Blue Like You

Archive for the ‘Demographics’ Category

The latest Statscan Census release on Age and Sex seems to have created a few waves of concern. Well, actually the Sun’s Licia Corbella refers to it as a “grey tsunami” - (Cut taxes to avoid Boomer Bust).

Corbella and others understandably foresee major problems when all these boomers retire and start draining the public health care system en masse.

She recommends that taxes be lowered as a way to encourage young families to have more children. Statscan reports that “the proportion of the under-15 population fell to 17.7%, its lowest level ever.”

Andrew Coyne has put his own Orwellian-esque skew on the story with today’s op-ed, “From 2037, a cautionary tale“. His predicted economic crisis could be averted by various measures, including the following:

The solution: increase the supply of domestic savings, notably by reducing taxes on incomes, and lower the barriers to capital inflows from abroad. Instead, the era was marked by cuts in sales taxes and hysteria over foreign takeovers.

Again, reduce taxes.

The Globe agrees that Canadians need to be encouraged to have children and also that Boomers must be encouraged to stay in the work force as long as possible.

Are there any more solutions?

And what about other implications?

I foresee seniors having a tremendous amount of political clout. Witness the Pension-splitting already in the works. Seniors also tend to be more conscientious about voting than young people. - They see it as a civic duty; a hard-won right of fighting many wars.

So this is a warning to the Twenty-somethings: If you want to even up the odds, you’d better start having more kids.

Great column here by George Jonas (H/T Lifesite), where he picks apart some of tired old arguments used by the Pro-choice crowd.

It is a somewhat irreverent and almost humourous perspective, if that were possible with such a contentious issue:

…Some put the question in terms of a woman’s right to control her own body. That would be valid enough in the realm of smoking, diet, liposuction, or sex — but abortion? Abortion means controlling someone else’s body. (As a man, I have no authority to speak on the matter, I know, but I’m not speaking as a man. I’m speaking as an ex-fetus.)…

He also addresses the reality of our declining birthrate:

…We’re all set to march to our extinction in style. We’ve become the only species that diminishes with success: the first in natural history to experience population decline whenever we do well. The wealthier and more secure our post-Darwinian societies become, the more we fail to reproduce…

Enjoy the read. Also please check out SDA’s discussion on “Populating a Baby-Starved Canada”.

Macleans has an interesting article concerning our Baby Deficit as well - Making Moms: Can We Feed the Need To Breed?

Statistics Canada has just released the first wave of results from the 2006 Census - Population and dwelling counts.

A few items of interest:

1.) Total response rate 97%. (Globe)

So, we are either very good little Canadians who do as we are told, or else many of
us actually took that jail threat seriously.

2.) “Canada’s population growth between 2001 and 2006 was higher than the previous intercensal period. “ “Between 2001 and 2006, Canada’s population growth was the highest among the G8 countries.” (Statscan)

This is surprising considering our lack of laws concerning abortions. Obviously, our reliance on immigration is crucial and must continue, since we have no stomach to limit abortions in Canada.

Also interesting that the Globe noted that the population is “smaller than predicted”, which would suggest that the other G8 nations must be doing really poorly.

3.) “Nearly 90% of Canada’s population growth between 2001 and 2006 was concentrated in large metropolitan areas.” (StatsCan)

Not surprising at all, but it means that politicians are going to have to increasingly pander to large cities in order to survive. This could possibly mean some kind of fallout for rural areas and farmers. In any case, those islands of red among the great sea of blue are of great importance to PMSH.

4.) Then there is the language issue - 64 of them according to the Census!

For better or for worse, the face of Canada is changing. There is no alternative. I wonder what our country will look like 20 years from now.