Viewing Ourselves in a World Perspective? The Key to Succeeding in the 1990s

Introduction:

Humorist Stephen Leacock once wrote: "In earlier times, they had no statistics, and so they had to fall back on lies. Hence the huge exaggerations of primitive literature--giants or miracles or wonders! They did it with lies and we do it with statistics; but it is all the same thing."

In Canada, the task of collecting comprehensive economic and social data falls largely to Statistics Canada, the nation's central statistical agency. Under the 1971 Statistics Act, the Agency has the responsibility to "collect, compile, analyze, abstract and publish statistical information relating to the commercial, industrial, financial, social, economic and general activities and condition of the people of Canada."

In practice, Statistics Canada collects information on Canada's population, labour force, economic life, education, housing, transportation, and social and cultural life. The Agency then compiles and analyzes these data to produce a myriad of information products for corporate, government and individual uses.

As pointed out in the Agency's 1990 Annual Report, all Canadians are affected by Statistics Canada's information and publications in one way or another. Many use it in their daily work. Governments use it to develop policies and programs and to target Canadians with particular needs. Businesses use it to research their markets, to confirm their corporate strategies, to plan expansions, and to prepare for changes in the labour market. Academics use it to carry out research and to analyze trends. And, most visibly, the media use it to report on news--news that uncovers and reflects the changing dynamics of Canada's economic, social and cultural life.

Every year, Statistics Canada conducts hundreds of surveys and studies. Turning these "raw" data into useful and accessible information products is an immense and complex task requiring the contribution of experts from virtually every discipline. To manage this task, the Agency organizes its programs into six fields; one of these fields focuses on programs describing the characteristics and activities of Canada's populations, and the impact of social and economic change on individuals, households, and public institutions. This field includes the Census and Demographic Statistics branch.

The first census in what is now Canada was organized in 1666 by Jean Talon, the Great Intendant, responsible for re-organizing New France. Two centuries later, at the time of Confederation, the British North America Act was enacted and included a provision that a census be taken every ten years to determine representation in the new Parliament. In 1905, quinquennial censuses of the prairie provinces became obligatory but it was not until 1956 that the first national quinquennial census was conducted.

The Empire Club's speaker today, Edward Pryor, has managed the census of Canada for a number of years and is currently in the midst of preparation of the 1991 census which will take place on June 4. The quinquennial census is a vast undertaking, covering more than 26 million people. In 1991, Statistics Canada will enlist more than 40,000 temporary staff to collect and process information from 10 million households.

According to Dr. Pryor, the development of the "global village" has eliminated the isolation of individual countries and has led to a greater demand for comparable and detailed international data on social, demographic and economic issues. Dr. Pryor has suggested that this pressure for new information has strengthened the need for census data and has made Canada a building block in the world census system. Countries around the world are equally concerned with such issues as aging, family change, poverty, migration and immigration and the rise of ethnic consciousness. According to Dr. Pryor, with the trend towards the development of a global village, census information collected from all countries will be crucial if we are to succeed at solving demographic and social issues.

Dr. Pryor received his doctorate in sociology and demography from Brown University in Rhode Island. He has taught at several universities including the University of Colorado, University of Hawaii and the University of Western Ontario where he chaired the Department of Sociology from 1968 to 1972. He has also been a consultant to the federal government, the Vanier Institute for the Family and other organizations. Since 1973, Dr. Pryor has held a series of management positions at Statistics Canada.

Dr. Pryor is a member of various professional associations and continues to combine research and management with many presentations over the years to a wide variety of groups and associations across Canada, in the U.S., France, India, the U.K., China and other countries.

The Empire Club of Canada is very fortunate to have Dr. Pryor as our guest speaker today. In deciding on the topic for today's address, he declined to use as his title Lord Moynihan's adage that: "Statistics will prove anything, even the truth." Instead, Dr. Pryor will address us on the topic of "Viewing Ourselves in a World Perspective: The Key to Succeeding in the 1990s."

Please welcome Edward Pryor.

Edward T. Pryor:

Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today. A lot of people are touring around the country these days trying to get a handle on the definitive view of Canada--and in some ways, I am one of them. l, too, share some serious concerns about where we are going. I'd like to share with you two very different perspectives on the country that I recently experienced.

I have a friend in Vancouver who came to this country as a student from Shanghai in 1988. After the uprising in Tiananmen Square, he was granted permission to stay in Canada, and now calls that west-coast city his permanent home.

