National Network for Equitable Library Service

Globe and Mail feature columnist Doug Saunders argues we need 100 million Canadians if we're to outgrow our colonial past and build a safer, greener, more prosperous future. It would shock most Canadians to learn that before 1967, more people fled this country than immigrated to it. That was no accident. Long after we ceased to be an actual colony, our economic policies and social tendencies kept us poorly connected to the outside world, attracting few of the people and building few of the institutions needed to sustain us. Canada has a history of underpopulation, and its effects are still being felt. Post-1967, a new Canada emerged. The closed, colonial idea of Canada gave way to an open, pluralist and connected vision. Yet support for a closed Canada remains influential. The author proposes a most audacious way forward: To avoid global obscurity and create lasting prosperity, to build equality and reconciliation of indigenous and regional divides, and to ensure economic and ecological sustainability, Canada needs to triple its population. Doug Saunders writes the Globe and Mail's international-affairs column, and also serves as the paper's online opinion and debate editor. He has published two books. His first, Arrival City (2010) chronicled the unprecedented wave of rural-to-urban migration and the rise of urban immigrant enclaves. His second, The Myth of the Muslim Tide (2012), examined the effects of immigration from Islamic countries to the West.