A Toronto city hall report, released Tuesday, says the city’s population of 2,791,140 has surpassed that of Chicago, which used to hold fourth spot but now has 84,020 less people than Toronto. The top three spots are held by Mexico City (pop. 8.9 million), New York (8.2 million) and Los Angeles (3.8 million).

Except for a brief rise in the 1990s, Chicago’s population has been steadily shrinking since the 1950s, according to Census data. Chicago’s population peaked at 3.62 million in 1950, when it was North America’s second largest city. Approximately 200,000 people left the city from 2000 to 2010.

Toronto on the other hand has seen an annual population growth rate that has risen steadily over the last decade. The city’s numbers are now increasing by about 38,000 people annually.

Toronto ranks first in North America, with 184 buildings under construction and the total value of building permits in 2012 — $6.2-billion — was three times higher than it was 10 years ago. 

But while these are overall a positive signs, said Pierre Desrochers, associate professor of economic development at the University of Toronto, the city must seriously consider a host of related problems, from transit to increased housing costs.

“Historically, whether we’re fourth or seventh doesn’t really matter,” Mr. Desrochers said. “What really matters for the future of the GTA is whether we can address the problems that come with that growth.”

He pointed to another list that Toronto tops: that of worst average commute times in North America. Such issues will play a key role in whether Toronto remains an attractive city for newcomers in the years ahead, Mr. Desrochers noted.

From National Post, Globe and Mail, CBS Chicago

If you were in London 110 years ago to watch the coronation of King Edward VII, it would have looked a lot like the scene of this month’s royal jubilee, with one notable exception: In 1902, the route of the royal coach, visited by millions of people, had been transformed into a giant advertisement for immigration to Canada.

The largest public-sector ad campaign in the country’s history had led Ottawa to erect giant sheaves of wheat over The Strand in London, to establish recruitment bureaus from Reykjavik to Moscow promising “homes for millions.”

Prime minister Wilfred Laurier made no secret of its purpose: to increase Canada’s population tenfold as soon as possible, and thereby turn the country from a sparsely populated colony into a major, independent nation with its own culture, its own economy and its own institutions, capable of influencing and bettering the world, rather than simply being buffeted in the world’s tides.

“We are a nation of six million people already; we expect soon to be 25, yes, 40 millions,” Mr. Laurier declared. “There are men in this audience who, before they die, if they live to old age, will see this country with at least 60 millions of people.”

It was the largest immigration wave we’ve experienced, three times the rate of today’s influx, and arguably the most important human event in Canada’s history, ending its colonial culture. But it was a failure: It only doubled Canada’s population in the short term, and helped cause it to increase just fivefold in the next century.

Today we need to recognize the fact that, despite what Laurier did a century ago, Canada remains a victim of underpopulation. We do not have enough people, given our dispersed geography, to form the cultural, educational and political institutions, the consumer markets, the technological, administrative and political talent pool, the infrastructure-building tax base, the creative and artistic mass necessary to have a leading role in the world.

Because our immigration rates have remained modest and our birth rate is low, our population will grow only slightly – to perhaps 50 million by mid-century. By that point, the world’s population will almost have stopped growing and it will be difficult to attract large numbers of immigrants. At current rates, Canada will have lost its chance to be a fully formed nation.

It is time to act. Canada should build its population to a size – at least 100 million – that will allow it to determine its own future, maintain its standard of living against the coming challenges and have a large enough body of talent and revenue to solve its largest problems. All it takes is a sustained and determined increase in immigration, to at least 400,000 permanent immigrants per year.

This will not be free: Immigration requires support and assistance. But it will become much more expensive in the future, when shrinking world populations make immigrants scarce, and Canada’s crisis of underpopulation becomes expensive.

The moment when the United States stopped being dependent on the ideas, imports and expressions of other countries was exactly when it passed the 100-million mark, shortly before 1920. It was at this point that the U.S. developed the world’s first conservation program, the first progressive taxation system and the first great national infrastructure program. It was this population level that turned America into the capital of the modern world.

Whenever Canada’s ideal population is studied, the 100-million figure comes up. In 1968, a group of scholars, policy advocates and business leaders formed the Mid-Canada Development Corridor Foundation, which argued that a population of at least 100 million was needed to have a sustainable and independent economy. In 1975, a study by Canada’s Department of Manpower found that economies of scale leading to “significant benefits to Canadian industry” would occur only after the population had reached 100 million. And more recently, in 2010, the journal Global Brief argued in detail that Canada needs that much population for geostrategic, defence and diplomatic reasons. This population level would give Canada “new domestic structures coupled with growing international impact and prestige,” the journal argued, that would turn it into “a serious force to be reckoned with.”

Read More

Every pop cycle has its whipping posts for late-night comedians, hacky bloggers, and other members of the peanut gallery to take a stand against.  Despite and because of their fame, these people are deemed culturally OK to dislike by a wide swath of people. In the last decade  no one fit this role better than Nickelback.

