Do we need to be big to be cosmopolitan political animals?

The just society has been restored. Best intentions, disciplined by fact-checkers, motivate our institutions. When we’re not on Netflix or vicariously fighting US elections, Canadians ponder Canada’s singular original flaw: being good, but too small. Canadians simply can’t shake the feeling that Canada could do so much more to save this troubled word if only it was bigger.

Happily, this problem has a gently impactful, re-calibrated century-old solution: a population target of 100 million bona-fide Canadians by 2100. Its champions most surely already own real estate in downtown Toronto and Vancouver, studied and vacation in Europe, and can’t stand America’s cussed indifference.

After putting up with more than a century of being less appealing to global risk-takers and mistreated minorities than the great happiness lady to the south, we’re now a first love, not a rebound destination. So, that old itch to be great too has found credible voices in our national politics.

Andrew Coyne gives the idea a cleared-eyed pass in his excellent column: “Increased immigration is good for Canada — and the reasons aren’t only economic”.

The target isn’t a leap of faith and wouldn’t require that much of an additional increase in annual immigration annually. We can micro-manage (high-grade) the admission of individuals keen to embrace Canada’s governing values. Coyne doesn’t try to argue that immigration will solve the emerging burden of grey dependents or increase real incomes per-capita by magically increasing our productivity. He settles on a classic liberal assertion, and a Machiavellian one:

“Ambitious countries want to grow, but growth also makes countries ambitious.”

                  

“Second, it (population target) would add to our clout in the world. We would be growing at a time when our peers are shrinking. At 100 million, current United Nations projections suggest we would be second only to the United States (it is forecast to grow to 450 million) among the G-7, vaulting past Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom.”

                  

Since half of new Canadians settle now and will continue to settle in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and a fourth city, depending on shifting regional job prospects, Coyne is a hundred percent, half right: by 2100 Montreal and Vancouver will have joined Toronto as eminent, brutally ambitious centers of western creativity, commerce and civilization.

                  

Having the talent and problems as big as New York’s and Los Angeles’s, it is reasonable to expect that Toronto will discover in its midst truly exceptional, cosmopolitan political leaders. Visitors will study how we run things as a giant city and we’ll be more entertaining than the Fins and Norwegians.

                  

However, Canada as a nation-state and the public service in its national capital Ottawa won’t have more “clout in the world.” To put it personally, your choices of future prime ministers won’t give you added or less voice as an unregistered ‘citizen of the world’, let alone North America.

                  

This is not a good thing or, happily, the way it must always be.

                  

As a child of the Sixties, I still believe “clout in the world” is a constructive, indeed a healthy ambition--others out there will not stop seeking to have it and, often, in order to do less good. 

                  

However, Machiavelli would only be amused at the thought that the nicest suburb on this continent wants to be a significant political force on its own. Indeed, as an Italian cosmopolitan--who’d see instantly that secret ballots in primaries, caucuses and general elections have the real power--he might ask: why do you follow US political gossip, passionately day-after-day, and reject any form of political participation?

Canada’s population and influence in the world

Irwin Studin, a University of Toronto professor and former senior federal policy advisor, released an ambitious proposition earlier this year that should be stirring debate among Canadian nation-builders. But it isn’t. Without buying into his idea—that getting Canada’s population to 100 million as fast as possible should be a national priority—his driving rationale deserves wide attention.

Refreshingly, the paper doesn’t hide its reach: “Canada—Population 100 million; at 100 million people, three times its current population, Canada is among the most consequential countries on Earth.” Click on: http://globalbrief.ca/blog/2010/06/14/canada-%e2%80%93-population-100-million/

The idea is neither unmanageably radical nor so farfetched to be dismissed out of hand. Assuming we don’t blow ourselves up or poison our atmosphere intolerably, there probably will be something close to 100 million Canadians around to celebrate the dawn of the next century—whether or not we make a strategic commitment to get there.  

What’s out of reach, however, is the notion that, by forcing the pace of population growth, Canada can become “one of the most consequential countries on Earth.” Assuming he uses the word “consequential” to mean a lot more than just keeping our seat on the G-20, the exercise is bound to fail.

Studin doesn’t attempt to map out, in detail, the world of the future in which Canada, as an independent nation, will be able to make a significant difference. However, here are a couple of thoughts that ought to temper his expectations. If the US declines and the world actually functions in a multi-polar fashion, Canada, with a population of a hundred million or so, will still represent barely one percent of humanity.  If the world is divided between a cluster of authoritarian nations lead by China and with the US as the predominant western power, Canada will still be marginal on the continent and globally. Indeed, projecting present fertility rates and immigration policies in the US, it is likely that well before the next century the US population will surpass 500 million.

Certainly, with 100 million people Canada’s domestic market could sustain a larger, more sophisticated manufacturing sector.  However, if Canada is to keep an innovative and a high value added economy, these firms will be as challenged as they are today to compete with others, at home and elsewhere. Further, Canada’s resource sector will remain vulnerable to international commodity markets whatever Canada’s future population.

No. Despite his exertions, Studin isn’t going to make us a significant force in the world by aggressively populating the status quo.

Still, his underlying objective—being heard in the world—stands boldly against the unacknowledged alternative strategy that our best hope is to prosper quietly and not be left off the diplomatic guest lists. He might find something that addresses his ambition in my article, “A More Perfect Union.” Click on: http://maisonneuve.org/pressroom/article/2010/mar/1/more-perfect-union/

With a little more time out of Ottawa, Irwin Studin might see that being a North American federalist is the only sure way to win influence well beyond the reach of the Canadian nation-state.