Along with many developed nations, Canada is experiencing a falling birth rate, and that will affect the country’s future. It is not a new problem, but one that has been growing for more than half a century. If we examine our family histories, we see that in the last 100 years, families have gone from an average of six children in a household to four, then three and now two or one.
To merely replace the population, families need to bring three children into the world. The last year in which couples produced enough children to replace themselves was 1971. In 2025, Canada saw a decrease in population by over 100,000 people. That will repeat itself this year.
We are now dependent on immigration to maintain our population and to grow it in the future. Our current population is aging, and replacement immigration is necessary to fill the jobs that are being created by a baby boomers retiring.
To begin solving the issue, this year Canada will allow 380,000 permanent residents to immigrate into our country. Many will already be temporary residents who are already filling jobs across our nation. If one walks into just about any office, retailer or restaurant in the district, you will see that the district is benefitting from immigration. Without immigrants finding their way to the Rainy River District to work or take over businesses many services and businesses would be lost.
Immigration in the past few years has become increasingly negative. The federal government has overreacted, squeezing employers and beating down colleges and universities by reducing foreign student enrollment. It is shortsighted, eliminating a whole new group of trained employees and often delaying major projects into the future.
Reducing immigration numbers is going contra to Canada’s needs. We need more skilled workers, doctors, nurses, scientists, to build Canada’s future. Just as the turn of the 20th century attracted immigrants to our agricultural West that helped grow our nation and following the Second World War, immigrants with skills immigrated from Germany, Poland and Ukraine, creating a huge expansion in Canada’s economy and population base.
The government’s crackdown on immigration may cause headaches for an agenda that has earmarked billions for nation building projects to protect Canada from geopolitical threats. Dedicated to building businesses and understanding that large businesses create jobs and those jobs create economic growth and prosperity, without greater immigration that agenda will fail. The agenda needs skilled workers, engineers, trades people, architects and more. Economic immigrants bring skills experience, innovation, and financial investments.
Attracting those workers will become more difficult as other nations experiencing declining populations will be competing for those skills.
