Juno News - August 15, 2024


Are Canadians worried about collapsing birth rates？

Topics
declining birth rate concerns population issue declining birth rates
Mentioned
Harrison Fong
Could the US election be stolen？ Disgraceful Neglect： Trudeau government offering MAiD to veterans

Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

189.91

Word count

1,769

Sentence count

151

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

As Canada's fertility rate continues to decline year over year, the question of whether or not Canada should focus on having more children has become a growing concern. Is it a problem? Is it an issue that needs to be addressed? In this episode, we talk to locals in Toronto about the declining birth rate, and ask them what they think about it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 It probably has something to do with how expensive every f***ing thing is.
00:00:02.960 My stepfather, for instance, he had seven or eight brothers, sisters. I'm an only child.
00:00:07.520 They can't even afford a home now, and so then they delay having their children.
00:00:12.400 I feel like we already have enough people on the planet.
00:00:15.540 If something happens in terms of war, we find ourselves in very unstable times.
00:00:18.620 Who would choose to fight for Canada if they don't identify themselves as Canadian? 0.99
00:00:22.680 Canada's current birth rate is at historic lows, 1.33.
00:00:34.140 The year prior, it was at 1.43, and replacement level is 2.1.
00:00:39.600 So this is clearly a major issue in this country, but no one seems to be addressing it at a political level.
00:00:45.900 There are many reasons as to why Canadians are not having as many children anymore.
00:00:48.720 For one reason, housing is now so expensive that the dream of owning a home is out of reach for many young Canadians.
00:00:56.660 Not just housing, but general affordability. Everything is extremely expensive.
00:01:01.180 Canada's tax rates are also not conducive to raising families.
00:01:06.360 In order to solve Canada's demographic problem, the government has looked to mass immigration to turn this trend around.
00:01:12.460 Millions of people have entered Canada over the past few years,
00:01:15.600 and as Canada's fertility rate has reached record lows, Canada's growth rate, Canada's population, has reached record highs.
00:01:23.140 Is this the direction that we should be heading in as a country?
00:01:26.180 And what do Canadians actually think about this?
00:01:28.100 Is Canada's declining birth rate an issue to them?
00:01:31.360 Well, we're here in downtown Toronto to ask locals about this issue.
00:01:34.960 Is it an issue to them? Are they concerned about it? Why or why not?
00:01:38.640 Let's see what they have to say.
00:01:39.660 We're doing a video and asking Canadians if they're concerned about Canada's declining birth rates.
00:01:44.100 It's well below replacement level, and we're just wondering if it's ever an issue that's crossing anyone's mind.
00:01:47.760 I'm very concerned.
00:01:48.720 We need to have at least replacement level, or our country's going to suffer.
00:01:52.620 And what do you think needs to be done in order to motivate Canadians to have more children and to start having more families?
00:01:59.420 Supporting the nuclear family. Maybe a little bit more insight into what happens when countries don't support their, you know, at least have replacement level birth rates.
00:02:13.460 And do you think that it's a problem for the country to rely on immigration to solve your population problems,
00:02:19.160 rather than what we're doing now, which is relying on immigration?
00:02:22.000 We're not having enough children naturally. So do you think that's an issue?
00:02:25.320 I think it complicates national identity and a bit of assimilation into culture.
00:02:34.980 You know, if you have immigrants coming in, it's been kind of the idea that you want to assimilate to culture to still maintain the Canadian identity. 0.69
00:02:43.580 If people are born in other places, they may not want to assimilate or identify themselves as, you know, people from Canada.
00:02:51.160 A simple example that I've heard of and people have talked about is, for example, if something happens in terms of war,
00:03:02.900 we find ourselves in very unstable times, who would choose to fight for Canada if they're not, if they don't identify themselves as Canadian?
00:03:08.620 Declining birth rate?
00:03:09.940 Everybody I know is pregnant or has kids. I don't think so.
00:03:12.680 Wow, because Canada's birth rate is at 1.33 and it's been dropping year over year.
00:03:17.980 It probably has something to do with how expensive every f***ing thing is. Sorry. 0.66
00:03:22.340 You think that it should be a concern that political leaders take seriously?
00:03:25.940 Absolutely. 100%.
00:03:27.080 Certainly something, yeah, I've been aware of.
00:03:30.400 If you think about, like, back when, you know, my stepfather, for instance, he had seven or eight brothers, sisters.
00:03:36.660 I'm an only child.
00:03:37.860 Yeah.
00:03:38.120 But I don't know if I'd see it as an issue.
00:03:41.040 It's not something I've actually given that much thought to.
00:03:43.460 I'm sorry if that's not...
00:03:44.320 No, not a problem.
00:03:45.500 We're wondering also if you think Canadians should be wanting to have more children.
00:03:49.800 We're obviously not having many children as we were in the past, but, you know, we are having a population issue.
00:03:56.680 Our population is aging, and we're wondering if people think it would be wise for Canadians to have larger families.
00:04:03.200 I mean, I think that's very individual.
00:04:08.340 It's a lot harder, I think.
00:04:09.860 Things are more expensive.
00:04:11.260 It's a little more difficult.
00:04:12.760 People don't have as much support, I don't think.
00:04:15.100 Daycare, education, it's all pretty stressful.
00:04:18.920 I think it's because mainly the political, like, it's very unstable, the political arena.
00:04:26.260 Nobody has, like, really any confidence in, like, political officials, and we're having a lot of radical ideology being legislated and putting into effect.
00:04:38.040 Like, I was, like, going on my Instagram the other day, and I couldn't read a post because the new legislation.
