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  #1  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 4:53 AM
saffronleaf saffronleaf is offline
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How do you think a Canada of 50 million people by 2050 will be?

Based on some projections I've read, Canada will probably reach around 50 million people by 2050, give or take 5 million.

How do you think Canada will be at that point? You can talk about anything. For example:
- How many people our major metropolitan areas will have
- How the population will be distributed among provinces
- Emerging metropolitan areas
- Infrastructure projects, transit projects, skylines
- How many professional sports teams we'll have
- Ethnic, linguistic, and religious demographics
- Culture
- Our position in the world in a geopolitical sense

etc.
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  #2  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 5:08 AM
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Thunder Bay's population will be around 110,000.
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  #3  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 6:38 AM
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This is VERY hard to predict in a country like Canada because our population growth is very much a political decision and not a demographic analysis. So much of our population growth depends on immigration and Ottawa sets the terms and that can change from one government to the next.

Assuming things stay relatively the same for overall population growth, the 15 largest Metros will remain the same but I think Hamilton will overtake Quebec due to Toronto overflow and Oshawa will probably overtake St.Cath/Niagara and Halifax for the same reason. It's also very possible that Ottawa could regain it's #4 spot as Alberta continues to struggle and oil begins to fade. Toronto will become even more of an elephant in the room as it easily passes 10 million and the GGH 15 million. Remember also that if the current rate of growth continues, Canada will, by 2050, be in more of the 55 to 60 million range.

This has huge political implications. Canada is already, despite what Canadians think, one of the most powerful and influential countries in the world and this will take our population well past Spain and South Korea and more importantly, Italy.

Last edited by ssiguy; Jan 2, 2020 at 6:51 AM.
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  #4  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 8:20 AM
saffronleaf saffronleaf is offline
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I think the metropolitan area populations will be:

1. Toronto / Inner Green Belt (this includes Toronto, Oshawa, and Hamilton CMAs that will increasingly function as a more cohesive urban area) - 9.5m

2. Montreal - 6.3m

3. Vancouver / Lower Mainland BC (this includes Vancouver and Abbotsford CMAs) - 4.1m

4. Calgary - 2.5m

5. Edmonton - 2.25m

6. Ottawa - 2.25m

7. Winnipeg - 1.2m

8. Quebec - 1.1m

9. Waterloo / Grand River Valley (this includes the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo and Guelph CMAs, which I think will be more of a polycentric urban area) - 1m

10. London - 700k

11. Halifax - 700k

12. Niagara Region - 600k

13. Victoria - 600k

14. Saskatoon - 600k
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  #5  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 3:26 PM
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Canada will look the same. With a bigger top 15 cities.
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  #6  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 4:28 PM
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I predict it will look grosser ...there's no reason this country should have more than 40 million people residing in it.
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  #7  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 4:54 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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Originally Posted by 905er View Post
I predict it will look grosser ...there's no reason this country should have more than 40 million people residing in it.
Then there's no reason any country should have any more than any number of people in it.
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  #8  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 5:06 PM
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I would love to see the Maritimes soak up some more of the future population growth, given that it's our most underutilized region of arable/habitable land. Unfortunately there is little economic incentive for immigrants to land out East, and it's likely that Southern Ontario, the Lower Mainlaind, Montreal, etc. will absorb the vast majority of new immigrants.

I see Ottawa as one of the better candidates to boost its position by 2050. Does it pass Calgary in CMA population in the next ~5 years if their current respective economic climates persist?
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  #9  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 5:11 PM
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I think Canada will plateau in population sometime in the next decade and a half. It took us 40 years to add 14 million people, so I don’t think we’ll add 14 million more in the timeframe I anticipate.

For starters, I think immigration will begin to ratchet down as our major sources of emigration confront their own labour supply and population growth problems, or if automation reaches the point where large swathes of the workforce are no longer needed.

Secondly, all immigration is destined for cities and there is no indication that Canadian governments have built the infrastructure to support these monster cities of tomorrow.

I don’t see how Toronto will support 10 million+ people given that its hobbling along on a base level of infrastructure designed in the 1970s; Vancouver with 5 million? Forget it. Since you can kind of predict infrastructure 20 years out, I don’t see anything in the pipeline that will really change the game in any city.
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  #10  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 5:12 PM
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Ya, the top 15 metros will be just bigger versions of themselves, although Vancouver, Ottawa,Edmonton and Calgary almost doubling in 30 years is a little ambitious, no? Metro Toronto (with Hamilton), essentially being what Chicagoland is now is doable.Maybe even surpassing today's Chicagoland by a little bit. As far as Montreal and Vancouver goes..I can conservatively see Montreal at 5.5 and Vancouver at maybe 3.5. What would be interesting, is to see what some of the smaller independent cities like Fredericton, Sudbury, Kingston, and Kelowna might look like. Also some larger resource towns may have a dystopian future. Timmins for example. It's saving grace is that it services the far North, but Sudbury still won out for being the defacto service centre for North Eastern Ontario for the main stuff.

