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Canada Census 2011 Graphic: Where do the oldest and youngest Canadians live?
The 2011 Census showed Canada as a country rapidly greying. However, the nation’s aging population is not spread evenly. The National Post‘s graphics department takes a look at the demographics of the country highlighting the areas that are the oldest and youngest.
Canada goes grey: Boomers’ new strain on pensions, health care
Canada is slowly but surely becoming a nation of older people. The demographic trends were confirmed Tuesday, as Statistics Canada released the latest batch of data from its 2011 census. Back in 1971, eight per cent of us were 65 and older.
Last year, as the first wave of baby boomers reached the milestone, the proportion was 14.8 per cent. That’s nearly 5 million seniors (4,945,060, to be exact) out of 33.5 million Canadians.
There were 5,825 Canadians who have reached their 100th birthday — centenarians — and the number is projected to steadily rise to a whopping 78,300 in the next 50 years.
All the while — and here’s a surprise — there’s a mini-baby boom happening in this country. The population of children aged four and under increased 11 per cent between 2006 and 2011 — the highest growth rate for this age group since the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Census Canada 2011 infographic: How the new population stats break down by province and city
There are now 33.5 million people living in Canada, and our population is growing faster than that of any other G8 nation; results of the 2011 census released on Wednesday show. Click through the tabs to see figures for the population overall and breakdowns for the provinces, territories and urban centres.
Graphic: Putting seven billion into perspective
With the population reportedly crossing the seven-billion mark recently, the National Post’s Richard Johnson takes a look at some of the challenges posed by the planet’s ballooning population.
Gary Clement’s week in review for Oct. 23 to 29, 2011
Before last week is too far gone…
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Is the world’s seven billionth baby a blessing or a curse?
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Photos of the day A view of the city skyline from the Shanghai Financial Center building, October 25, 2011. The world’s population will reach seven billion on October 31, 2011, according to projections by the United Nations. (Carlos Barria / Reuters)
Earth at seven billion
In an era of high anxiety, few issues rattled people in the 1960s and 1970s more than the Earth’s seemingly runaway population growth. The sense of imminent overcrowding doom was chillingly articulated by Paul Ehrlich, the Stanford University biologist whose 1968 book, The Population Bomb, became an unlikely bestseller, propelled in part by the academic’s numerous appearances on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. The swelling ranks of humankind would lead to “hundreds of millions” dying of starvation by the 1970s, a substantial increase in the global death rate and assorted ecological disasters, he predicted. Involuntary sterilization might be needed to lessen the coming cataclysm.
“We can no longer afford merely to treat the symptoms of the cancer of population growth; the cancer itself must be cut out,” he wrote. Four decades later, the Earth’s population has doubled and the United Nations predicts a newborn’s arrival some time this fall will push the total to seven billion souls.
By 2050, another two billion humans are likely to be jostling for elbow room. Yet the doomsaying predictions of Prof. Ehrlich and others have in most cases failed to materialize. The world still has more than its share of misery: Almost one billion people go hungry every day and 1.4 billion live in extreme poverty. But as the population expanded at a pace never seen before, the overall death rate dropped rapidly, life expectancy climbed and the number in poverty — though still huge — shrank.