00:04:43.900 And it wasn't anything, it was just a story about a Mexican, Mexico, something about Mexico.
00:04:49.760 So it wasn't anything so far left, so far right.
00:04:53.060 It was just, I don't really know why I didn't, wasn't able to read it.
00:04:56.560 But those type of nuances, I think, affect people's mindset about bringing people into the world, bringing new people in the world, having to deal with those things.
00:05:04.300 And it's really unstable right now in Canada.
00:05:06.960 We have, like, high inflation, and they said it's coming down.
00:05:10.840 Nobody really knows if that's happening.
00:05:13.060 There's a lot of uncertainty.
00:05:14.420 So I think that's basically, like, the foundation of why I think people might not want to have families and might not want to bring new people into the world.
00:05:22.300 Because there's a lot of uncertainties and things going on that we don't know when it's going to be fixed.
00:05:27.220 Why do you think it is that young Canadians just aren't having children anymore at the same rate they used to?
00:05:32.400 I don't know.
00:05:32.940 I think it's part of the culture.
00:05:33.940 But I think in terms of sustaining an economy or the way it's designed right now, it's important to maintain kind of that median.
00:05:41.120 Yeah, I mean, it should be concerning because just in terms of maintaining the structure of the economy, well, you need a certain amount of population for the amount of same in for out.
00:05:53.760 Right, exactly.
00:05:54.280 In a sense. So, yeah, it should be concerning. But I wasn't aware, to be frank with you.
00:05:57.640 I just think we need more of a population in Canada.
00:06:01.100 And why do you...
00:06:01.700 It spurs on our growth.
00:06:02.880 And why do you think it is that Canadians are not having as many children as they were in the past?
00:06:07.880 Part of it is financial because they can't even afford a home now.
00:06:11.780 And so then they delay having their children.
00:06:14.340 So do you think that there needs to be some solutions put in place that are designed to increase or to motivate young Canadians to have larger families?
00:06:23.660 Do you think that it should be a political issue?
00:06:26.060 Well, I think it rests actually with the poverty rates and dealing with poverty in Canada will be a first step.
00:06:33.080 I just came in January, so I don't have any...
00:06:34.880 Oh, yeah, you did. All right.
00:06:35.480 Yeah, I'm a student here.
00:06:36.300 I think it's education.
00:06:38.620 Education, or I guess it's a drug issue here.
00:06:41.000 Right.
00:06:41.400 Yeah.
00:06:42.020 Because I am from Nova Scotia. I am studying in CBU.
00:06:45.720 So there are too many druggists there.
00:06:48.400 I guess the world always needs people, right?
00:06:50.180 Yeah.
00:06:50.380 Jobs and whatever else, right?
00:06:51.980 So...
00:06:52.300 Housing and jobs and just general affordability, you think, is the main issue?
00:06:56.780 Absolutely.
00:06:57.080 So Canada's declining birth rates. It's at 1.3 and replacement is 2.1 children per woman.
00:07:04.660 And is that an issue that you're concerned about or not so much?
00:07:07.300 Not so much for me, but...
00:07:10.040 And why is that?
00:07:11.980 Because I feel like, I guess, children aren't really my concern.
00:07:16.220 And I know a lot of other women that also preface, like, work over children. 1.00
00:07:21.060 So I feel like we already have enough people on the planet.
00:07:25.980 Yeah, so you would say...
00:07:27.260 It may be more environmental, having a little less people.
00:07:29.700 So you would say that it's generally a positive outcome that most of the developed countries
00:07:35.340 are having fewer children than they used to in the past?
00:07:37.700 I guess so.
00:07:39.020 Well, unsurprisingly, the majority of people that we spoke to in Toronto
00:07:41.960 never even thought about Canada's declining fertility rate as an issue.
00:07:45.900 It wasn't something that crossed their minds.
00:07:47.800 However, when we did speak to them about it and when we gave them some more information,
00:07:50.520 they provided the reasons that most Canadians think of as to why this is an issue.
00:07:54.460 Housing affordability, general affordability, the cost of food, taxes.
00:07:58.880 All of that plays a role into Canada's declining fertility rate.
00:08:01.980 But isn't it strange that this is not an issue that most people are thinking about?
00:08:04.960 In my opinion, it should be top of mind for most people.
00:08:08.040 Mass immigration and the problems that mass immigration have brought to Canada 1.00
00:08:11.960 is a direct result of the fact that we're no longer having as many children.
00:08:15.500 We have to rely on immigrants, according to the government, 1.00
00:08:17.740 in order to solve our demographic problems because our birth rate is declining.
00:08:21.200 Let me know in the comments what you think are the reasons
00:08:23.100 as to why Canadians are not having as many children.
00:08:25.600 Is it the same as what you heard in the video here today?
00:08:28.340 That housing is too expensive?
00:08:29.880 That it's too difficult to get into the job market for too many Canadians?
00:08:33.680 Or is it another reason, perhaps?
00:08:35.420 Or is there perhaps something else that is driving the declining birth rates in this country?
00:08:39.180 If you want to see us do more content about this issue,
00:08:42.420 about the declining birth rates in Canada,
00:08:43.940 also let us know in the comments as well.
00:08:46.940 For now, signing off from downtown Toronto, Harrison Fong.
00:08:49.940 O scenario of theRyanKinshop.com
00:08:53.200 And we'll see you, I have a great deal on this scale of the aman figure.
00:08:56.860 It's about to come in and down by now.
00:08:57.540 All you need to know is that.
00:09:01.120 Byiliation of Toronto but you don't have a great deal.
00:09:03.680 Right.
00:09:06.680 You have various sorts of could-
00:09:09.700 Good luck.
00:09:11.180 You have got a good deal.
00:09:12.760 You have got more information here so you don't have to do anything,
00:09:15.680 against Toronto and you can talk to us again.
00:09:16.980 We'll see you guys in the in truck.