MISCELLANEOUS:
Population Growth

Population is a key element in calculating overall human impact on the environment. As other parts of this report indicate, Canadians consume a disproportionately high amount of resources and produce a disproportionately high amount of waste. Because Canadians have such a large environmental impact on a per person basis, each additional Canadian places significant incremental stress on the environment.

Scientists have calculated that if everyone on earth consumed as much as the average Canadian, we would need three additional planets to produce the resources and absorb the pollution.39

Canada’s OECD Ranking
Surprisingly, Canada has one of the fastest growing populations in the OECD, up 24.4% between 1980 and 1998. As a result, Canada places 26th out of 29 OECD nations in population growth. Only Turkey, Mexico and Australia are experiencing faster population growth than Canada. Canada’s rate of population growth is 37.7% above the OECD average.

In terms of total population, Canada finishes 18th out of 29 OECD nations, meaning that 17 OECD countries have smaller populations. Canada has approximately 30.6 million people.

Trend
As noted above, Canada’s population grew much faster (24.4% between 1980 and 1998) than the OECD average and faster than any OECD countries except Turkey (45.8%), Mexico (43.6%) and Australia (27.3%). Canada’s population continues to grow by around 1% per year. At this current rate of growth, Canada’s population would double, to over 60 million people, in seventy years.

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