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Issues
Newsletter No.63, September 2025
Population Institute Canada is the voice of Canadians concerned with population matters in Canada and around the world. We report on the negative human and environmental consequences of population growth, whether it occurs by natural increase or through immigration. Our mailings provide updates on our activities and timely reporting and analysis of issues pertaining to population.
If you agree that the only sustainable future is one with a smaller human footprint, please share it with friends and follow us on social media.
Working together, we'll make a difference!
Madeline Weld, Ph.D.
President, Population Institute Canada
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Glyphosate spraying stirs up controversy
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Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum herbicide, best known commercially as Roundup, used by forestry companies to kill young deciduous trees in order to promote the growth of the less sensitive conifers that they harvest, such as white and red pine, white spruce and jack pine. The Nova Scotia government recently approved the spraying of thousands of acres of public forest despite having closed its forests for recreational use, claiming they were tinder dry. Spraying is also occurring in Ontario’s Renfrew County and elsewhere. There have long been concerns about the safety of glyphosate. It is banned in Quebec, while New Brunswick has for decades been spraying more than any other province. New Brunswick is also the centre of an unexplained cluster of neurological diseases currently affecting 500 people, about one-quarter under age 45. The New Brunswick government says it has found no connection with glyphosate spraying, but some argue it is trying hard not to.
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The average Canadian family spends 42.3% of its income on taxes
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Taxes have grown more rapidly than any other single expenditure for the average Canadian family, according to a July report by the Fraser Institute. The Canadian Consumer Tax Index tracks the total tax bill of the average Canadian family from 1961 to 2024. Including all types of taxes, that bill has increased by 2,784% since 1961. During the same period, expenditures on shelter, food, and clothing increased by 2,129%, 927%, and 460%, respectively. Despite paying all these taxes, Canadians have not been getting any happier. All these taxes are helping to fuel Canada’s massive growth of recent decades – growth that Canadians never asked for but bring a host of concomitant problems. Canadians should be asking themselves whether they are getting their money’s worth.
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Canadians are fed up with mass immigration
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Canadians do an about-face on immigration as the negative consequences on mass immigration become evident.
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For decades Canadians meekly accepted the policy of mass immigration initiated by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, implemented by every government since then, and further ramped up by Justin Trudeau. But that support has been falling in recent years, and a recent Nanos survey shows that 71.4% of Canadians want to slash immigration. “The about-face is stunning,” says Abascus pollster David Coletto. And this seems to have led to a change of heart by Prime Minister Mark Carney. Last year, he spoke at a webinar called “Building for Growth” presented by the Century Initiative, which wants a population of 100 million by 2100. Now he’s calling the immigration system unsustainable. And the Conservatives want to completely scrap the temporary worker program. That’s great news, but one has to ask why it took them so long to see that we are creating an “indentured underclass.”
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Tommy Robinson rally in London draws hundreds of thousands
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Unite the Kingdom rally in London. Picture from Urban Scoop
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A massive “Unite the Kingdom” rally led by Tommy Robinson to protest mass immigration and censorship attracted possibly as many as one million people. Robinson’s supporters say the 100,000 to 150,000 estimates of the mainstream media are far too low. The long-planned rally included speeches as well as a tribute to the recently assassinated Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA. The vast majority of the demonstrators were peaceful but there were some clashes between protesters and police. The rally was addressed via video link by Elon Musk, who said that Britain was being eroded with mass immigration and that the British public were “scared to exercise their free speech.” Musk also mentioned the murder of Charlie Kirk and condemned those on the Left for celebrating it openly. Whatever one may think of Tommy Robinson, he is clearly articulating the frustrations of many ordinary Britons who feel that their government is neither on their side nor listening to them.
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By the Numbers
- The world's population is growing at a rate of around 0.85% per year in 2025 (down from 0.97% in 2020, and 1.25% in 2015).
- The current population increase is estimated at around 70 million people per year.
- The latest world population projections indicate that we will reach 10 billion people in the year 2060 and 10.2 billion in 2100.
Source:Worldometers
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In case you missed it
In PIC’s August mailing, Madeline laments how her municipal City of Ottawa taxes keep rising, but the quality of city life isn’t getting better. Developers’ fees don’t cover the infrastructure costs of Ottawa’s rampant growth and taxpayers foot much of the bill. Growth has also brought more crime and more visible poverty, while residents are subject to more restrictions. The federal government has also imposed a vacant unit tax (VUT) of 1% of the assessed value on residential properties that had remained vacant for 184 days or more of the previous calendar year.
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Canada’s employment numbers remain grim, especially for the young
Over the last 12 months, Canada’s population increased by 715,000 but only 307,500 jobs were added. In July, the number of full-time positions fell by 51,000, while part-time employment saw only a modest increase. Things were the worst for young Canadians (15-24), whose employment rate in July was only 53.6%, the lowest since November 1998 (excluding the pandemic years 2020-21).
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Federal government spent $2.6 billion on asylum seekers since 2017
The federal government has spent $1.1 billion to house asylum seekers in hotels across Canada since 2017, in addition to $1.5 billion in transfers to provinces and municipalities to help manage the influx. Asylum claims increased from some 47,000 in 2017 to over 190,000 in 2024. The acceptance rate for asylum seekers also rose from 64% in 2018 to 82% in 2024. In January of this year, 60% of the people in Ottawa’s homeless shelters were newcomers. We have previously argued that the federal government has been less than vigilant in vetting asylum seekers.
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Australia floats idea of taxing empty bedrooms
Australia is considering taxing people if they have extra bedrooms in their homes. A large proportion of such people are empty-nesters who didn’t downsize when the kids left. In other words, homeowners would be forced to pay for the consequences of the government’s foolishness. Like Canada, Australia has pursued a policy of mass immigration to such an extent that it’s created a housing crisis. Watch out Canadians – the idea has been informally floated here as well. As of 2022, Canadians who own a permanent dwelling that is “underused” must pay a federal “ underused housing tax” of 1% of the assessed value of the dwelling. |
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Japan marks 16th consecutive year of population decline
Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba calls it a “quiet emergency,” but to us it seems like a demonstration that the period of an aging population through which each country will inevitably go as family size shrinks can happen relatively painlessly. There were almost a million more deaths than births in Japan last year, yet there seems to be a lot less suffering in Japan than in countries where births far exceed deaths. |
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Gen Z is unhappy
While earlier surveys generally showed the young and the old to be happier than the middle-aged, a recent study reported on by Newsweek found that Gen Z (born 1997-2012) is unhappier than both the middle-aged and the old. The study authors mention social media, Covid, and personal debt as issues, but put the primary blame on the smart phone. Perhaps the young are also demoralized by the bleak economic prospects many of them face, along with environmental deterioration and possibly a sense of rootlessness. |
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About Population Institute Canada:
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PIC is the voice of Canadians concerned with overpopulation and its negative human and environmental impact. Founded in 1992, it campaigns to increase support for reproductive health and education and for universal, voluntary access to family planning, which the UN notes, "...could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology available to the human race."
Fact: Continued global population growth, together with overconsumption, is incompatible with a healthy, sustainable future for humanity and our planet.
Patrons: Sir David Attenborough; Robert Bateman; Margaret Catley-Carlson; Drs. Paul & Anne Ehrlich; Robert Fowler; Dr. Jane Goodall; Leilani Munter; Dr. William Rees; Dr. David Suzuki; Ronald Wright. See patron bios.
Our mailing address is:
Population Institute Canada
PO Box 59045, Ottawa, Ontario K1G 5T7,
Canada
1-613-833-3668
www.populationinstitutecanada.ca
ma...@populationinstitutecanada.ca
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