It wouldn't surprise you, I'm sure, to hear that my friend works seven days a week in a Chinese grocery store. Already, he works most evenings as a waiter in a Korean restaurant.

He drives a nice car, has a good address and has paid off all his student loans--with interest.

Last summer, when you couldn't pick up a newspaper or turn on a television without hearing about Meech Lake, I happened to be visiting my friend and I asked him what he thought of the debate. It might surprise all you readers of "The National Newspaper", that he had never heard of the constitutional discussion that centred in Ottawa that summer. His concerns were: work, and bringing his family to Canada to share this good life with him. For him, Canada was the place to marry and raise his family with chances for a better future. He has the new immigrant's micro view of the country.

In contrast to my friend, I was struck by the views of a class of Ottawa high school students when they were asked what they thought the most important issue facing Canada was. These were gifted students from privileged homes in a city that the media likes to call fat with advantage. What did these young men and women think was the most important issue facing Canada? The environment, they said. How will we share the limited resources of this world with all its inhabitants? Their view of Canada spread out beyond our geographic borders.

In recent months, you have had speakers come before you saying that we must change our vision of Canada. Today, I have come here in my capacity as a demographer to tell you that if our vision must change, it must be to look up--and look out beyond our borders. The way in which we view the world must increasingly account for the impact we have on our neighbours and in turn, the influence they have on us. While we as Canadians have spent a generation tending our home fires--and perhaps concentrating on our domestic squabbles--our neighbours in this global village in which we live have been building highrises just outside our gate. The shadows they will soon cast will change the way we live forever.

Recent activities in the Middle East have shown how easily and dramatically Canada can be affected by world events. Communications are so immediate that it is possible for us to know in an instant how our neighbours are spending the night on the other side of the globe. It is no longer enough to develop an understanding of Western alienation or Maritime isolation or--of course--of Quebec, and consider ourselves well-equipped to plan for the future of ourselves and our children in the context of Canada. If we are to survive--if we are to prosper--we must begin to view ourselves and our concerns as Canadians in a world perspective.

We already have the mechanism in place to focus on the world scene. The census data base we have built in Canada since 1666 is a national treasure of crucial information on changes and trends fundamental to understanding world society and our place in it.

Our Canadian census is already part of a global information system. Globalization of markets has led to a significant increase in demand for comparable international data. With the globalization of data, especially census data, Canada is one building block in the world census system.

As we prepare to collect the 17th census since Confederation this coming June 4, it is clear that no Star Wars alternative has emerged to replace this way to gather data. In an age where we can watch high technology weapons practically choose specific buildings and knock before entering, it may come as a surprise that the most efficient way to collect basic details on every man, woman and child is still to raise an army of census-takers and turn them out into the streets with questionnaires. It is a system that allows us to reach every single household in the country--regardless of how remote or how loosely defined. Census-takers can follow-up with people personally while still categorically guaranteeing the privacy of each respondent. The result? The census produces a collection of data that is representative of all Canadians--and to which everyone has been invited to contribute. No survey, no public- opinion poll, no royal commission can make a similar claim.

The way in which a census is conducted in Canada is a very efficient method. The pressures for new types of information, for increased quality, applications of census data to various issues, and the demands for societal analysis have made keeping the census in a static state impossible. The census is a crucial, current and relevant part of our statistical system and that of countries around the world.

In preparing for our next census on June 4, we heard of demands for data far beyond what the census can presently yield--or perhaps any current source can provide. We heard of the consistent desire for a detailed set of integrated social, demographic and economic data network, comparable across our vast country, available at every local geographic level. And, most important, a set of data capable of answering thousands of various questions regarding our people, our families, and our communities. The demand for more and better information is--I think--limitless.

In turn, the census around the world--in almost 200 (198) countries--is fundamental for addressing many issues that are no longer unique to one country. The kinds of issues which worry demographers and keep government policymakers searching for solutions are shared by countries in many different states of development.

For example, aging, family change, poverty, migration and immigration, and the rise of ethnic consciousness are issues shared by countries as diverse as Canada and the Soviet Union, or Japan and China, or Australia and France, and others.

Economic interdependence defines the late 20th century. Advances in microchip development are no longer confined to a single laboratory, much less a single country but are spread throughout the entire scientific community. No one country can control communications any more. In fact there are few areas that I can think of--law, medicine, investment, research--in which sovereignty or national boundaries have much meaning. In the same way issues of population growth and demographics cannot be ignored as if they stopped at our national border.

