Overpopulation In Canada Essay
The idea that Canada has a problem with overpopulation might strike most Canadians as absurd. Many see Canada as a vast empty land ripe for massive human settlement. (Cassils & Ward, 2001) Recent insights suggest that people greatly overestimate Canada 's carrying capacity.
To bring about major and essential shifts in perception, Canada needs to develop a population policy that looks at human numbers in the context of the natural environment that supports them. (Cassils & Ward, 2001) Accepting the common thought that Canada is a lightly populated country, most Canadians have concluded that the problem of overpopulation is a concern of other places and not them. However, the numbers say otherwise.
Since Confederation, the Canadian population has grown very quickly. It rose from 3,463,000 in 1867 to 31,000,000 in 2001. (Statistics Canada, 2002) The following chart shows this rise in population and its occurrence in each province. Statistics Canada (2002) …show more content…
estimates that the population should reach about 36,000,000 in 2025. Joel Cohen (1995) calculates that if every couple from 1990 on had exactly as many children as required to replace the parents, the world population would grow from 5.3 billion in 1990 to 7.7 billion in 2050. However, with the expected surge of environmental disasters and the accompanying rise in the number of environmental and economic refugees and the growth of human smuggling, the population may be much higher within a generation or two. (Daily, Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 1994) This represents a potential attack of which the Government of Canada is aware, but for which it appears to be very ill-prepared.
Population
19971998199920002001
thousands
Canada29,987.230,248.230,499.230,769.731,081.9
Newfoundland and Labrador554.1545.3540.7537.2533.8
Prince Edward Island136.9136.9137.6138.1138.5
Nova Scotia934.5936.1939.7941.2942.7
New Brunswick754.2753.3754.4755.3757.1
Quebec7,302.67,323.67,349.77,377.77,410.5
Ontario11,249.511,387.311,522.711,685.311,874.4
Manitoba1,136.61,137.91,142.41,146.01,150.0
Saskatchewan1,022.01,024.91,025.51,022.01,015.8
Alberta2,837.22,906.82,959.53,009.23,064.2
British Columbia3,959.73,997.14,028.14,058.84,095.9
Yukon32.231.531.030.629.9
Northwest Territories41.841.141.040.940.9
Nunavut25.926.426.927.428.2
Data retrieved on July 1 of each year.
Source: Statistics Canada, CANSIM II, table 051-0001.
Last modified: March 22, 2002
To date, no Canadian government has adopted a population policy or even acknowledged domestic population as an issue. (Cassils & Ward, 2001) One could say that the issue has been 'addressed ' gradually by policies on immigration, human rights, refugees, child credits, abortion, and perhaps even euthanasia and assisted suicide. (Daily, et al., 1994) In general, governmental policies favour an increase in population. (Cassils & Ward, 2001)
The largely unchallenged assumption is that Canada has no population problem since it has the second largest land area of all countries on Earth. These unpopulated Canadian land areas are generally seen as 'empty ' spaces just waiting to be filled. These assumptions are based on a false premise that the potential for growth is equitable with the crude statistic of land area. The reality is that much of the land is barren and incapable of supporting a
large population. (Smail, 1995) Furthermore, whatever population lived in these barren areas would leave a large 'ecological footprint. ' (Simon, 1981) Most food would have to be shipped in, requiring construction of roads, land surface for agriculture elsewhere and large amounts of energy for transportation and heating. It is a reflection of human bias to consider all people-free areas as 'empty ' when, in fact, some are full of life and contribute to the ecological balance of life on the planet.
The majority of Canadians, however, accept the myth over the reality. Despite the obvious evidence, such as the collapse of the cod fishery, the crises in the salmon fisheries, the Walkerton water fiasco, and the increasing numbers of endangered species, they continue to believe that Canada is a land of almost limitless resources. (Simon, 1981)
Human population growth and the expansion of human activities consume an even larger fraction of the Earth 's surface. Not only do people directly displace other species by occupying or destroying their habitat, but they also extinguish them, with human wastes and chemical poisons. "Current human practices and beliefs are on a collision course with the life support system on Earth." (Cassils & Ward, 2001) With the short-term focus of daily human activities, the profound implications of this predicament are not given sufficient attention. Old beliefs impede the acceptance of new information and delay the implementation of changes that are essential to make human activities sustainable.
