Right sizing Canada, crunching immigration numbers
Globe and Mail International Affairs columnist Doug Saunders’ new book, Maximum Canada: Why 35 Million Canadians Are Not Enough, seeks to dispel some of the assumptions and misconceptions relating to Canada’s immigration history and policies.
Immigration is always a hot button issue, exciting debate and bringing out either the best or worst in people. Just look to our neighbours south of the border and you can see the good, the bad and the downright ugly when immigration is placed on the table.
Saunders sees two main trends in Canada’s immigration policies.
The first, he refers to as “minimizing”, which sought to closely control the number of immigrants coming to Canada.
Saunders argues that restricting immigration has been the dominant idea for the better part of our history.
The minimizing trend has led to some sorry moments in or history such as the head tax that was put in place to restrict Chinese immigration. A $50 dollar head tax was first imposed in 1885. The tax was increased to $300 in 1904.
The country’s resulting small population made it difficult to build a robust economy capable of growth and innovation.
Consequently, more people left, principally for the United States, than came here as immigrants.
The more dynamic economy to our south made it hard for Canada to keep people.
Saunders’ examples include entrepreneurs, like Alexander Graham Bell and James L. Kraft, the founder of Kraft Foods, who couldn’t make a go of it in Canada.
Both had to move to the United States to gain access to investors and markets that would allow them to launch their businesses.
He calls the other trend in immigration policy “maximizing”. Maximizing favours increased immigration.
Saunders points to the policies of Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberal government that held power from 1896-1911 as the high point of this trend. Laurier believed an increased population was imperative for Canada’s economic survival.
The result of Laurier’s policies was an annual population growth rate of 10 per cent in the first decade of the 20th Century.
In a fascinating historical anecdote, Saunders tells how Laurier’s policies led Nobel-Prize-winning author, Rudyard Kipling, to intervene in the election of 1911 by penning front-page editorials condemning the Liberals’ open-door immigration policy.
Many observers thought at the time that this aided in a Conservative victory, which resulted in a return to restrictive policies.
As the book’s title suggests, Saunders stands firmly in the maximizing camp and makes a compelling argument that Canada needs a much larger population if it is to thrive.
He thinks that 100 million is the right number, and believes tripling Canada’s current population would allow us to move beyond an economy based primarily on resource extraction to a more sustainable value added economy.
Saunders points out that if Laurier’s immigration policies had prevailed, Canada’s population might very well be at the 100 million mark today.
Basil Guinane is a retired associate dean of the School of Media Studies at Humber college, a former librarian and an avid reader.
