Submerged

Rather than increase immigration numbers, let freedom reign: scale back the ponzi scheme.

Athens is the 5th century BC didn't fare too badly either with a small population:

"the most educated modern guess puts the total population of fifth-century Athens, including its home territory of Attica, at around 250,000 - men, women and children, free and unfree, enfranchised and disenfranchised. Of those 250,000 some 30,000 on average were fully paid-up citizens - the adult males of Athenian birth and full status"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekdemocracy_01.shtml

Singapore seems to get along with just over 5 million (63% of whom are citizens) or Switzerland with fewer tha 8 million in population.

Athens is the 5th century BC didn't fare too badly either with a small population:

"the most educated modern guess puts the total population of fifth-century Athens, including its home territory of Attica, at around 250,000 - men, women and children, free and unfree, enfranchised and disenfranchised. Of those 250,000 some 30,000 on average were fully paid-up citizens - the adult males of Athenian birth and full status"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekdemocracy_01.shtml

Singapore seems to get along with just over 5 million (63% of whom are citizens) or Switzerland with fewer tha 8 million in population.

Doug, Doug - do we need a Toronto metropolitan area of 60 million people? A greater Montreal of 30 million?
There are few people in the North because it is cold up there, and hard to make a living. And please stop talking about victimisation.

Perhaps Doug can have millions of kids. He might need a big house.

1. His argument is founded on the thoroughly incorrect premise that the country is underpopulated. I have been about the world more than most, and nowhere in Canada or elsewhere have I seen a shortage of people. In fact, I have found that there is just enough of me, and a surplus of everyone else.

2. Why ever should we want to take "a leading role in the world"? Again, I have been out there more than most, and came home for the very good reason that it we have it best here, and should content ourselves with that, look after it, and keep quiet.

We don't need more people - we need more Patriots. Our country is huge and empty (all owned by unproductive entities - UN, Crown, foreign/domestic groups/ co-operations). Canadians should all have access to purchase most of the public land for private ownership. Property Rights must be reinstated in Canada. People who can afford children, have children. People need a big place to raise big families.

What we need more of is people breeding again. The more families the stronger this Nation becomes. Its why the left, particularly Feminists, the GLBT radicals. Who hate the idea of families or children.
Abortion is what they call for, while brining in people culturally inimical to the very idea of Democracy. More war ruined, socially primitive folks who have not given up the idea of revenge or the ideals that destroyed their own Nations. The Left stinks of a Mortuary.

Saunders wants more population, his colleague ibbitson is always yearning for increased immigration to fill up the spaces.
Of course, the rest of the time both these loons probably carp about the environment and using up scarce resources.
I remember Canada being around 25 million. Seemed nice to me. Lots of room. Could drive to Toronto and back to buy records at Sams, and it was an easy morning drive. And when you left the city, you actually left the city and you were back in the country.

What kind of immigrants does Doug Saunders have in mind?

'The kind that share our democratic values and plan to contribute to and participate in Canada's future or will any old immigrant population do? 'The kind that speak passable French or English and, therefore, can expect a job that will pay them and their family a sustainable income or the kind that speak only their "own" language, have no desire to learn either English or French -- even though free ESL classes are offered immigrant parents and their kids at the expense of the taxpayer? -- and who end up on welfare?

400,000 immigrants a year, given the aspirations -- not -- of so many recent immigrants, would be a killer for Canada. We can barely afford the free-loader immigrants who have recently reached Canadian shores.

How about the solution being fewer publicly funded abortions and encouraging bigger Canadian families?

Mark,

Why would you compare Canada @ 34 million in a 7-billion-person world with GBR @ 41 million in a 1.7-billion-person world 100 years ago? 100 years ago, GBR was on the downslope of influence after having had a giant head start in industrialization over the majority of the world. Today, Canada and the entire Western world are on the downslope in terms of influence as the formerly primitive "third world" uses Western technology to beat us at our own game...economically and militarily.

At 34 million or 150 million...Canada will never be a power-player in this world. What happened 100+ years ago is irrelevant today.

That said, we'll still be worse off if we throw open the immigration doors to simply expand our population. In the grand heirarchy, let's maintain what little influence we have as a small, modern country rather than becoming a large, backwards country whining for handouts and "fairness" from the UN.

Who gives a crap about a "leading role in the world"?

It's about time we got our noses out of everyone else’s business and they get the f*ck out of ours.

First these lefty freaks go on about overpopulation, peak oil and the need for population reduction via eugenics, and then they tell us we need to bulk up with massive third world immigration.

We're full up dipshit, no need to pack us in to become another US mess with +46 million on food stamps.

Go over to that story and check the comments. I went through the first three pages of them and not a single commenter agreed with the article.

"Today we need to recognize the fact that ..."

followed by "It is time to act."

It reads like a copy-and-pasted UN AGW speech. He should have thrown in the phrase "The science is settled" to make it more convincing.