Human beings seem to have an instinctive drive to expand their numbers. Furthermore, in many cultures, including the globally predominant consumer culture, there is a bias that recognizes ethics only in terms of human relationships but not in terms of the human impact on other forms of life, regardless of the fact that they make human life
possible. Consequently, human numbers and demands continue to grow and fuel the deterioration of life on Earth. (Smail, 1995)
The focus of all individual living organisms is opportunistic and short-term. High intelligence has increased the capacity of the human species to acquire resources and to diminish the impact of many population-limiting factors, such as disease and famine. These capabilities have allowed humans to expand their numbers enormously, from about five million in 6000 BC to over six billion today. Human population is now greatly in excess of the population density of a 'typical ' predator of the same size. (Cohen, 1995) The impact on both the physical world and other life forms has been devastating and will continue into the future.
People usually settle where physical and economic conditions are best. More than 90% of Canadians live within 600 km of the border with the U.S. (Matthews & Morrow, 1995). The map below shows this population distribution. Therefore, the more habitable parts of Canada are already densely populated.
Within Canada the population density ranges from almost zero in the northern regions, to more than 5000 people per square kilometer in the major urban areas.
Due to the large areas that are uninhabited, Canada 's overall population density is quite low. (Matthews & Morrow, 1995) However, Toronto and Vancouver are experiencing serious problems associated with their rapid, unplanned growth, yet Canada continues to actively seek large numbers of immigrants who gravitate towards these regions. (Address to the Humanist Assoc. of Canada, 1995)
When considering population, the policy makers compare Canada with other countries, many of which are grossly overpopulated and showing signs of severe ecological, social and political stress. (Address to the Humanist Assoc. Of Canada, 1995) It is usually decided that Canada has too few people, compared to these other countries. What are not considered however, are the carrying capacity of ecosystems in Canada and the long-term historical trend of the growth of human
population.
Most Canadian policy makers have backgrounds in law, business, or economics; very few have backgrounds in science, including biology and ecology. (Cassils & Ward, 2001) As long as the policy makers remain largely ignorant about the state of life on Canadian land, lakes and coastal areas, or even about why they should be concerned about such issues, the likelihood of Canada developing a comprehensive population policy based on ecological insights remains slim. (Cassils & Ward, 2001) The amount of people Canada can support without imperiling many other life forms remains an unanswered question. (Cohen, 1995) It is simply unknown, although such events as the collapse of the cod fishery, the impending collapse of the salmon fisheries, and the Walkerton water tragedy show the danger and impact ignorance can have.
Human numbers do not tell the whole story, however. The range of human activities and the types of technologies used also influence the impact on life. Canadians demand energy and technology-intensive lifestyles involving activities that are high-cost,
both financially and environmentally. The average Canadian consumes 30 to 50 times as much as a person in one of the poorer countries. The impact of the present Canadian population is equivalent to that of from 900 to 1500 million people in the poorest regions of the world. (Cohen, 1995) Some of this consumption may be inevitable, for example, a large cold country will require much more energy for transportation and heating, but this does not decrease its impact.
Newcomers to Canada quickly adopt our high-consuming lifestyle. (Cohen, 1995) Consequently, transplanting population from low consuming regions to high-consuming ones merely accelerates the deterioration of the planet. Yet over the past decade, Canada has accepted about 250,000 people a year as immigrants and refugees or as illegal economic migrants, with about half of them coming from very poor regions. The 1996 census of immigrant population to Canada is shown on the chart below. (Statistics Canada, 2002) Given Canadian levels of consumption, the effect on the Earth is equivalent to adding 7.5 to12.5 million extra people annually in a developing country.
