14 June 2010

Canada needs a population of 100 million people - then we will be respected

Global Brief (um, who? *) says that as a middle-weight country, Canada does not get the respect that it deserves. It’s got the money, it’s got the know-how, it got three-Ocean access (sucks, don’t it, Austria) but with 30 million population, nobody is going to care.

That’s why tripling the population to 100 million or more will make it a player of consequence in international affairs.

The Canada of 100 million has a far larger national market and the attendant economies of scale and scope – for ideas, for debate, for books, for newspapers, for magazines (print and online), for all species of goods and services. It poses a far more impressive cultural counterweight to the US – now only three or four times larger, instead of ten or eleven times. It has many large, dynamic, global cities – more than just Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, or perhaps even Calgary – that, superior division of labour oblige, serve as incubators and competitive arenas for innovation, productivity and creative ambition – all derivatives, as it were, of humans rubbing up against humans.

And it goes on like that for awhile. Sure, fine. Let’s do it.

* According to themselves, Global Brief is Canada’s confident, 21st century answer to The Economist, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Le Monde Diplomatique and a host of other world-class international affairs media platforms. Also, they are ‘top-tier.’