The ‘baby bonus’ doesn’t work anymore

The only way to keep the population stable—or even growing—in a developed country is mass immigration, which means you have to be attractive and welcoming to potential immigrants.

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser has committed to increasing Canada's immigration numbers as a way to boost the economy as the birth rate slows. The great benefit of this is to keep the ratio of younger people in the workforce to dependent older people high enough to afford a state that takes care of all its people, writes Gwynne Dyer. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

May 18, 2023

LONDON, U.K.— I was one of five children—not seen as a particularly big family in Newfoundland at the time—and there was one year when we allegedly beat Guatemala to have the highest birth rate in the world. (That’s probably not true, but people were proud of it, any...

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