The size of a country's labour force is as important as buying power in defining its economic well-being. Aging and low fertility bring on staggering economic dependency. Within 10 years, 100 German workers will support 31 elderly dependents. The same number of workers in Singapore will support only 13 seniors. While low fertility may have boosted living standards in Europe and North America in the short term, it will contribute to declining prosperity in the future unless there are very substantial gains in productivity.

When we look at the world population by broad age groups, North America and Europe and to some extent the U.S.S.R have populations older than the rest of the world.

Today, almost 3 out of 5 people live in Asia and of that number, 61 percent are aged 15 and under. At the same time, less than half (46 percent) of the aged population is in Asia Generally, using the world's censuses as the basis, the next obvious question is to ask where are we heading, or more accurately, what do we project future world population to be and what will its effect be on us?

Before the turn of the century, the world's economically active population (aged 15 to 64) is expected to grow by 389 million or 16.5 percent, according to the International Labour Office in Geneva Of that total, the projected increase in the number of Asian workers will equal the number of people living in the United States today (224 million).

In contrast to Asia's growth, Europe will add fewer workers than live in New York City. Only 6 million more Europeans will enter the labour force during the 1990s--an increase of 3 percent.

Half of Europe's new workers will come from Eastern Europe--which will present severe implications for Eastern European countries. The number of economically active people from the affluent Western European countries will actually decline by 700,000--more than the size of North York In fact, Germany's rapidly aging population will cause it to lose 2 million workers within this decade.

Where the world's population is heading can of course vary considerably--depending upon when we assume the two-child family arrives. But whether that norm is reached in one generation or more, the world's population could still be between three and nine billion more people in 2060 than today. We all should be concerned about these potential developments since the generations around us will provide the inheritance for those living a century from now.

The differences in projected growth by world regions are phenomenal. Within a generation, the population of Africa is projected to grow by 184 percent--notwithstanding current political, military and social upheavals. Combined with the growth projected for Asia, the growth in the world's population to 2025 will be more than 8.5 billion as compared to 5 billion today. Asia's population alone will be equal to the total world population today.

Do we really have a world perspective on the coming issues of population growth--from which we will not be immune?

The population of the world is growing by 95 million people every year; that's three times the size of Canada in a 12 month period, over 260,000 every day. In the time you will hear me speak today, the world's population will increase by over 6,000 people. Why is this considered to be a non-event--relegated to the very back pages of our newspapers? Because it is viewed as a chronic condition of a world faraway. Surely, we convince ourselves, these issues have no impact on our lives here in Canada.

But they do. And increasingly, they will. This kind of unprecedented growth--3.5 billion people in the span of a generation--is one of the most crucial events in the history of our life on this planet. It affects the economy, the environment, concepts of nationalism--and even Canada, in spite of our perceptions.

Let's look at an example. Obviously, the entire world's population will age, but again with great variations by region. In North America and Europe, 20 percent of the population will be 65 years of age and over while in Africa, the number will be less than 4 percent by 2025.

Here in Canada, we felt the first chill of an aging population when the last census told us that more than half our entire population was over 30 years old. The population aged 65 and over grew from 1.4 million in 1961 to over 2.7 million in 1986--a growth rate twice that of the population as a whole. The increasing size of our dependent senior and elderly population has disturbing implications on the demand for health care in a government-subsidized system; for pension plans and mandatory retirement legislation when the labour force of young people is shrinking. By the very fact that we cannot stop the clock, we are looking at our own future. And wondering how we will pay for it.

How will financial and social support be provided for a world population in excess of 900 million people aged 65 and over when the workers required to provide that support live in third-world nations and the resources, the technology and the prosperity remain in the developed world?

Low fertility and aging populations have implications on more than just world population distribution, but on the environment, and world health. If there is a crystal ball that can reveal some of these effects, it is, of course census-based.

As a country born of two founding nations, with an aboriginal population calling for greater recognition and with the cultural legacy of a hundred years of multi-cultural immigration, the average Canadian can be excused, I think, for assuming that ethnic issues are as unique to this country as maple syrup and the musical ride. However, you've been hearing enough about ethnic groups living in the Soviet Union wanting more autonomy and rights to self-government to know that ethnic issues are a world phenomena.

