The public policy think-tank campaigned for prosperity by pushing up the population to 100 million by 2100. But now it’s noting our “happiness index” is plummeting. So are other quality-of-life measurements.
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It has proved to be one of the most impactful ideas of the past decade in Canada — the vision that Canada could use migration to boost the population of the country to 100 million people by 2100.
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The push to triple this country’s population during that period was headed by the Century Initiative, a think-tank founded by two business executives — Mark Wiseman and Dominic Barton — with deep influence in the federal Liberal government.
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The Century Initiative spread the idea that Canada was seriously underpopulated, far too cautious about inflating migration levels and, because of it, falling badly behind other countries economically.
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Pundits from the right and left grabbed the Century Initiative’s ambitious target, which it built into its name. The most explicit champion has been progressive columnist Doug Saunders of the Globe and Mail, who wrote a book titled Maximum Canada: Toward A Country Of 100 Million. He was echoed, with variations, by other columnists, including the Financial Post’s right-leaning Terence Corcoran.
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But times have changed at the Century Initiative, even while the name remains and Canada’s population has grown to 41.5 million. Last month, without an actual mea culpa, the Century Initiative issued a new report titled Resilient By Design.
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It doesn’t mention the desired 100-million-people goal. And it abandons some earlier statements about population growth automatically enhancing Canadians’ quality of life, which critics had complained were misleading, exaggerated, or just plain false.
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The Century Initiative’s new report says super-charged migration rates — which Ottawa increased five-fold between 2015 and 2023 — created real problems with regard to Canada’s “carrying capacity.”
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The report acknowledges Canada has been overwhelmed. One telling section of the Century Initiative report — which urges Ottawa to assess the country’s carrying capacity by closely monitoring independent “quality-of-life indicators” — admits Canada has fallen precipitously in the United Nations’ Happiness Index. It dropped to 18th last year, “its lowest ranking in the history of the survey.”
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In fact, the Century Initiative report plays down how badly things have gone on for Canada on the global Happiness Index. It doesn’t say Canada was fifth in 2015, when the Liberal government was first elected. Nor, presumably due to its publication schedule, did it note that this spring the Happiness Index reported Canada had plummeted even further — to No. 25.
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The Century Initiative report acknowledges the country has not had the capacity to absorb all the demands that record levels of permanent and temporary migration have placed on housing, public health care, traffic congestion and other infrastructure. Wages, it admits, have also been held back, especially by bringing in many low-skill workers.
