Abstract
This volume, edited by Barry Edmonston and Eric Fong, provides a broad overview of Canadian society and the trends affecting it. It is divided thematically, beginning with a section on basic population characteristics and followed by ones on social stratification; migration, both international and internal; household composition; and race, ethnicity, religion, and language. The 2001 Canadian census is the basis for describing changes, with fourteen of the eighteen chapters also providing historical data from earlier censuses. In addition, two chapters, one by Zheng Wu and Christoph Schimmele on families and the other by Frank Trovato on age and sex composition, draw on data as recent as the 2006 census. Data are presented straightforwardly and analysts will find them easy to update once the 2011 census becomes available.
After Canada was united under British rule, demography would define the character of Canadian society in ways that continue to the present. Although the contours have changed over time, the basic divisions between French and English and between immigrant settlers and indigenous peoples remain.
The French/ English divide was initially the result of national origin that later evolved into a more purely linguistic distinction. Francophones were concentrated in Quebec, with sizable portions in other parts of the country. Without the possibility of reinforcement from France, the French Canadian community relied on the “revenge of the cradle” to sustain itself as a proportion of the total population. But a number of factors, both internal and external to French Canada, have contributed to change. One is its declining birth rate, paralleled among all native-born Canadians. Although Kalbach shows that 85 percent of the Quebec population report themselves as Roman Catholic, the majority of whom are Francophone, the pro-natalist position of the Church has not deflected Francophone decline. This is in contrast to immigrant Catholics, who, like other recent immigrants, retain their high fertility. Réjean Lachapelle and Gustave Goldmann’s analysis confirms how Francophones have declined in the face of large-scale immigration to Canada, with most immigrants adopting English as their working language. Quebec itself has declined in relation to its share of the Canadian population as the western provinces attract more internal migration. Moreover, despite efforts to make Canada a more functionally bilingual society, Francophones are increasingly concentrated in Quebec. One can only speculate on what the cumulative effects of these changes may be for the cultural and political life of the country if these trends persist.
Although Canada has always been a country of immigrants, Monica Boyd’s chapter points out the many ways that recent immigration differs from previous trends. One is by the sheer volume of newcomers to Canada. Newer immigrants tend to be better educated than those who came in earlier periods but they do less well economically. Boyd raises the possibility that this may be tied to discriminatory practices, given changes in the racial and ethnic character of many new immigrants. Up until the 1960s, entry to Canada was restricted to those of British or European origins. Since then, family reunification, humanitarian concerns, and economic benefits brought by migrants have provided criteria for admission. Seventy-four percent of all immigrants arriving between 1991 and 2010 fall into the category of “visible minority”—a classification adopted by the Canadian government in the 1980s to distinguish primarily Blacks and Asians. But if the status of visible minority is tied to poorer economic performance initially, Boyd sees signs of those disadvantages fading for the second generation. Although the expansion of the population contributed by immigrants has helped increase Canada’s prosperity, Alan Simmons projects a less rosy future, where the declining fertility of migrants will match that of the native born and an aging population will contribute to an eventual labor shortage and an overburdened welfare system.
The indigenous population encountered by the first explorers and settlers quickly declined through sickness and warfare. It was predominately isolated, whether in reservations or in specific regions of the country. One major change has been the acknowledgement of past abuses through measures such as granting limited self-government to three new territorial governments in the North, their representation in the federal government, and procedures for recognizing land claims. But even if 85 percent of the population of Nunavit is Inuit and just over half of the reconstituted Northwest Territories claim Aboriginal status (Yukon, the third territory is about 20 percent Aboriginal), this still leaves the vast majority living outside these territories. About half, in fact, live in provincial cities. Wilkes demonstrates how there remains a sizable gap in socio-economic status between native peoples and the remainder of the population. The picture is not entirely negative, however, and Wilkes, who notes gains in narrowing this gap, suggests a number of policies that could help.
There is much more to be learned from this volume, a testament to the quality and richness of the Canadian census. At the same time, the authors remind us of the difficulties in placing people into categories. Rima Wilkes, for example, documents how even the census uses different ways of asking about Aboriginal origins (pp. 314, 327) and Sharon Lee presents the overlapping ways in which ethnic origins may be selected (pp. 294-6). As we evaluate the construction and meaning of these demographic categories, we are led to discover even more about the values and tensions present in Canadian society.