Last edited by Razor; Jan 2, 2020 at 5:28 PM.
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  #11  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 5:23 PM
milomilo milomilo is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hipster duck View Post
I think Canada will plateau in population sometime in the next decade and a half. It took us 40 years to add 14 million people, so I don’t think we’ll add 14 million more in the timeframe I anticipate.

For starters, I think immigration will begin to ratchet down as our major sources of emigration confront their own labour supply and population growth problems, or if automation reaches the point where large swathes of the workforce are no longer needed.

Secondly, all immigration is destined for cities and there is no indication that Canadian governments have built the infrastructure to support these monster cities of tomorrow.

I don’t see how Toronto will support 10 million+ people given that its hobbling along on a base level of infrastructure designed in the 1970s; Vancouver with 5 million? Forget it. Since you can kind of predict infrastructure 20 years out, I don’t see anything in the pipeline that will really change the game in any city.
It would be very interesting if the bolded turns out to be true. Personally I doubt it but if it was the case then it would mean that less developed countries had made huge advances, and this would be great for the world. Once the abundance of low wage labour world wide is reduced, capitalism will start working even better for everyone.

As for whether our cities can handle the population, it doesn't matter. People will move there regardless, and if the cities choose not to upgrade their infrastructure, that's their fault and their problem. I don't think there is any mechanism to stop people moving to a city, and the fact that people are moving there implies that the conditions are good regardless of the infrastructure.

IMO, we should up the immigration rate to 1M a year, borrow a ton of money and buy a load of infrastructure. The economic payoff would easily offset the cost of borrowing and would give Canada a lot more clout in an uncertain future.
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  #12  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 5:55 PM
Corndogger Corndogger is offline
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Originally Posted by suburbanite View Post
I would love to see the Maritimes soak up some more of the future population growth, given that it's our most underutilized region of arable/habitable land. Unfortunately there is little economic incentive for immigrants to land out East, and it's likely that Southern Ontario, the Lower Mainlaind, Montreal, etc. will absorb the vast majority of new immigrants.

I see Ottawa as one of the better candidates to boost its position by 2050. Does it pass Calgary in CMA population in the next ~5 years if their current respective economic climates persist?
Alberta's population growth is essentially the same as Ontario's. Where are you some of you getting this notion that there's a mass exodus from Alberta? According to Stats Canada and AB government population projections Calgary will be the fastest growing region in AB so it's not like AB is growing and Calgary is shrinking.
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  #13  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 5:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo View Post
It would be very interesting if the bolded turns out to be true. Personally I doubt it but if it was the case then it would mean that less developed countries had made huge advances, and this would be great for the world. Once the abundance of low wage labour world wide is reduced, capitalism will start working even better for everyone.
The jury is still out on AI/automation, but the term “demographics is destiny” still rings true, and there have been some astonishing developments in recent years . For example, Bangladesh now has a total fertility rate of 2.1 (replacement level). India is at 2.4 and Pakistan is at 2.55, both falling rapidly.

Also, the burden on immigration to pay existing entitlements might also fall as the boomer generation with their large numbers and defined-benefit pensions die out. Admittedly, this last theory is a little harder to quantify and stand behind, but I don’t think it would shift in favour of more immigration.

Quote:
As for whether our cities can handle the population, it doesn't matter. People will move there regardless, and if the cities choose not to upgrade their infrastructure, that's their fault and their problem. I don't think there is any mechanism to stop people moving to a city, and the fact that people are moving there implies that the conditions are good regardless of the infrastructure.
In the developing world, there are certainly examples of places that absorb millions of people with no commensurate investment in infrastructure, and just get shittier and shittier every year: Lagos, Jakarta, etc.

In the democratic developed world, where people have certain expectations, I think there are more examples of cities that just maxed out. For example, everybody thought that LA would overtake NYC as the largest metropolitan region in the US. In the 1960s, LA was growing much faster than Toronto is growing now and growing from a larger population base, to boot. But then sometime in the 90s, the wheels came off the bus and now LA is just a very large, very expensive city that added about 500,000 people in the last 10 years (it used to add this every 2 years in the 1950s).

