Canada needs a fuller house to thrive – but population growth isn’t enough: Saunders

While I am a great fan of Doug Saunders, I think he makes many of the same fallacies as other boosters of large increases in immigration and population in his latest book, Maximum Canada: Why 35 Million Canadians Are Not Enough.  (See my earlier How to debate immigration issues in Canada where I discuss the respective fallacies of immigration boosters and critics).

However, unlike many others, he recognizes the large public and private investments needed to integrate successfully large number of immigrants along with the associated infrastructure and other needs of a much larger population.

Yet surprisingly, he is silent on the likely impact of technology on labour market needs.

However, will read his book to get a fuller appreciation of his arguments (have just excerpted his conclusion but recommend reading the full long read):

The challenges of family policy, like most of the obstacles examined here, are already being experienced by Canadians, and will be growing problems, regardless of what happens to the population. The changes in the structure of the work force, in the cost and accessibility of housing, in the geographic isolation of major cities; the obstacles to getting credentials recognized, and of lost educational opportunities – all these barriers to equality and social mobility need to be confronted by Canadians and their governments, whether we triple our population or not.

It is therefore worth asking: If the time has come for Canada to train its sights on institutional reform, infrastructure expansion and policy reassessment, why shouldn’t we also make plans to build a population commensurate with those ambitions and resources? The changes we need to undertake in order to maintain and empower a Canada of 35 million will be far easier to bring about, and yield far greater benefits, if they are applied to a population that is gradually growing to a larger and more self-sufficient scale by the end of the century.

With that population – and by instituting the reforms needed to create it – Canada promises to become a place with the tools and resources to do many things better, more fairly, more cleanly and more co-operatively: a more comfortable, and more intensely Canadian version of the Canada we know.

Source: Canada needs a fuller house to thrive – but population growth isn’t enough – The Globe and Mail