Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

We talk about the tourist industry. We talk about what else we can bring. There was the old system of an investment program, whereby people could come and invest in the east coast and Atlantic provinces. What do you think? What are your thoughts about bringing people in to invest in the Atlantic provinces? Could that help?

[Laurent Martel]

I wouldn't be able to comment on the tourism industry. I know very—

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

It could be any industry.

[Laurent Martel]

Again, I wouldn't be able to comment on a specific industry in the Atlantic provinces at this point.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Rivera, do you want to add something?

[Jose Rivera]

Business is about location, location, location. For retention, it's about information, information, information. That is key for us to be able to stay.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Chair, Nick wants to ask a question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Oh, how generous.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Saroya.

Mr. Martel, Newfoundland and Labrador are experiencing a massive immigration problem that started in 1992 with the cod moratorium. The population dropped from 580,000 in 1992 to about 509,000 in 2007, when it started to rise again, but now it's falling again.

Is this an eco-crash? If you net out the effect of the population collapse as a result of the cod moratorium, you might find that the Atlantic region's situation is not as dire as we might think and that there is some hope for birth and death rates. It's this multi-generational issue of young people, age 20 to 40, who left the province for work, me included, and not many of us are able to return home. This is going to be seen for about another 30 years, and then we're going to be in a new demographic regime.

Can you comment on that as a demographic expert?

[Laurent Martel]

We project the population at the provincial level for the next 25 years. That's what Statistics Canada has done and is doing on a regular basis. The concern—and I'm coming back to more deaths than births—is about natural increase. Natural increase, according to all scenarios done in our projection, are showing that this should be getting worse in the coming years. The deficit of births to deaths should increase. That's regardless of how many immigrants there are in the Atlantic region and regardless of internal migration patterns. It's all going down. That's something you need to consider in this committee. This is a strong trend.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Martel, you're saying that the number of births per eligible child-bearing female is low and that we've reached a critical point regardless of any other demographic factor.

[Laurent Martel]

I'm more concerned about the fact that it's the number of deaths that is going up in the Atlantic region. It will go up as well in other regions of Canada, but fertility levels are sufficient in some other places to maintain this natural increase at a positive rate. In the Atlantic, the number of deaths is going up.

The baby boom was strong in the 1950s and 1960s there, and these people are moving into the older ages where the mortality rate is higher. The factor that drives the natural increase down is the increase in the number of deaths. That's something that should continue. It's fairly predictable over the next few years as well, so there's not a lot of uncertainty related to this trend at this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much for that.

We're now over time. I will give a reminder that we are meeting again tonight.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.