Rapid rate of immigration is changing the face of Canada

‘INCREASINGLY A COUNTRY OF IMMIGRANTS,’ AND ONE THAT IS BOTH PROUD AND ASHAMED OF CANADA

• National Post
• 2 Jan 2024
• Joseph Brean

Canada’s demographic revolution is running at a furious pace, with population growth outstripping even the boldest predictions, mostly due to immigration, with important implications for Canadian identity as much as demography, according to a new poll by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies.

Canada’s population surpassed 40 million people this summer, earlier than predicted. Statistics Canada reported recently that Canada’s population grew by more than 430,000 in the third quarter of this year, for a total of 40.5 million.

Non-permanent residents made up more than 300,000 of those 430,000 who arrived over the three months.

“Our population is growing much faster than predictions of our national statistics agency, even the adjusted ones,” said Jack Jedwab, CEO of the Association for Canadian Studies, a think tank in Montreal.

Population growth is so high compared to other countries that Canada leads the G7 in it, and is in the top 20 fastest-growing countries in the world.

“Immigration is driving almost all of our population growth, given reduced birth rates,” said Jedwab.

If current trends persist, the population will double in 25 years, and nearly half of Canadians by then would identify as racialized or visible minority, the ACS’S report on the poll suggests.

Pointing to the 32 per cent of people under 15 years of age who identify as visible minority, compared to 26.5 per cent of the total and just 14.5 per cent of people over 65, according to Statistics Canada data, Jedwab said we are “also seeing a greater diversification of the population, particularly the younger generations.”

One projection based on a reference scenario showed that by 2041 at the latest, most Canadians will be immigrants or the children of immigrants. Jedwab said the results showed that could be as soon as 2031, or even earlier.

From 2011 to 2016, that demographic increased from 39.5 to 41.5 per cent of Canadians.

Canada has often described itself as a nation of immigrants but this was sometimes aspirational as much as descriptive. The idea signalled an ideological openness more than a head count, because demographics showed Canada was mostly a country of Canada-born Canadians.

This is what is changing at an increasing pace, according to these surveys. Canada is becoming what it has long claimed to be but never fully was.

“I think we’re increasingly becoming a country of immigrants,” Jedwab said.

“In terms of identity dimensions, we’re seeing across the board changes in terms of patterns of religious identification, less so of ethnicity, but more multiple identity.”

Christianity is well on its way to minority status. The report says that in 2021, 19.3 million people representing 53 per cent of the population reported a Christian religion. A decade earlier, it was 67 per cent. A decade before that, at the turn of the century, it was 77 per cent.

More than a third report no religion, a proportion that has doubled over 20 years from 16.5 per cent in 2001 to 34.6 per cent in 2021.

As that changes, Jedwab’s report tried to measure what this means for national identity, for what people think and feel about Canada’s past, present and future.

One important finding is that a significant segment of the population is both ashamed and proud of Canada.

This dual view is often described as an oxymoron, a lamentable overreaction to an increased focus in schools and public discourse on the evils of history, even a kind of ethnic self-loathing that is toxic to national self-esteem.

The report does not show this. Asked how much they agree, whether strongly or somewhat, with the statement, “I am proud of the history of Canada,” the total agree proportion was 83 per cent, from a low of 70 per cent among 18 to 24 year olds, to 90 per cent among over 65s. Asked to say the same about the statement, “There are some events in Canada’s history that make me feel ashamed of the country,” a clear majority agreed with both. They felt pride and shame in Canada’s history, simultaneously.

Treatment of Indigenous people and residential schools were far and away the top examples given of shameful events, with lesser mention of Japanese-canadian internment, the Chinese head tax, and turning away European Jewish refugees from the Second World War.

Canadians, according to this poll, do not think they are personally responsible for historical injustices or the subjugation of Indigenous people. Fewer than one in six hold this view, the poll shows.

It is a common argument that to benefit today from yesterday’s unfair systems is still to participate in them, and thereby to share blame. But most people do not share the view, part of what Jedwab describes as “the settler-colonist discourse.”

“I think people don’t feel that way,” Jedwab said

This does not stop them feeling shame, though, which they hold simultaneously with pride. A full 60 per cent of people who strongly agree that some events make them feel shame also feel very attached to Canada, the survey shows.

Jedwab sees this as an important point, sometimes wrongly dismissed as counterintuitive, even a contradiction in terms. But being ashamed of Canada’s historical faults as a proud, modern Canadian is not oxymoronic. It is in fact common, the poll suggests.

“Those people don’t see the contradiction between feeling proud of our country’s accomplishments and feeling ashamed of the things we’ve learned about its history, particularly about treatment of Indigenous peoples,” Jedwab said.

A slight majority of 52 per cent believe that in Canada “everyone is born with an equal opportunity to succeed.” That view is stronger among older demographics, as high as 63 per cent among the over 55s, and among those who were born outside Canada, at 57 per cent.

In ranking a set of challenges from biggest to smallest, a few things stood out.

Respondents in Alberta were way over the national average in choosing ideological conflict between the right wing and left wing.

Respondents in the Prairies were way over the national average is choosing Indigenous and non-indigenous relations.

Fewer than one person in 10 prioritized gender relations, and even fewer immigrant and non-immigrant relations. Religious and secular relations barely registered. But relations between rich and poor was at the top, just behind ideological conflict.

Conducted in September, the survey of 1,502 Canadians was done via an online panel. Traditional margins of error do not apply, but a similarly sized random sample would have a margin of error of 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.