Immigrant population by place of birth, 1996 Census
Canada Newfoundland Prince Edward Island Nova ScotiaNew Brunswick
Number
Total - Place of birth4,971,0708,4904,39541,96024,385
United States244,6901,6851,2558,8158,925
Central and South America273,82011540705415
Caribbean and Bermuda279,4009080790335
Europe2,332,0604,6252,30522,02011,385
United Kingdom655,5353,0101,12012,2106,410
Other Northern and Western Europe514,3108709106,2003,580
Eastern Europe447,8304151351,515595
Southern Europe714,3803301352,095805
Africa229,300425801,335495
Asia1,562,7701,4105957,6652,440
West Central Asia and the Middle East210,850802252,695380
Eastern Asia589,4205302551,745830
South East Asia408,985345451,250620
Southern Asia353,515455701,975605
Oceania and Other1
49,02014035630390
Source: Statistics Canada, 1996 Census Nation tables
It is popular in the current intellectual climate to pretend that all would be well if only those in the developed regions would consume less. However, this ignores the fact that it is primarily population growth and its accompanying deforestation, erosion, and desertification, that, in the poorer countries, destroys the ecological underpinnings of their existence. (Address to the Humanist Assoc. of Canada, 1995)
It is obvious that the success of the human species in expanding its numbers and its ability to access resources has not been matched by a change in outlook. Human beings have failed to shift their focus from the short to the long term and it is extremely rare that humans even acknowledge the influence of their basic instincts on ethics, decision-making, and public policy. "The unprecedented growth in human numbers and in human power to alter the earth requires and will require unprecedented human agility in adapting to environmental, economic, and social problems." (Cohen, 1995) Clearly, Canada, just as many other countries around the world, does infact have many of the issues pertaining to population to deal with.
References
Address to the Humanist Association of Canada. (1995). Annual Meeting
Cassils, A. & Ward, M. (2001). Canadian Population Policy. Standing Committee on Citizenship
and Immigration of the House of Commons, Government of Canada.
Cohen, J. (1995). How Many People Can the Earth Support? W.W. Norton & Company, New
York & London.
Daily, G., Ehrlich, A., & Ehrlich, P. (1994). Optimum Human Population Size, Population and
Environment. 15(6).
Ehrlich, P. (1976). The Population Bomb. Ameroon Ltd.
Matthews, G. & Morrow, R. (1995). Canada and the World. Prentice Hall Canada Inc.,
Scarborough, Ontario. pp.9-10.
Simon, J. (1981). The Ultimate Resource. Princeton University Press.
Smail, J. (1995). Confronting the 21st Century 's Hidden Crisis. NPG Forum, Aug.
To bring about major and essential shifts in perception, Canada needs to develop a population policy that looks at human numbers in the context of the natural environment that supports them. (Cassils & Ward, 2001) Accepting the common thought that Canada is a lightly populated country, most Canadians have concluded that the problem of overpopulation is a concern of other places and not them. However, the numbers say otherwise.
Since Confederation, the Canadian population has grown very quickly. It rose from 3,463,000 in 1867 to 31,000,000 in 2001. (Statistics Canada, 2002) The following chart shows this rise in population and its occurrence in each province. Statistics Canada (2002) …show more content…
estimates that the population should reach about 36,000,000 in 2025. Joel Cohen (1995) calculates that if every couple from 1990 on had exactly as many children as required to replace the parents, the world population would grow from 5.3 billion in 1990 to 7.7 billion in 2050. However, with the expected surge of environmental disasters and the accompanying rise in the number of environmental and economic refugees and the growth of human smuggling, the population may be much higher within a generation or two. (Daily, Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 1994) This represents a potential attack of which the Government of Canada is aware, but for which it appears to be very ill-prepared.
Population
19971998199920002001
thousands
Canada29,987.230,248.230,499.230,769.731,081.9
Newfoundland and Labrador554.1545.3540.7537.2533.8
Prince Edward Island136.9136.9137.6138.1138.5
Nova Scotia934.5936.1939.7941.2942.7
New Brunswick754.2753.3754.4755.3757.1
Quebec7,302.67,323.67,349.77,377.77,410.5
Ontario11,249.511,387.311,522.711,685.311,874.4
Manitoba1,136.61,137.91,142.41,146.01,150.0
Saskatchewan1,022.01,024.91,025.51,022.01,015.8
Alberta2,837.22,906.82,959.53,009.23,064.2
British Columbia3,959.73,997.14,028.14,058.84,095.9
Yukon32.231.531.030.629.9
Northwest Territories41.841.141.040.940.9
Nunavut25.926.426.927.428.2
Data retrieved on July 1 of each year.