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IMO, we should up the immigration rate to 1M a year, borrow a ton of money and buy a load of infrastructure. The economic payoff would easily offset the cost of borrowing and would give Canada a lot more clout in an uncertain future.
I think that’s a crazy high number. You can’t add that many people in a short timespan and not deal with unexpected consequences. They say that just the addition of 100,000 draft dodgers in the 1970s shifted Canada’s politics permanently to the left. I can’t imagine what 1M immigrants every year would result in (and I don’t think anyone really can).
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  #14  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 6:28 PM
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Originally Posted by hipster duck View Post
I don’t see how Toronto will support 10 million+ people given that its hobbling along on a base level of infrastructure designed in the 1970s; Vancouver with 5 million? Forget it. Since you can kind of predict infrastructure 20 years out, I don’t see anything in the pipeline that will really change the game in any city.
While the powers that be have been largely incompetent at building traditional rapid transit in Toronto, they do seem to be going ahead with transforming GO Transit into the kind of system that's basically nonexistent in North America but common in Europe, Asia and Australia. In 2050 GO will be practically unrecognizable, with more in common with the subway than the current system. It's the biggest rapid transit project that nobody's talking about.
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  #15  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 6:49 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo View Post

IMO, we should up the immigration rate to 1M a year, borrow a ton of money and buy a load of infrastructure. The economic payoff would easily offset the cost of borrowing and would give Canada a lot more clout in an uncertain future.
The advantage of moving to Canada is dwindling. Quality of life is rapidly improving in the developing world while our living costs are in the stratosphere. The quality of immigration is declining as a result with less productivity and a greater reliance on our taxed social system. Discussing insufficient transportation infrastructure is a luxury for our unaffordable urban centres that are also attracting a greater level of immigration that doesn't participate. The only economic payoff from your proposal is bankruptcy.

this may not be political correct and so it gets swept under the carpet but, it's a reality that we won't be able to ignore forever.
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  #16  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 7:08 PM
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Originally Posted by milomilo View Post
It would be very interesting if the bolded turns out to be true. Personally I doubt it but if it was the case then it would mean that less developed countries had made huge advances, and this would be great for the world. Once the abundance of low wage labour world wide is reduced, capitalism will start working even better for everyone.

As for whether our cities can handle the population, it doesn't matter. People will move there regardless, and if the cities choose not to upgrade their infrastructure, that's their fault and their problem. I don't think there is any mechanism to stop people moving to a city, and the fact that people are moving there implies that the conditions are good regardless of the infrastructure.

IMO, we should up the immigration rate to 1M a year, borrow a ton of money and buy a load of infrastructure. The economic payoff would easily offset the cost of borrowing and would give Canada a lot more clout in an uncertain future.
It's interesting to contemplate, although I suspect the only way to achieve that number would be to massively increase refugee numbers/engage in major immigration drives in war-torn parts of the Middle East and in sub-Saharan Africa (Venezuela and the Venezuelan diaspora might also be a target at the moment). I suspect that those kinds of numbers would generate major issues in housing, and access to social services, health care, and education. Given the likely countries of origin of such increased numbers of immigrants, I have to wonder whether there wouldn't also be significant issues wrt employment, as hundreds of thousands of these new arrivals would be qualified to work only at the bottom end of the labour market. My own view is that we are probably at or near "peak immigration", barring a major economic upturn, which doesn't seem to be on the horizon
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  #17  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 7:09 PM
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Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper View Post
The advantage of moving to Canada is dwindling. Quality of life is rapidly improving in the developing world while our living costs are in the stratosphere. The quality of immigration is declining as a result with less productivity and a greater reliance on our taxed social system. Discussing insufficient transportation infrastructure is a luxury for our unaffordable urban centres that are also attracting a greater level of immigration that doesn't participate. The only economic payoff from your proposal is bankruptcy.

this may not be political correct and so it gets swept under the carpet but, it's a reality that we won't be able to ignore forever.
Source?
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  #18  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 7:10 PM
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I think the biggest thing being overlooked is the potential hyper importance of Guelph Cambridge Waterlook Kitchener.

With the green belt being a thing, I can see this area hitting 1 million people far faster than most want to admit.
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  #19  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 7:13 PM
canucklehead2 canucklehead2 is offline
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Originally Posted by kwoldtimer View Post
Source?
There is no source, just rantings of a right wing lunatic. End of story...
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  #20  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2020, 7:14 PM
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Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper View Post
The advantage of moving to Canada is dwindling. Quality of life is rapidly improving in the developing world while our living costs are in the stratosphere. The quality of immigration is declining as a result with less productivity and a greater reliance on our taxed social system. Discussing insufficient transportation infrastructure is a luxury for our unaffordable urban centres that are also attracting a greater level of immigration that doesn't participate. The only economic payoff from your proposal is bankruptcy.

this may not be political correct and so it gets swept under the carpet but, it's a reality that we won't be able to ignore forever.
I'd don't disagree that the quality will eventually drop but in the near term asian is likely to acceleration their expat quality not drop it.

With greater development in Asia the number of people want out will likely increase not decrease.

Asia is stuck, even Japan has its issues, I actually think the Asiafication of this country is severely underestimated.
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