Maximum Canada
by Doug Saunders
As previous readers of this Substack and followers of my Twitter feed will have deduced by now, I’m Canadian. Although I’ve lived in the United States for over a decade now, I grew up just across the border in Toronto, where I lived until my early-twenties. I am more than familiar with the obscene bigotries and racism of Americans towards Canadians, which includes mercilessly mocking the national anthem and considering everything that happens in Canada boring and irrelevant . As I’ve written before, many American stereotypes about Canada’s sterility are actually out of date. Rather than being an empty and homogenous expanse, the country’s population today is mostly urbanized around a few major cities and extremely ethnically diverse. That said, unfortunately, I have to say that it’s true that Canada remains a political and cultural backwater. Even having grown up in what is objectively a major city by global standards, I found that one cannot escape the very limited horizons and End of History-style crushing boredom that characterizes life there. People in the United States, even just across the border, simply have a different outlook on what is possible in the world. That attitude, for both better and worse, makes them more interesting people and has made their country a place widely associated with creativity. When Canadians want to make great art, like Frank Gehry, or orchestrate war crimes, like David Frum, they go where its possible: America
The major problem with Canada is that at 37 million people it is devastatingly underpopulated. There just isn’t enough population to sustain independent markets, publications, films, industries, or any of the other things that make a country special. This underpopulation is actually a legacy of British colonial rule, which deliberately made it politically impossible or economically unattractive to immigrate to Canada while the United States was reaping the benefits of tens of millions of immigrants flooding in from the Old World. British colonial authorities also consciously tried to prevent anyone who was too ambitious or interesting from settling in Canada for fear that they would wind up triggering a revolutionary uprising like the United States. This legacy of engineered intellectual sterility can still be seen today in the cringeworthy inferiority complex of Canada’s conservative elites, who dream of nothing more than having an American or British boot shoved in their mouth. Thanks to colonial restrictions, Canada’s population actually declined in the 19th century while an independent United States gained 40 million new citizens who went on to build the superpower that we see today.
Maximum Canada is a call to reverse the colonial wound of systemic underpopulation inflicted on Canada by bringing on board a total of 100 million Canadians by end of century. This sounds like a radical proposal but it would actually be achieved with only a slight increase in present immigration rates, which, in contrast with pre-independence, are now rather high. Canada is going to be a very different country in a few decades, and there is strong reason to believe it will be a more interesting and powerful one. A Maximum Canada will be more racially heterogenous than the United States, whose big immigration days came during the period when Europe still had millions of excess people it needed to offload, but will also comprise a high number of cognitive and educational elites since the Canadian immigration system tends to ruthlessly target the best of the best of other societies for citizenship. Global populations will have flatlined while Canada is still growing, allowing Canada to become something like a Germany endowed with massive natural resources, two coastlines, and a peaceful border with a global superpower. A successfully multicultural Canada with enough people to make a mark on the world, rather than simply limping by as a cultural and economic satellite of the United States, could become an important player in global affairs.
As someone who lives in America I’m aware that the idea of Canada being important in any sense will elicit jeers and laughter from the typical American crowd. Looking rationally at the numbers though, I think it’s actually going to happen this century. Canada is growing while much of the world is stagnating, thanks to successful immigration policies that will help it stave off the threat of demographic collapse while developing in ways that were not possible before. By the end of the century, 100 million Canadians, freshly armed with political and economic power, as well as, Inshallah, nuclear weapons, will be able to command the respect from their southern neighbors and the world that they have long deserved, as well as reparations for Britain for its past colonial crimes. Today Canada is weak, but tomorrow, when it has a big population, it will be strong. If you have made a living through mocking Canadians (admitted) backwardness and cultural vacuity, consider this a notice that the time to make amends is probably elapsing.
I've always been somewhat interested in Canada for its particular style of multiculturalism, but it's only in the last couple years that I've started to give any thought towards Canada's greater role in the world. Your Substack reviews have definitely encouraged me to think more about this subject. And I think you're definitely on to something: Canada may very well emerge as a greater global player in the coming decades.
I will say that Canada seems to enjoy a very positive reputation abroad, much more so than the US these days, at least in Germany. I'm fairly well connected to German media and culture, and Germans tend to have a very positive view of Canada. I think this stems from a generally positive predisposition towards the Anglo countries, but is further supported given Canada's largely steered clear of the foreign policy disasters and populist uprisings we've seen in the US and UK in the last 20 years. Germans have been even more interested in Canada lately as a possible supplier of natural resources, a much more reliable and humane (if distant) alternative to Russia. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we saw more partnership and engagement between the EU and Canada in the coming years.
To conclude, I'll just add that I think a "Maximum Canada" could also be a great thing for the United States. At a very general level, I think the US suffers from a lack of peer nations. We have close international partners, of course---mostly in Western Europe and East Asia---but those places are too far away, and Americans have too little vacation time, for most of us to ever build any sort of meaningful relationship with them. Obviously (and regrettably) there are many forces at play that prevent many US-Americans from taking Latin America as seriously as they should. This lack of substantive engagement with other countries is an issue, in my opinion, because it shrinks the collective US imagination of what's possible in terms of public policy, culture, etc. In other words, it breeds complacency. Some visible competition with Canada, even if only in terms of health, infrastructure, and immigration, could help dismantle that political and cultural cloud of ignorance that hangs over so much of the United States. Though, if I'm being honest, I could also imagine that US superiority complex / contempt for Canada, which you allude to, blocking or discrediting the sort of meaningful dialogue and engagement with Canada hat I'd like to see. Indeed, it seems that more or less accurately describes the current US-Canadian relationship, at least at a popular level.
Only one problem—few want to live where it’s that cold. I’m speaking from the personal experience of having lived in Toronto too.
My feeling is that if the US suddenly offered instant citizenship to all Canadians, soooo many would leave for sunnier skies. What percentage do you think would leave?