Canada is a low-fertility country whose fertility rates have steadily declined since 2008. Since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, the trend has intensified.
According to Statistics Canada, our country’s fertility rate decreased from 1.47 children per woman in 2019 to a record low of 1.40 children per woman in 2020. In 2020, Canada experienced the lowest number of births and greatest year-over-year decrease in births (-3.6%) since 2006.
Canada’s low fertility rate is used by government as justification for steadily increasing immigration levels. The logic employed is that the birth rate is not high enough to grow Canada’s population and labour force.
I can remember reading about this worldwide trend in the mid-90s; governments deliberately chose to not incentivise having larger families. It’s all intentional.
