Too Many People In Canada?

For many, the very question is preposterous. They see Canada, with its huge land mass, as a land of wide open spaces and abundant resources with endless room, including ample space for more people. In a world where the impact of overpopulation is increasingly evident, some even regard it as a welcome ark ready to receive peoples from a crowded, overpopulated world.

PIC of course wants Canada to be a good global citizen, to be an example of a sustainable society and to help alleviate the world's environmental and humanitarian problems. But to determine how best to do this one needs to be guided by facts and an assessment of the probable outcomes of decisions based on realities, and not on mythology or nostalgia.

Inuit & other First Nations

To see how many people Canada can support without damage to its own and the global environment (i.e. to determine its carrying capacity) is not simply a matter of dividing crude surface area by population since the greater part of its landmass is unsuitable for human habitation under normal conditions. The original, indigenous inhabitants of the far north and further south were few in number, supported by hunting using traditional technology. In modern terminology, their ecological footprint was small. However, if more substantial numbers had tried to live in these cold, inhospitable northerly regions, they could not have supported traditional life styles on the resources available. Wildlife would have been depleted and food, if available, would have had to be imported, at considerable financial and environmental costs. Heating and light for their homes would probably use energy from sources a great distance from where they traditionally lived, much as is true today.

Given a harsh, unforgiving climate, it’s hardly surprising that 90% of Canadians, including First Nations peoples, now live within one hundred miles of the USA border, the majority in dense urban areas. Wide open spaces there may be, however these do not translate into habitable spaces except in association with extraordinarily high costs in non-renewable resource terms.

So what of the bountiful resources found in and on Canada’s “wide open spaces”?

Water

With 7% of the world's supply of fresh water Canadians tend to take this rich resource for granted. However, overall statistics are misleading since while the great majority of Canada's population lives in its southern strip, 60% of its water flows north to the Arctic Circle. And, in the rapidly expanding southern metropolitan regions, surface and groundwater are becoming increasingly polluted.

Ground Water

A report on groundwater released in May, 2009 by 15 distinguished members of the Council of Canadian Academies stated that ground waters drawn on by 10 million people is threatened by misuse and contamination due to “rampant” urbanization, climate change, energy production including the oil-sands, intensification of agriculture, and other sources of contamination. It listed 28,000 contaminated sites across the country, and observed that reliable groundwater estimates do not yet exist; nor will they for the next 20 years at the pace the Geological Survey is mapping 30 key regional aquifers. While it is thought there may be 100 times more water underground than in Canada’s rivers or lakes, given that groundwater moves so slowly through porous rock, the impact of land-use practices and over-exploitation can take years, even decades, to be revealed. And, the report warns “repair may take an extremely long time, is generally very expensive, and may even be impossible”.

The Great Lakes

Other fresh water sources also face threats. The Great Lakes is the largest fresh water system on earth, with 20% of the world's surface water, but less than 1% of it being replenished by precipitation. The Great Lakes region is home to 40+ million North Americans. According to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement Review Report (2007), produced by 350 Canadian and US scientists, the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem faces serious degradation due to urbanization, climate change and invasive species. Growth and urban expansion in the area has resulted in significant increases in land development and land use changes. Elevated levels of pathogens and harmful pollutants, an increase in untreated sewage (from overflows and undersized treatment systems), higher water temperature, increases in anaerobic conditions, fragmentation of habitat and loss of biodiversity, and waterborne disease outbreaks, all the result of rising levels of urbanization, have led to mounting concerns about the safety of drinking water.

The Rivers

Rivers too are important sources of fresh water. In Canada, every major river has some form of water control in effect. While useful for humans in providing a constant water supply and electricity, controlling flooding, or allowing use for recreational activities, changes in water levels and flows often destroy the natural habitat and spawning grounds of fish and other wildlife. Extracting oil from Alberta’s oil sands depends on massive amounts of water drawn from the Athabasca River 90% of which is not recycled but ends up in tailing ponds where pollutants are expected to settle. At the time of writing, the quantity that can be withdrawn is 349 m. cubic meters a year. However, planned oil sands projects are expected to increase withdrawals to 529 m. cubic meters a year. Whatever the belief of Canada's vast water resources may be, nothing would lead to the conclusion that it is underused!

