Statistics Canada Announces need for More Immigration

OTTAWA -- Statistics Canada in a report released Tuesday said Canada's population will continue growing in the next quarter century, but it will age considerably and the proportion of young people will shrink significantly.

Statistics Canada said an enormous increase in the number of seniors, attributable to the aging of the baby boomers combined with continuing low fertility levels and increasing longevity, will age the population rapidly. In the medium-growth scenario, half the population will be over the age of 43.6 by 2026, up substantially from 36.8 in 2000. By 2051, the projected median age will be 46.2 years.

The baby boomers - those born in the two decades after the Second World War - will have the most profound impact on the country's demographics in the next 25 years. In 2000, about one out of every eight people in the population was aged 65 and older. By 2026, one out of every five people willbe a senior. By 2016 at the latest, Canada will have far more seniors than children aged 14 and under, a phenomenon never before recorded.

On July 1, 2000, Canada's population was an estimated 30.75 million. In 2025, Canada's population is expected to be between 34 million and 39 million people. The growth rate will continue to decelerate in Canada. From 1886 to 2000, the population grew at an average annual rate of 0.9%. In the medium-growth scenario, this growth rate is projected to slow to 0.5% by 2026. From 2046 to 2051, the population could eventually decline at an average rate of 0.1% a year.

Statistics Canada said immigration levels contribute heavily to the projected population growth at the national level as the fertility rate is always assumed to be below the replacement level, a situation observed since the 1970s.

The full Statistics Canada report may be viewed at the following URL:

http://www.statcan.ca:80/Daily/English/010313/d010313a.html