There's a Globe and Mail editor (I can't remember which one yet) who thinks Canada should deliberately aim for a population of around 200 million. All it would take is tripling our current input of immigrants from 200K a year to 600K a year, and, he says (and I haven't checked themath), by 2050 we'll be a major player. We'll never "catch up" to the US because our country simply consists of, well, let's not call it inhospital land, let's just say it's more expensive to inhabit certain areas (look at Ketchikan, for instance; while it looks like a very idyllic spot, there's the added expense involved just to leave town. In the diamond mines in the NT and the drilling rigs of the Beaufort Sea, life is very comfortable for the workers, but eggs cost $3.00 a dozen (US$2.00), and every TV requires a local satellite dish (which, I guess, isn't all that expensive anymore), and you have to build houses on stilts lest the warmth from the house melt the permafrost underneath and your house gradually disappears. But I could see how major centres such as Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary/Edmonton could (and probably will) get much larger than they already are. Vancouver's almost reached its limits imposed by geography: the border on the south (when you from White Rock to Bellingham it's like leaving the city for a small town); the city is expanding slowly up the Fraser Valley, displacing fruit orchards, and there are hundreds of First Nations claims to deal with.
ObLDS: for a while, Sister Sparrow (can't remember her first name), was a chief of one of the Vancouver tribes, and was fairly prominent locally. She's active LDS. Mark Gregson wrote: > > > in such a meagerly populated nation as yours? They might even outnumber > > you! > > Is Canada a small country population-wise? > > I get bored and annoyed hearing about how "small" our population is. Let's get the >facts straight. > > Populations of Some Countries (in millions) > ============================= > 1.) China 1300 > 2.) India 1000 > 3.) United States 285 > (yes, that's right, the US has the world's third largest population. That puts a >lot of things into perspective for me.) > 4.) Indonesia 231 > 5.) Brazil 176 > 6.) Pakistan 147 > 7.) Russia 145 > 8.) Bangladesh 133 > 9.) Nigeria 130 > 10.) Japan 127 > > So where is Canada in the great heap of nations? There are 235 countries, more or >less - it gets tricky in some cases. > Yeah -- is Liechtenstein really a country? We consider it to be one, but it probably has less autonomy than, say, the Basque Region of Spain, or Quebec, or Texas....[Liechtensteiners use SFr and depend upon the Swiss Post for their mail. The Swiss control the border from Austria into Liechtenstein, it's not Liechtensteinian border officers. I don't think Liechtenstein even has a customs and immigration department. > > 35.) Canada 31 > > That puts Canada in the top 15% of all countries in the world by population. So >Canada is not a small country by population; it is only small compared to the US who >just happens to be its nearest neighbour. > > (Have a look at this interesting graph of country by population size: >http://www.geohive.com/global/gen_popsize.php ) > > Canada does have one of the lowest population densities in the world (about 224th) >at 3.36 people per square km. Compare that with Bangladesh at 949 (12th) or the US >at 29.77 (172nd). > > Oh, and as an interesting side note, proven oil reserves have increased over the >past decade. In other words, the world continues to use oil at a phenomenal rate (75 >million barrels per day = about 28 billion barrels per year) and yet the amount left >over continues to _increase_ (from 1 trillion to 1.05 trillion in about ten years). >At this rate, we will never run out of oil but will rather have more and more all the >time. A barrel is equal to 159 litres (42 gallons). And the proven reserves do not >even include the Alberta Oil Sands which have more oil than the rest of the world put >together, one quarter of which is believed to be economically and technically >retrievable. > "Proven oil reserves," as Mark knows, is a very precise term that does not include certain types of reserves. Our premier, affectionately known as Emir Ralph from the blue-eyed sheikdom of Oilberta, is fond of pointing out that in actual fact we have more oil reserves than all of Saudi Arabia, and at present prices it's very cost-effective to produce oil from the tar sands, and in fact, tar sands and "heavy oil" deposits currently account for almost half of Alberta's crude oil exports. We also export very large amounts of natural gas, to places from Chicago to San Francisco. > > (BTW, Gary, I'm laughing with your jokes here, so this wasn't an angry outburst >against this statement of yours. I just found it an opportune moment to go off on a >tangent.) > Another mathematical poke in the ribs, eh? Well, don't you know that's a sin? Of course, now you've got me doing it, so it's a cosin[e]. And if we exaggerate it, I guess we're performing hyperbolic functions (Help! get me out of this x^2 + y^2 = a!! Math puns are the negative root of all imaginary evil....) > > ========= Mark Gregson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ========= > -- Marc A. Schindler Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada -- Gateway to the Boreal Parkland “Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on” – Winston Churchill Note: This communication represents the informal personal views of the author solely; its contents do not necessarily reflect those of the author’s employer, nor those of any organization with which the author may be associated. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ==^^=============================================================== This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP9AU.bWix1n.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^^===============================================================