Well his ethos got the extreme leftwing elected in France, and Dear Leader is going to allow illegals to vote to ensure the Socialists rule France for a lifetime.

I noticed that too, CJ. This is just a few people dreaming about 'what if' scenarios. As is usually the case, negatives thoughts never intrude on the dream. For instance, quantity immigration without quality standards is a disaster in a welfare state.

Most of the article talks about prestige and cultural advantages of a larger population which seems to me a pretty superficial reason to radically increase immigration. Eventually he gets to economics and loss of workers but the Boomer age will end and population changes will be less dramatic. It is better to reform entitlements and increase economic growth to cushion the healthcare and pension spike...then wait. Not to be crass but these health and pension burdens come to a very sudden end somewhere between the age of 80 to 90. The Baby Boom ended in 1964 so by 2044 and 2054 the issue is gone. Panic leading to an over correction via mass immigration introduces a whole new set of problems that could be worse and last longer than the original issue. Look what happens in boomtowns that lack adequate housing, hospitals, schools and other public infrastructure - chaos and spiraling costs.

The problem is that all the new immigrants flock to ghettos in Toronto.

And just would all these immigrants go?

The leftard big gubmint crowd is horrified at development anywhere at any cost, because disturbing Gaia is a sin against nature.

Let the leftard idjits figure out where the crowds of servant immigrants will go first, before letting them in.

Doug should think of Canada as a nice home with a small comfortably settled front yard,and a huge backyard full of treasure.

The front yard has a nice climate,the back not so much. People want to live in the front yard. The backyard demands a hardy breed. Those are the ones that we should seek out.

Canada consists of the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, and the Quebec-Windsor corridor. The rest is uninhabitable except for islands of economic activity. Where are these 70 million extra people going to live?

What Jema 54 said!

Canada has been in a form of arrested development since the 19th century when land grants pretty much ended. Privatize land and resources.

What is it with these liberals always wanting Canada to "be a leader on the world stage"?

They don't actually want that. They want us to be like France 15 years ago, before the insolvency really bit down. All bistros and sidewalk cafes full of witty intellectuals, and no real work getting done.

Because they can't come out and say what they want (because we'd laugh at them) they make up this "World Stage" BS.

Ask him if he'd be willing to sacrifice 25% of his current after-tax take home pay and the entire Medicare budget plus the CBC budget for a couple of aircraft carriers full of Harrier jump jets and helicopter gun ships, maybe some nuclear subs and missile cruisers to go with. That's what makes a country a "Leader on the World Stage", the rest is fog machine with laser light show.

Whether we have one million or thirty-four million, we need people who are not only capable but willing and proud to be citizens of this country, not endless numbers of gender studies majors and immigrants unwilling to assimilate.

Just my quick thoughts.

Dauntless Doug would have us become Can-Asia-da. We could, perhaps, reach those population levels, but we would not be the country we were in 1867, 1918, 1945, 1967, 1982, 2012...

Even if Doug was right that we needed 100 million people, we would never get the skills that he lists.

That's because Canada's combination of slow growth resource economy, free healthcare and other welfare state policies tends to attract the wrong kind of immigrants.

And the data bear this out. Immigrants today are among the poorest of the poor in Canada and they stay that way for decades.

The Globe and Mail building is ugly too.

Slamming 60 million people into Toronto seems like a great idea.

marco

yup, my property value would sky rocket out here on the HILL:-))))

and then I'd be a very happy immigrant

Using Dougs logic countries like India should be a paradise on earth. Where do they get these morons who write such drivel.

Canada would probably be better off if the demographics were the same, but our population was 50-60 million.

But it's not.

Our destiny is to be a country of 37-38 million before the long slow decline begins.
No big deal.
Life is good.

Robert of Ottawa >

"The problem is that all the new immigrants flock to ghettos in Toronto."

Yes, and then they ship as many of them as they can to Alberta.

I've seen enough creative and artistic "masses" in my time.

This series of articles has been going on for at least a week. I first became aware of it when I clicked on an interactive that resembled the voter's compass. You were to click on an area of the graph that corresponded with your view on immigration. Surprisingly, that nifty little interactive showed a high support for increasing it. It was surprising because when the comments started coming in, they were almost all negative.

Then began a barrage of articles--at least 3 per day. It was almost impossible to keep up. People commented with dismay, concern, scorn, and anger--very few commented in favor. But each day, like freshening the latrines, the G&M would layer quicklime over the dissenting comments and freshen up the articles. Once in a while, they would feature one or two comments that purported to come from the readers that favored their view--NONE of the dissenting ones were accorded any prominence even though they came in the thousands. They kept writing the same tripe and were not deflected one degree in their agenda in spite of the nearly universal disagreement from their readers.

Some investigative journalists should investigate this series. Who paid for it? Why was it written?