 Nickelback has attempted to straddle the chasm between grunge and arena rock, while at the same time, straying into the realm of pop-music.  This unusual formula has proven to be incredibly successful, with 50 millions albums sold worldwide, and Billboard ranking them as the top rock group of the decade.  Dislike “How You Remind Me” as much as you will, its structure is pretty impeccable, as anyone who’s performed it at karaoke can attest. Still, despite this success, for most people listening to Nickelback and enjoying it remains an embarrassing ritual. 

So why is this? Why is Nickelback so uncool? Blame the aforementioned music style; blame Chad Kroeger’s goatee; blame Canada. The reasons are actually immaterial when you get right down to it, because if they weren’t in the ‘lame’ box another artist would be; reactions to Nickelback and their much-hated ilk almost serve as a release valve, as a way for people on both sides of the media-consumer coin to assert the fact that they aren’t just being fed a diet of promo-campaign materials. That loathing on such a grand scale is so culturally rare it could be in large part why the reaction feels so outsized.

By Maura Johnston for The Village Voice

“James Bond is a highly romanticized version of a true spy.  The real thing is William Stephenson.” - Ian Flemming

  Sir William Samuel Stephenson                                                                           was a Canadian soldier, airman, businessman, inventor, spymaster, and the senior representative of British intelligence for the entire western hemisphere during World War II. He is best known by his wartime intelligence codename Intrepid. He is widely considered to be the real-life inspiration for James Bond.

Stephenson was born on 23 January 1897, in Point Douglas, Winnipeg, Manitoba. He left school at a young age and worked as a telegrapher. In January 1916 he volunteered for service in the Winnipeg Light Infantry, Canadian Expeditionary Force. He left for England on the S.S. Olympic on 29 June 1916, arriving on 6 July 1916. 

On 15 August 1917, Stephenson was granted a commission in the Royal Flying Corps.  Posted to 73 Squadron on 9 February 1918, he flew the British Sopwith Camel biplane fighter and scored 12 victories to become a flying ace before he was shot and crashed his plane behind enemy lines on 28 July 1918. During the incident Stephenson was injured by fire from a German ace pilot, Justus Grassmann. In any event he was subsequently captured by the Germans and held as a prisoner of war until he managed to escape in October 1918.

By the end of World War I, Stephenson had achieved the rank of Captain and earned the Military Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

After the Great War, Stephenson returned to Winnipeg and with a friend, Wilf Russell, started a hardware business — inspired largely by a can opener that Stephenson had taken from his POW camp. The business was unsuccessful, and he left Canada for England. In England, Stephenson soon became wealthy, with business contacts in many countries. In 1924 he married American tobacco heiress Mary French Simmons, of Springfield, Tennessee. That same year, Stephenson and George W. Walton patented a system for transmitting photographic images via wireless that produced 100,000 pounds sterling per annum in royalties for the 18 year run of the patent (about $12 million per annum adjusted for inflation in 2010).

In addition to his patent royalties, Stephenson swiftly diversified into several lucrative industries: radio manufacturing; aircraft manufacturing ; Pressed Steel Company that manufactured car bodies for the British motor industry; construction and cement as well as Shepperton Studios and Earls Court. Stephenson had a broad base of industrial contacts in Europe, Britain and North America as well as a large group of contacts in the international film industry. Shepperton Studios were the largest film studios in the world outside of Hollywood.

As early as April 1936, Stephenson was voluntarily providing confidential information to British opposition MP Winston Churchill about how Adolf Hitler’s Nazi government was building up its armed forces and hiding military expenditures of eight hundred million pounds sterling. This was a clear violation of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and showed the growing Nazi threat to European and international security. Churchill used Stephenson’s information in Parliament to warn against the appeasement policies of the government of Neville Chamberlain.

Read More

Canadian Olympians leaving London with bronze medals hanging from their necks should place a huge value on their accomplishments – just not their bling. Gold and silver Olympic medals, were they melted down and priced accordingly, are more valuable than ever, but even the high price of copper is not enough to spare third-place athletes embarrassment should they visit a jeweller with their winnings.

The difference in value is surprising.

Based on Friday’s prices for metal futures, the gold medal that Rosannagh MacLennan won in the women’s trampoline event would fetch about $700.  The nine silver medals awarded to Team Canada for placing second in men’s eight rowing – eight medals for the rowers and one for coxswain Brian Price – are worth approximately $3,006, or $355 apiece.  But the combined value of the 20 bronze medals awarded to Team Canada for their third-place women’s soccer win is less than $100.

At roughly $4.80 a medal, each bronze is worth about the price of a large latte at Starbucks.

Of course, the true financial benefit for Olympic performance comes not from the metals in the medals but from cash prizes and endorsements.  The Canadian Olympic Committee awards with cash all Canadian athletes who make it to the podium.  Gold medalists get $20,000, silver medalists receive $15,000, and bronze winners finally get their dues with a $10,000 award.

From the Globe and Mail