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Maximum Canada: Toward a Country of 100 Million Kindle Edition

by Doug Saunders (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 53 ratings
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To face the future, Canada needs more Canadians. But why and how many?
 
Canada’s population has always grown slowly, when it has grown at all. That wasn’t by accident. For centuries before Confederation and a century after, colonial economic policies and an inward-facing world view isolated this country, attracting few of the people and building few of the institutions needed to sustain a sovereign nation. In fact, during most years before 1967, a greater number of people fled Canada than immigrated to it. Canada’s growth has faltered and left us underpopulated ever since.
 
     At Canada’s 150th anniversary, a more open, pluralist and international vision has largely overturned that colonial mindset and become consensus across the country and its major political parties. But that consensus is ever fragile. Our small population continues to hamper our competitive clout, our ability to act independently in an increasingly unstable world, and our capacity to build the resources we need to make our future viable.
 
     In Maximum Canada, a bold and detailed vision for Canada’s future, award-winning author and Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders 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.
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  1. Print length
    247 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Knopf Canada
  5. Publication date
    September 19, 2017
  6. File size
    3423 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Longlisted for the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction [2018]
 
“[An] important book. . . . Saunders’s new book provides a highly professional explanation of how we came to our present ‘crisis of underpopulation’—and why this crisis has beset Canada and pre-Confederation versions of Canada since the European landing. . . . Saunders is at his most persuasive in emphasizing that most of Canada’s modern history consists not of immigration into our country, but indeed of net outmigration and exodus—bleeding—by millions who went on to make their fortunes in, and pay taxes to, other countries, clearly to the loss of Canada and the Canadian project.” —The Globe and Mail
 
“[R]equired reading for anyone interested in Canadian demographics and the challenges and choices facing our country.” —Policy Options
 
“[A] timely look forward into the future from 2017, Canada’s 150th anniversary since Confederation. Maximum Canada’scentral premise is sure to provoke anyone raised to embrace Canada’s open spaces and distant geography (i.e. everyone in this country).” —Pique Newsmagazine

About the Author

DOUG SAUNDERS is a Canadian-British author and journalist. He is the author of the books Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World and The Myth of the Muslim Tide, and is the international-affairs columnist for The Globe and Mail. He served as the paper's London-based European bureau chief for a decade, after having run the paper's Los Angeles bureau, and has written extensively from East Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, the Middle East and North Africa. He writes a weekly column devoted to the larger themes and intellectual concepts behind international news, and has won the National Newspaper Award on five occasions. The author lives in Toronto, ON.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01MT2LHIR
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf Canada (September 19, 2017)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 19, 2017
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3423 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 247 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 53 ratings

About the author

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Doug Saunders

Doug Saunders

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Doug Saunders is a Canadian-British author and journalist. He is the author of the book Arrival City (2011) and the London-based European bureau chief for The Globe and Mail. He writes a weekly column devoted to the larger themes and intellectual concepts behind international news, and has won the National Newspaper Award, Canada's counterpart to the Pulitzer Prize, on four occasions.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
53 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Jason Galbraith
5.0 out of 5 stars Better Than The Book It Inspired
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2021
Verified Purchase
I read "Maximum Canada" because I had first read (and reviewed here) "One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger," which called for a truly radical effort to boost the population of the United States. Among the proposals in that book was that the US shoot for a total fertility rate of 2.3 per woman, exceeding that of India (which the author, Matthew Yglesias, is afraid will emerge as a major competitor of the United States). You don't have to do anything nearly so radical to get to 100 million Canadians by 2100. In fact, author Doug Saunders admits in chapter 8 that if current trends continue until 2100 (itself an unlikely proposition) Canada's population will be just shy of 90 million (making it finally more populous than California). Saunders wants minimal juicing, not a radical transformation as Yglesias proposed in his book.

The best chapter in the book, and the one skeptics should read first, is chapter 7, "The Case Against 100 Million." This is the author's admission that laissez-faire capitalism, although not indulged to the same extent as in the US, threatens Canadian quality of life and is making life more difficult for today's immigrants to Canada than it was for immigrants of previous generations. Saunders is particularly concerned that immigrants with professional qualifications should WORK as professionals upon arriving in Canada. Otherwise the living standards of semi-skilled workers will enter the same death spiral that the US' very different immigration policies have produced.

