefits for large families have proven a success story in
France. (See Reality May / June 2006). Russia and Italy are
embarking on such programmes. Financial pressures and society’s
condescending attitude toward those who stay at home to raise
large families have contributed to our declining population.
It is good social policy then to address this by generous
financial incentives to large families. This would also show
respect for the career of motherhood. Columnist Randall Denley
stated in the Ottawa Citizen (May 14, 2006) that $25,600 annually
is a reasonable sum to compensate a stay at home parent for
sacrificing a career and a regular income. Restricting abortions,
to at least prevent them from being used as an expensive state
funded method of birth control, as is the situation now, would
be a worthwhile start on curtailing this human destruction
of our future citizens.
Legislation to allow a flexible retirement
age is also needed. Almost unnoticed, the Senate Banking Committee,
chaired by Senator Gerry Grafstein, submitted a report in
June with the alarming title “The Demographic Time Bomb”.
It urged the government to immediately reduce financial inducements
to early retirement and to substitute inducements for later
retirement.
The report recommends that older workers stay
on the job past 65, collecting some pension income, if they
wish, along with some employment income, without undue financial
penalty. It also recommends the elimination of the Canada
Pension Plan (CPP) requirement that individuals cease employment
before receiving benefits. It also recommends that individuals
be allowed to accumulate pension credits on the basis of employment
after 65 years of age. These are good ideas that can easily
be implemented.
Please write to the following to request the
enactment immediately of government policies to address the
enormous problem of our rapidly declining population.
Please write to:
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
Langevin Block
80 Wellington St.
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
The Honourable Diane Finley, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Human Resources and Social Development
Place du Portage, Phase IV, 14th Floor
140 Promenade du Portage
Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0J9
Your M.P.
c/o House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
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