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Traditionally Canada has sought to increase its population through immigration in order to expand the workforce and domestic markets. As a result, immigrants now make up about one-sixth of Canada’s total population. Immigration peaked in 1913, when more than 400,000 arrived. Immigration was discouraged during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but after World War II tens of thousands of displaced persons from Europe were admitted, and in the 1970s and ’80s large numbers of refugees from Europe, Asia, and Latin America were welcomed to Canada. Canada’s immigration policy is nondiscriminatory regarding ethnicity; however, individuals with special talents or with capital to invest are given preference. Since the latter part of the 20th century, Asian immigration (notably Chinese) has increased dramatically, accounting for about half of all immigrants during the 1990s.
During the first two decades of the 20th century, the notable feature of internal migration was the movement from eastern Canada to the Prairie Provinces. Although British Columbia has continued to gain from migration since the 1930s, much of this has been at the expense of the Prairie Provinces. Alberta gained population from throughout Canada during the oil boom of the 1970s. This trend leveled off in the 1980s and early ’90s, but it increased again at the beginning of the 21st century. Saskatchewan has had more emigration than immigration since the 1940s. Ontario consistently has received far more people since the 1940s than the other provinces, but most of this growth has been from immigration rather than interprovincial migrations. The population of the Atlantic Provinces has grown more slowly than it has in regions farther west. The cities of Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary have attracted both migrants and immigrants.
During the 20th century, natural increase, rather than immigration, was the major factor in Canada’s population growth. Until the 1960s the crude birth rate (live births per 1,000 population) remained in the high 20s, while the crude death rate (deaths per 1,000 population) declined from more than 10.6 in 1921 to 7.7 in 1961. Thereafter the rate of natural increase slowed, however, because of a sharp drop in the birth rate accompanied by a slight decrease in the death rate. The rate of natural increase is much lower than the world average and is about the same as those of the United States and Australia. Canada has an aging population. Whereas fewer than one in 10 Canadians were age 65 or older in the 1970s, by the start of the 21st century the figure stood at nearly one in six. Life expectancy in Canada, which averages about 80 years, is among the world’s highest.
Economy of Canada
The early settlement and growth of Canada depended on exploiting and exporting the country’s vast natural resources. During the 20th century, manufacturing industries and services became increasingly important. By the end of the 20th century, agriculture and mining accounted for less than 5 percent of Canada’s labour force, while manufacturing stood at one-fifth and services, including transportation, trade, finance, and other activities, employed nearly three-fourths of the workforce. For many years Canada supported its manufacturing industries through protective tariffs on imported manufactured goods. As a result, many U.S. firms established branch plants in order to supply the Canadian market. Another cornerstone of Canada’s economic policy was the government’s provision of grants and subsidies to stimulate economic development in areas of slow growth. In the 1980s Canada began moving away from these two basic policies. Compliance with international rules on trade and the establishment of a free trade area with the United States (1989)—which with the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 came to include Mexico—reduced protection for Canadian manufacturing plants. Funding for regional economic development programs was also reduced. Some multinational companies have relocated their factories to countries where costs are cheaper, causing job losses and political dissatisfaction within Canada.
Canada’s economy is dominated by the private sector, though some enterprises (e.g., postal services, some electric utilities, and some transportation services) have remained publicly owned. During the 1990s some nationalized industries were privatized. Canadian agriculture is firmly private, but it has come to depend on government subsidies in order to compete with the highly subsidized agricultural sectors of the European Union (EU) and the United States. Several marketing boards for specific farm commodities practice supply management and establish floor prices.