Source: Statistics Canada, CANSIM II, table 051-0001.
Last modified: March 22, 2002
To date, no Canadian government has adopted a population policy or even acknowledged domestic population as an issue. (Cassils & Ward, 2001) One could say that the issue has been 'addressed ' gradually by policies on immigration, human rights, refugees, child credits, abortion, and perhaps even euthanasia and assisted suicide. (Daily, et al., 1994) In general, governmental policies favour an increase in population. (Cassils & Ward, 2001)
The largely unchallenged assumption is that Canada has no population problem since it has the second largest land area of all countries on Earth. These unpopulated Canadian land areas are generally seen as 'empty ' spaces just waiting to be filled. These assumptions are based on a false premise that the potential for growth is equitable with the crude statistic of land area. The reality is that much of the land is barren and incapable of supporting a
large population. (Smail, 1995) Furthermore, whatever population lived in these barren areas would leave a large 'ecological footprint. ' (Simon, 1981) Most food would have to be shipped in, requiring construction of roads, land surface for agriculture elsewhere and large amounts of energy for transportation and heating. It is a reflection of human bias to consider all people-free areas as 'empty ' when, in fact, some are full of life and contribute to the ecological balance of life on the planet.
The majority of Canadians, however, accept the myth over the reality. Despite the obvious evidence, such as the collapse of the cod fishery, the crises in the salmon fisheries, the Walkerton water fiasco, and the increasing numbers of endangered species, they continue to believe that Canada is a land of almost limitless resources. (Simon, 1981)
Human population growth and the expansion of human activities consume an even larger fraction of the Earth 's surface. Not only do people directly displace other species by occupying or destroying their habitat, but they also extinguish them, with human wastes and chemical poisons. "Current human practices and beliefs are on a collision course with the life support system on Earth." (Cassils & Ward, 2001) With the short-term focus of daily human activities, the profound implications of this predicament are not given sufficient attention. Old beliefs impede the acceptance of new information and delay the implementation of changes that are essential to make human activities sustainable.
Human beings seem to have an instinctive drive to expand their numbers. Furthermore, in many cultures, including the globally predominant consumer culture, there is a bias that recognizes ethics only in terms of human relationships but not in terms of the human impact on other forms of life, regardless of the fact that they make human life
possible. Consequently, human numbers and demands continue to grow and fuel the deterioration of life on Earth. (Smail, 1995)
The focus of all individual living organisms is opportunistic and short-term. High intelligence has increased the capacity of the human species to acquire resources and to diminish the impact of many population-limiting factors, such as disease and famine. These capabilities have allowed humans to expand their numbers enormously, from about five million in 6000 BC to over six billion today. Human population is now greatly in excess of the population density of a 'typical ' predator of the same size. (Cohen, 1995) The impact on both the physical world and other life forms has been devastating and will continue into the future.
People usually settle where physical and economic conditions are best. More than 90% of Canadians live within 600 km of the border with the U.S. (Matthews & Morrow, 1995). The map below shows this population distribution. Therefore, the more habitable parts of Canada are already densely populated.
Within Canada the population density ranges from almost zero in the northern regions, to more than 5000 people per square kilometer in the major urban areas.
Due to the large areas that are uninhabited, Canada 's overall population density is quite low. (Matthews & Morrow, 1995) However, Toronto and Vancouver are experiencing serious problems associated with their rapid, unplanned growth, yet Canada continues to actively seek large numbers of immigrants who gravitate towards these regions. (Address to the Humanist Assoc. of Canada, 1995)
When considering population, the policy makers compare Canada with other countries, many of which are grossly overpopulated and showing signs of severe ecological, social and political stress. (Address to the Humanist Assoc. Of Canada, 1995) It is usually decided that Canada has too few people, compared to these other countries. What are not considered however, are the carrying capacity of ecosystems in Canada and the long-term historical trend of the growth of human
population.