Agricultural lands

Surprisingly little of Canada's huge land mass is suitable for agricultural use; even less is prime agricultural land. A great deal of population growth however occurs at the expense of this irreplaceable agricultural land. As global food shortages mount, when people are being urged to eat locally grown food to reduce energy expended on transport, and when erosion, salination, and desertification take an estimated 7% of the world's agricultural land out of production each year, Canada is turning some of its most fertile land into townhouses and strip malls to meet the needs of a growing population.

This is hardly new. In 1976, the Science Council of Canada reported that there was “less land suitable for agriculture in Canada than is generally realized”. Only 13% of land (294 m. acres) was judged suitable for agriculture. Of agriculture land, only 19% (55 m. acres) was prime (4% class 1; 15% class 2). Another 23% suitable for cultivation was capable of sustained production of common field crops (class 3), while 22% was marginal for field crops (class 4), and 24% was cultivated pasture (class 5).

The Report painted a grim picture of the decline in farmland, urban growth having made major in-roads into land with the best soils and climate. Southern Ontario and the Saint Lawrence Lowlands were in greatest jeopardy with half of the farmland lost to urban expansion coming from the best one-twentieth of Canada's arable land. The Report noted agricultural land cannot ever command the same prices for continuing agricultural use as it can for almost any urban-related use. It urged that the best agricultural land be designated exclusively for agricultural use, a recommendation never acted upon as prime land and wild and wet lands are devoured at a relentless pace.

The extent of this loss was captured in a 2005 Statistics Canada report, based on census data and the Canada Land Inventory, and included the following:

• by 2001, cities and towns had absorbed over 7400 sq. kms of land previously used for farming;
• in 2001, there were 14,300 sq. kms of urban land formerly used for agriculture;
• the Niagara peninsula and Okanagan Valley fruit belts had lost farmland used to grow crops that cannot be grown elsewhere in Canada;
• as prime agricultural land diminished, demand for arable territory increased, forcing farmers to cultivate poorer quality soils;
• in 1971, urban areas occupied slightly less than 6% of Class 1 land in Ontario. By 2001, they occupied 11% of such land;
• in 1971, less than 2% of Alberta’s Class 1 land was urbanized a figure that is now more than 6%.

Building and paving over agricultural land is harmful not only to Canadians as Canada has long been a major world food producer, a leading exporter of crops such as wheat, barley and beef. But an overwhelming majority of newcomers to Canada flock to major urban centres and it is farmland around these centres that is being sacrificed for development. In southwestern Ontario alone, 60,000 hectares of prime farmland fell to real estate development between 1982 and 20021, primarily in single dwelling housing. And the story’s the same in the soil rich Lower Fraser Valley onto which 3rd largest city Vancouver is spreading and at dramatic speed.

Biodiversity

Environmental trends in Canada replicate those found in other parts of the world where wildlife is losing out to human encroachment and, as elsewhere, the trend is distressing. Over 500 species are endangered in Canada with 60 of the 428 species of birds that breed regularly in the country in danger of extinction. Some species have plummeted by 80% or more. Some such as the Peary caribou, whose numbers fell from 50,000 in the 1960s to 8,000 now, are seriously at risk. Climate change as well as mining, oil, and gas activities are believed to be affecting the caribou but, far better know, also the majestic polar bear.

Witness the Praries

The history of farming in the prairies offers a graphic example of the impact of human activities on biodiversity. Agricultural development during the last century devastated natural grassland habitat and the biodiversity associated with it. Over 90% of the tall grass prairie, 80% of the fescue prairie, and 67% of the mixed grass prairie habitat disappeared due to farming while approximately 70% of wetlands, so important for fowl including migratory, were drained, mostly for agricultural reasons. What remains of natural prairie is broken into small islands surrounded by non-native vegetation, reducing habitat availability to and impeding the movement of wildlife in search of food and shelter. An estimated 36-50% of the organic matter and natural nutrient content of Canada's prairie soils have been eroded, oxidized or otherwise displaced by farming. This degradation led farmers to increase greatly fertilizer use which in turn further contributed to soil quality loss, water contamination, greenhouse gas emissions, and the continuing loss of otherwise natural prairie ecosystems.

It has been argued that countries receiving food imports from the prairies exert an exological footprint on the recipient area. The question asked is whether any nation should commit a significant proportion of its agricultural output and land-base to satisfying offshore demand, thereby creating dependent, more numerous populations. In an “ecologically full” world, should the goal be for every country to consider the sustainability of its own population alone, and then tend to that...something Canada could easily do?

