bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1992) — Summer 1992 // Été 1992, pp. 9–10
Major decisions are facing Canada’s policymakers on the two great “people” phenomena of our time: rapid world population growth and mass movements of population. A huge UN Conference on Population and Development, almost on the scale of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), is barely two years away, and because population issues are controversial as well as important, its preparation will require prolonged high-level attention. Migration issues have recently become a matter of widespread public concern in Canada, and are now high on the foreign policy agenda of many countries; they will also figure in the Conference. We urgently need a better understanding of these fundamental but complex problems, their links with other UN issues, their impact on Canada, and what we can and should do about them.
The statistics are frightening. World population has reached 5.4 billion and is increasing at 1.7 per cent per year; it will reach 8.5 billion by 2025, and probably at least double by the end of the century. 95 per cent of population growth is in developing countries, with the highest rates in Africa; in contrast all industrialized countries are now growing slowly if at all. Eventually world population will stabilize, but the experts cannot answer the key question on which so much depends: how soon, and at what level?
Rapid population growth combined with poverty cripples economic development; environmental sustainability is menaced; political and social structures are corroded, and authoritarian reaction against feared unrest blocks progress in human rights. In turn, migration pressures are fuelled, and world economic imbalances and Third World indebtedness are increased. Internationally, coming shifts in world population ratios will menace the global system. How will the present three economic colossi, with their eventually declining populations, cope with the demographic colossi of tomorrow?
Economic progress and family planning complement each other in contributing to fertility decline, even though the process is gradual and uneven. Important factors include broader access to education, and particularly advancement of the status of women. Contraceptive use must increase rapidly if population is not to grow even faster than predicted; there is already much unmet demand. Surprisingly, neither AIDS, malnutrition or religious factors will have decisive statistical effects. Most developing countries now have population policies, but in many the essential political will is still lacking.
Developed countries now recognize the link between population growth and development, but do not stress it; the link with the environment is more tentatively acknowledged; the link with migratory movements is only beginning to be seriously discussed Population issues have not been taken up in summit gatherings. However there are extensive UN and IBRD programs, and large goal-setting UN Conferences in 1974 and 1984, to which the 1994 UN Conference on Population and Development mentioned above will be the successor. About 1.3 per cent of world ODA goes to population; the USA leads the field, but does not give to the UN. We are near the mean.
Migration flows have become a major world concern; they include 17 million refugees, perhaps 20 million internally displaced, and millions more seeking to find a better life. Specific flows are idiosyncratic; migrants go where co-nationals happen to have established a beach-head, and where the easiest entry and best benefits are. But it is only a question of time before most of the developing world becomes a source of migration pressure on the countries of the North. Among the latter, the distinction is breaking down between traditional countries of immigration, and others. Much migration is now irregular; stay rates of those rejected are high everywhere, and costs of maintenance and control are enormous. Racist reactions in Europe are increasing. Meetings on migration and refugees have mushroomed, so far with little result. Governments are beginning to recognize that control measures alone will not suffice, and that a broader approach is needed, but agreement is still lacking on its nature.
Population and migration trends gravely handicap many specific Canadian objectives, in the fields of international development, human rights, the environment, trade, and the UN. Some of our foreign policy emphases will have to change. Still more people will be pressing to come to Canada, using our refugee claim route if they can. The proportion of non-European applicants will rise, perpetuated by the extended family system. It tensions in our cities increase, and if much stronger control becomes necessary, our liberal self-image, itself a unifying factor, may be damaged.
One of the five priority objectives of Canadian policy, as stated late last year by the Government, is to encourage greater international involvement and cooperation on population growth and mass migration issues. A large number of specific recommendations made to this end include, in outline, that on the Canadian scene we should:
• do more to highlight the importance of these issues, for example through official statements dealing with global issues, clearer focus and improved liaison interdepartmentally and with posts, and closer NGO contacts;
• strengthen Canada’s population assistance, through clarifying its priority and raising its proportion within our ODA, increasing Africa’s share from the present 11.4 per cent, adding population experts, restoring funding to WHO’s reproductive health research, adjusting Canadian NGO funding, and preserving IRDC’s modest population research;
• maintain our immigration policy’s nondiscriminatory and humanitarian aspects; but with the aim of being taken more seriously multilaterally, as well as of maintaining immigration’s public credibility and keeping ample room for selection of independents, try to narrow the gap between our and others’ refugee claim acceptance rates, reduce our attractiveness to irregulars, and make sponsorship of relatives somewhat less generous. On the international scene, it is suggested, among other things, that we should:
• generally, work to increase awareness of the issues and their links with other world problems, e.g. by encouraging suitable discussion at major UN fora, G-7, Commonwealth and Francophone summits, NATO, OAS, Davos, interparliamentary meetings, etc.;
• on population, put a strong effort into the 1994 Conference, rejoin the UN Population Commission, push for better UN coordination, urge the USA to restore UN funding, stress the issue more at UNCED, raise population’s priority at the DAC, IBRD, and IMF and with laggard G-7 and other donors, underline its importance with aid partners as an important indicator of their seriousness in development, and support the recently proposed Bruntland-type “Independent Commission on Population” designed to support the international population effort.
• on migration, strengthen resources for our international strategy, appoint a special representative to manage it, make more use of political-level contacts and our bilateral network, develop a considered Canadian view on the complex question of short- and long-term effects of development on migration, support an OECD study and early high-level DAC discussion, intensify efforts to secure agreements with the USA and Europe on refugee claims while recognizing that early success may elude us, encourage trilateral talks including Mexico with an eye on possible future flows, be cautious about a larger UNHCR role, make vigorous use of the “Informal Consultations” for policy coordination even if Eurocentric trends make its future uncertain, stimulate joint action on root causes of migration through the “country assessment process” in the Consultations while avoiding exaggerated expectations, and in dialogue with source countries, counter the impression that Canada and other developed countries are retiring behind a fortress wall, oblivious to Third World problems. We must establish that migration needs to be tackled jointly in coming decades together with other great world issues such as development, environment and population. The twin problems of rapid population growth and mass migration threaten the world’s environment, economic future, and political stability. It is clearer what should be done about the first than the second, but resources are a key issue in both. While there are things we should do to put our own house in order, we are well placed to play an important role in a number of specific ways to promote common action by the world community. But solutions can only be long-term, needing much patience and consistent effort. Are we and others up to the challenge?
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1992) — Summer 1992 // Été 1992, pp. 9–10. Read the rest of this issue →