The first time I contemplated immigrating to Canada was during the 2004 election. I have friends there to whom I am sending this book in the mail and it is not out of the question that I could still move there and help them with their lives' work, building a sustainable eco-village in rural Nova Scotia. They probably won't like the book because it argues that Canada's future is urban. To each his own. Five stars.
2 people found this helpful
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Andrew Sullivan
5.0 out of 5 stars Canada needs more people
Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2017
Verified Purchase
This reads like most of Saunders's work: it's clear and lucid. I may be biased, however, because I have felt for a long time that Canada's population is far too low. Nevertheless, Saunders makes a strong argument about why Canada needs to increase its population for many different reasons: economics, social support, tax policy, and even environmental views get covered. The book also makes an effort to tackle the reasons why Canada might be better off with its small population, and finds those wanting. I suspect immigration opponents will not find that part of the book too convincing, but I thought it was fair and complete.

A particular strength of the book is the way it outlines the history of constrained thinking in Canada, and the way that has hampered our potential for success. The tough question we'll have to face is whether we can recover from that history fast enough to succeed.
7 people found this helpful
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P. R. Trust
5.0 out of 5 stars Useful convincing sensible
Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2018
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Doug Saunders history of Canada,s almost stagnant population growth elucidates Canada’s slow growth and clarifies so much that didn’t make sense as I lived it in my 7 decades..

His arguments for increased immigration are so reassuring. He xplains why only a slight increase in immigration will solidify Canada’ s problems already evident today : aging workforce, over dependence on “the elephant to the south”, climate change and so many more. Even if you don,t have time for the history parts 1, 11, or111 , reading the last part is hugely informative and comforting.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Ted K
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely worth reading, drives the ideologues mad
Reviewed in Canada on October 2, 2023
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A well written, researched and argued book on a topic near to public policy. Apparently it`s also triggering for reactionaries and people who want to go back to the way it never was. The book provides some great context to how immigration is pretty much an unalloyed positive for the country as a whole. The challenge will be building our cities and suburbs to work better than they do presently - more like the Netherlands and less like the US basically.

I am amused by all that Russian and Chinese (and I guess now Indian) right wing botniks on here, trying to get Canadians to hate one another and fight over immigration.
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Greg
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading
Reviewed in Canada on October 13, 2017
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My experience of visiting all provinces and the Yukon for business and pleasure leads me strongly endorse that Canada would be better off with larger population.
The author suggests that such a population should be concentrated in large metropolitan areas, but I believe almost every community in Canada could benefit from larger populations.

The author’s slightly flippant review of Canada’s history was refreshing. In the book he suggests that Canada may well triple in population over the next 70 years, as it has in the last 70. However he suggests that the country should comprehensively plan for such an increase . I agree with this hope, but Canada’s history suggest that politicians will never stick to plan for more than a decade, so I guess we will have to accept a more willy nilly approach.

The book is worth reading for its insights.
10 people found this helpful
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Big T
4.0 out of 5 stars Good analysis and background
Reviewed in Canada on May 24, 2018
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Good analysis and background. Easy read for the general public but I found it informative with an economics and political background. He definitely makes the case why we need more people and why we presently don't have enough. Leaves the reader without a definite number which is fine as it is a moving target.but provides a way consider what the ideal number should be.
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Willhslade
5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of little things that make you think
Reviewed in Canada on November 5, 2021
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Really good, especially in the second half when his prescription of population increase and density together makes a powerful argument. Really wish we had the data he uses as it seems like for a long time people immigrating to and emigrating from Canada were balanced.
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Douglas McKercher
5.0 out of 5 stars How Canada's Immigration Policy Will Affect YOUR Future--and Your Family's
Reviewed in Canada on April 7, 2018
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This is a well documented but easy to read book on the importance of immigration to Canada's economic and social future. You should read it before stepping into the debate on Canada's immigration and economic development policies--because your government probably already has.

Doug Saunders is also the author of "Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World" and "The Myth of the Muslim Tide: Do Immigrants Threaten the West?". Both of these books on immigration trends and policies are good reads on a normally eye-glazing subject, even if you don't care now about who's going to be looking after you in your old age.
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