You could just import some workers from.. oh, never mind.

“I’m convinced that the Conservatives are hiding a very, very deeply held view that people should relocate to where jobs are..."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/proposed-changes-to-ei-perturb-atlantic-canada/article2437725/

Doug is an idiot.

Look at the actual area in Canada that is remotely inhabitable - you have a narrow strip of land that runs coast to coast. Compare that to the US where, outside of the land on either side of the continental divide it is largely very inhabitable from corner to corner.

Twits like Doug see that Canada with about the same land area as the US should have a population closer in size to it.

And twits like the Editorial staff of the G and M think its fit to print.

I'd agree, as long as the immigrants were born in Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Arizona, Nebraska, Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Virginia....

This Globe scribbler isn't in cloud land, he's not on the same planet as the rest of us - to answer his question of what Canada would look like at 100 million under his non selective irresponsible self destructive immigration policy - look at Britain, Norway, France - they are cultural sewers that the world dumped its cultural garbage in - the result is ending up with a nation as unstable, socially divisive and violent as the crap hole motherland the persona non grata "instant population" emmigrated from.

If you want to see a REAL "cultural sewer", Occam, merely look South. Rocker was right. The Big Crapple is a freak show. Of course, our Masters are insulated from that by their Praetorian Guard. But the REST of the country...

So what if France and the UK had fewer people? They only did well by 1901 standard. He's right we need more people and we need more immigration to get hose people. We need all the people we can get.

Ask him if he'd be willing to sacrifice 25% of his current after-tax take home pay and the entire Medicare budget plus the CBC budget for a couple of aircraft carriers full of Harrier jump jets and helicopter gun ships, maybe some nuclear subs and missile cruisers to go with. That's what makes a country a "Leader on the World Stage", the rest is fog machine with laser light show.

Someone please archive this. It's beautiful.

The leftLibs think the answer to their problem is the importation of more libleft voters/takers.
No doubt they intend to have the laws changed to permit everyone, dead or alive, citizen or
non-citizen, a good chance to vote as many times as they want for MSM supported candidates.
.

Osumashi and Gord Tulk say it well.

Canadian geography is not suitable for the size of population that Saunders proposes, although the prairie provinces could use a lot more people that want to work. And there's the rub, we need people that want to work and not just suck on the public teat.

I'd be only too happy to impregnate as many women as I can. You know...for the good of the nation.

Just what we need, more lineups....

Edward Teach "I'd be only too happy to impregnate as many women as I can. You know...for the good of the nation."

Of course you really meant to say "for the children"

Far Side cartoon:

Lawn sign reads "Beware of Doug"

Anyone who wants to go beyond merely deploring the very idea should start at the intial article in the series [with lots of related links]

An early bit -- Whatever happened to the Steinbach of Miriam Toews?
//
1. The Manitoba experiment
[...]
That was just the beginning. Since the mid-1990s, Steinbach has grown by 60 per cent, one of the fastest rates in the country. Last year, the region welcomed about 900 immigrants from 40 countries into industries as diverse as pharmaceuticals, trucking and hog farming. The city had to expand its industrial park and then open a new one. National chain grocers, restaurants and department stores are setting up shop. Steinbach has been revitalized.

What ailed the Steinbach of old is the creeping malignancy that threatens all of Canada today. The shortage of skilled labour in the Alberta oil sands and Saskatchewan potash mines has become a national issue. But a similar lack of people power is plaguing the ambitious but underdeveloped secondary cities of Ontario, and in Atlantic Canada a third of the population will be over 65 in less than two decades. The Conference Board of Canada estimates that over the next 10 years, there will be a million jobs going wanting across the country. This shortage is a drag on Canada's potential to innovate and compete into the future.
[...]
//

Ask him if he'd be willing to sacrifice 25% of his current after-tax take home pay and the entire Medicare budget plus the CBC budget for a couple of aircraft carriers full of Harrier jump jets and helicopter gun ships, maybe some nuclear subs and missile cruisers to go with. That's what makes a country a "Leader on the World Stage", the rest is fog machine with laser light show.
Posted by: The Phantom

^THIS,...with a credible force of nuclear weapons on the side.
You're nobody if you don't have weapons of mass destruction as the backbone of you're conventional forces, just ask Pakistan and North Korea neither of which would get any attention at all on the world stage without them.
And who would give a hoot about the bellicosity of Iran or anything much about that country if it weren't trying to acquire nukes?

If you can't boost your own population by 70 million, being able to reduce the other fellow's population by 70 million in a flash of fission is a real alternate attention getter by itself.

Does Canada want a nation of
300+ million divided by ethnicity, multiculturalism
and mass immigration pushed
by politicians looking for
votes. Does Canada want 300+
million, where every ethnic
group wants to feed at the
trough of the other ethnic
groups, spurred on by the
same politicians in their
quest for power.

I didn't think so