Most Canadian policy makers have backgrounds in law, business, or economics; very few have backgrounds in science, including biology and ecology. (Cassils & Ward, 2001) As long as the policy makers remain largely ignorant about the state of life on Canadian land, lakes and coastal areas, or even about why they should be concerned about such issues, the likelihood of Canada developing a comprehensive population policy based on ecological insights remains slim. (Cassils & Ward, 2001) The amount of people Canada can support without imperiling many other life forms remains an unanswered question. (Cohen, 1995) It is simply unknown, although such events as the collapse of the cod fishery, the impending collapse of the salmon fisheries, and the Walkerton water tragedy show the danger and impact ignorance can have.
Human numbers do not tell the whole story, however. The range of human activities and the types of technologies used also influence the impact on life. Canadians demand energy and technology-intensive lifestyles involving activities that are high-cost,
both financially and environmentally. The average Canadian consumes 30 to 50 times as much as a person in one of the poorer countries. The impact of the present Canadian population is equivalent to that of from 900 to 1500 million people in the poorest regions of the world. (Cohen, 1995) Some of this consumption may be inevitable, for example, a large cold country will require much more energy for transportation and heating, but this does not decrease its impact.
Newcomers to Canada quickly adopt our high-consuming lifestyle. (Cohen, 1995) Consequently, transplanting population from low consuming regions to high-consuming ones merely accelerates the deterioration of the planet. Yet over the past decade, Canada has accepted about 250,000 people a year as immigrants and refugees or as illegal economic migrants, with about half of them coming from very poor regions. The 1996 census of immigrant population to Canada is shown on the chart below. (Statistics Canada, 2002) Given Canadian levels of consumption, the effect on the Earth is equivalent to adding 7.5 to12.5 million extra people annually in a developing country.
Immigrant population by place of birth, 1996 Census
Canada Newfoundland Prince Edward Island Nova ScotiaNew Brunswick
Number
Total - Place of birth4,971,0708,4904,39541,96024,385
United States244,6901,6851,2558,8158,925
Central and South America273,82011540705415
Caribbean and Bermuda279,4009080790335
Europe2,332,0604,6252,30522,02011,385
United Kingdom655,5353,0101,12012,2106,410
Other Northern and Western Europe514,3108709106,2003,580
Eastern Europe447,8304151351,515595
Southern Europe714,3803301352,095805
Africa229,300425801,335495
Asia1,562,7701,4105957,6652,440
West Central Asia and the Middle East210,850802252,695380
Eastern Asia589,4205302551,745830
South East Asia408,985345451,250620
Southern Asia353,515455701,975605
Oceania and Other1
49,02014035630390
Source: Statistics Canada, 1996 Census Nation tables
It is popular in the current intellectual climate to pretend that all would be well if only those in the developed regions would consume less. However, this ignores the fact that it is primarily population growth and its accompanying deforestation, erosion, and desertification, that, in the poorer countries, destroys the ecological underpinnings of their existence. (Address to the Humanist Assoc. of Canada, 1995)
It is obvious that the success of the human species in expanding its numbers and its ability to access resources has not been matched by a change in outlook. Human beings have failed to shift their focus from the short to the long term and it is extremely rare that humans even acknowledge the influence of their basic instincts on ethics, decision-making, and public policy. "The unprecedented growth in human numbers and in human power to alter the earth requires and will require unprecedented human agility in adapting to environmental, economic, and social problems." (Cohen, 1995) Clearly, Canada, just as many other countries around the world, does infact have many of the issues pertaining to population to deal with.
References
Address to the Humanist Association of Canada. (1995). Annual Meeting
Cassils, A. & Ward, M. (2001). Canadian Population Policy. Standing Committee on Citizenship
and Immigration of the House of Commons, Government of Canada.
Cohen, J. (1995). How Many People Can the Earth Support? W.W. Norton & Company, New
York & London.
Daily, G., Ehrlich, A., & Ehrlich, P. (1994). Optimum Human Population Size, Population and
Environment. 15(6).
Ehrlich, P. (1976). The Population Bomb. Ameroon Ltd.
Matthews, G. & Morrow, R. (1995). Canada and the World. Prentice Hall Canada Inc.,
Scarborough, Ontario. pp.9-10.
Simon, J. (1981). The Ultimate Resource. Princeton University Press.
Smail, J. (1995). Confronting the 21st Century 's Hidden Crisis. NPG Forum, Aug.