Running Out of People

Gently, indirectly and without any panic even liberal news media are beginning to pick up on the "one little problem" (as Columbo might say) with the modern world, namely, that we are running out of people. In two recent columns, Carol Goar, Toronto Star columnist has had the temerity to mention that the birth rate in Canada is way below replacement level. Here she wonders why Canada is one of the few countries that hasn't bottomed out yet on the birth rate. And here she includes the low fertility rate as one of four challenges we need to think about. She points out that in two years the growth of our labour force will be entirely dependent on immigrants and that in six years seniors will outnumber children.

Now, it is true that her first instinct is to use the low birth rate as a chance to expand government hegemony over our lives by calling for the creation of a free public day care system for all. And it is annoying that she presumes to label that a "family-friendly" policy - as if the government raising children was her idea of enhancing the family. And as if people will be encouraged to have more children by the thought that they can turn them over to Leviathan to raise.

But to look on the bright side, even to have a liberal slanted paper like the Star so much as admit that the population "explosion" is not our biggest problem any more is progress. At least, when the facts are admitted, a discussion can at least begin about the solution.