Energy

Per capita, Canada is one of the highest users of energy in the world - 8417 kilos of oil equivalent per capita per year (compared with 7893 for the USA; 1316 for China; and 288 for Ethiopia). Such high energy use results in more greenhouse gas (GHG) production and indeed Canada produces 5+ tons of GHGs per capita and has consistently failed to meet even its own greenhouse gas reduction targets, increases in efficiency being offset by rises in population. Ontario, a heavy user of coal generated power, faces acute energy shortages in the coming years, a situation explained almost solely due to its continuing population growth.

An obvious reason for Canada's high energy consumption is its cold climate, requiring extraordinary expenditures for heating, and for travelling typically long distances between centers of population. Since the most habitable parts of the country are already the most densely populated, adding more people to more distant, colder regions would increase Canada’s ecological footprint as it destroyed more biodiversity, and raised GHG production.

Growth

Canada has grown rapidly since 1990, due largely to immigration. Yet, according to Statistics Canada (2006 census), the median earnings of Canadians as a whole have increased by only 0.1% since 1980 while earnings of the poorest fifth fell by 20.6%. Earnings of the top 20% rose by 16.4%. And, as elsewhere in the developed world, Canadians spent more time stuck in grid-locked traffic, adding to smog which has significantly increased in most urban areas. There are an estimated 5,800 smog-related deaths in Ontario alone each year. Cities are losing green spaces, facing urban sprawl, suffering from deteriorating infrastructure, and increasingly are unable to accommodate their own waste production and garbage disposal. Since unlike earlier newcomers most immigrants come from developing countries, the socio-economic and cultural challenges associated with Canada’s growing population – most of it due to immigration – are significantly greater today than formerly. For example, over half the people of its largest city, Toronto, are foreign born with most arriving from countries where linguistic, religious and other cultural differences are very different from what had been mainstream. Were it not for immigration and the children of immigrants, Canada’s natural birth rate would be well below the 2.1% required to maintain a stable population.

So What?

As much of the above is from government sources it must be assumed that government.s have been aware of the situation, globally and in Canada, for a long time. They know that controlling population numbers is central to addressing most environmental problems, including global warming. They know that with the emergence of global environmental problems which threaten their own self-interest, countries like Canada will have to accept policies by which resources are transferred to less developed countries to counter environmental degradation. This will be seen as a means of paying the bill past environmental damage caused by rapid economic growth. Governments also know the not insignificant challenges Canadians will need to confront if the volume of new arrivals - with such a high proportion from very different backgrounds than the majority - is maintained.

Although Canada's population is small in world terms, its. necessary concentration close to the USA border puts great stress on regional environments. Despite this concentration and the inordinate financial costs of expanding into less and less hospitable parts of the country, given global pressures and associated regional conflicts, Canadians must expect to have increasing numbers of immigrants and refugees seeking to live in the country.

While there is nothing obvious in the above to suggest that Canada is under populated, its governments of whatever political stripe have since the early 1990.s all pursued policies designed to increase population by almost 1% each year, a rate which if continued would double its numbers in 70 years, and with the host of associated environmental and social and economic problems suggested above.

In most of the world, growth, as a worthy goal in and of itself, is seen as a .good thing., even a necessity. It is rarely seriously questioned, certainly not by political and/or economic decision makers. Pro-growth thinking helps explain the 250,000 newcomers arriving each year. Some of the beneficiaries include developers, bankers and certain businesses benefitting from cheaper labour. Ecological economics, whatever the strength of its arguments, is not yet main stream in Canada. And of course political considerations play a significant part in the flow of immigrants as every party in power hopes the newcomers they encourage in will translate into votes, but while seemingly ignoring the far-reaching socio-economic challenges associated with this flow. One example, Canada's immigration places greater physical demands on the planet. This is due to the transformation of the 250,000 in many cases previously low-consuming new-comers into high-consumers, as they move to the higher standard of living available to them in their adopted homeland.

"Too Many Canadians?" & Charting a course for a sustainable future

So what is the best course of action for Canada to be a good global citizen and a model of a sustainable society in an overpopulated world? PIC believes Canadians should strive to stabilize the population, balancing immigrants and those who leave, and should encourage other countries to do the same. It also believes that Canada should be generous with its aid, favouring those taking voluntary, effective measures to bring their populations as closely as possible into balance with their carrying capacity. Whether or not Canada has .too many people. today, in PIC.s opinion, it certainly has no need to add more into a future made more problematic by further increases.