According to 1989 census data from the U.S.S.R there is a long list of ethnic groups in the Soviet Union trying to assert their independence within the Soviet society. Perhaps even a year ago, you might have asked if ethnicity were not a dead issue in the Soviet Union--with the various nationalities united under a single flag and economic system. However, today I can simply read a list of names you have heard in virtually any news report over the past 12 months--such as Ukrainian, Azerbaidzhani, Armenian, Lithuanian, Moldavian, Latvian, Estonian--and you would immediately recognize a legacy of ethnic struggle for recognition and respect.

In fact, the 1989 Soviet census emphasized Russian is only one of many nationalities or ethnic groups within the Soviet system. As a percentage of the total Soviet population, it has been declining since 1959 and is close to becoming a minority.

What does this mean? It is clear that ethnicity as an issue never died in the Soviet Union and has come back in full force. Perhaps the emergence of Glasnost has greater political and symbolic significance when viewed within the demographic consequences of the impending decline (51 percent in 1989) of ethnic Russians to a minority within the Soviet Union.

In fact, ethnicity is arising as an issue around the world whether it is the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Romania, China or the United States and we have certainly heard of the issue in the development of the 1991 census of Canada.

We don't focus on ethnicity too often in Canada despite its world significance. Perhaps it is because of our conciliatory nature as Canadians that we often choose to down play an issue that invokes such strong--often conflicting--feelings.

But Canada's two founding ethnic groups have always been polarized by size and geography and-according to the census-there is no long-term indication that this will change. The increasingly multicultural base of our country can be a source of consternation for those sectors of our society who see themselves in increasingly minority positions.

Looking at Canada in general, we find a very dramatic transition in the ethnic composition of the country. French was replaced as the second largest single ethnic group by non-French/non-English Canadians during the 1970s. In the 35 years--only a generation--between 1951 and 1986, the population of this country has changed dramatically. Canadians of British extraction have declined from 48 per cent to 43 per cent of the population; the French have dropped from 31 per cent to hover near the 25 per cent mark. But those Canadians of neither French nor English background have increased dramatically--rising from only 21 per cent to 32 per cent of the population in 1986. Therein lies a story I must save for another time.

In Quebec, French ethnicity held its own at about 80 per cent between 1951 and 1986. On the other hand, the decline in English ethnic proportion in Quebec has not been replaced by francophones, but by other nationalities or allophones. This ethnic redistribution will no doubt be a new challenge for Francophone-Quebeckers who are concerned with their linguistic and cultural future.

What is the demographic future for Quebec within Canada? The population of Canada is presently growing at an annual growth rate of 1.3 per cent. Looking at that growth rate by province and territory, it's clear that this growth is not country-wide. Continuing a long-term trend, Quebec grew at less than the national average and has been falling behind the growth of the rest of the country since the early 1960s, despite the recent economic incentives in Quebec trying to raise fertility.

Immigrants gravitate to Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. In fact, between 1951 to 1987, Quebec has not been able to attract its share of Canada's immigrants needed to sustain its demographic position. And, although there have been some distinct ups and downs, Quebec has consistently experienced a net loss of people through inter-provincial migration as well--French as well as English-speaking Quebeckers have left the province in greater numbers than have moved to the province since 1976.

In the next 20 years, if Canada maintains an average annual growth between .5 and 1.0 percent, Quebec's share of Canada's population is projected by Statistics Canada to drop from a current 25.5 percent to somewhere between 24.8 and 23.8 percent, continuing the long-term reduction in Quebec's population share within the Canadian context.

From these examples, I've tried to make it clear that demographic data in general and census information in particular provide a blueprint for the way we live and are fundamental to our understanding of societal issues. Whether from a Canadian view point or a much broader global or world view, seeking solutions to the issues of population decline, immigration openness or restrictions, the situation of francophones, incentives for fertility, the demographics of retirement and pensions, gender equality, and ethnic change, among many others, require census information.

The national census increasingly has an international' dimension. The globalization of economic activity has become a reality with world corporations and regional inter-country trade agreements.

This development has brought the need for a harmonized system in trade statistics. Consequently, a number of countries are reaching agreements on definitions to be used for international trade statistics. Although the analogy has limits, there is also a globalization of social issues.

The national censuses, especially as these share concepts, definitions and common data outputs, have excellent potential to form an important international statistical bridge between countries regarding such global social and economic issues. In fact, it could be argued that the census is the logical international framework for data and analysis of such issues. Although cooperative work between countries on census approaches has progressed, much remains to be done. If a world census, as recommended by the International Statistical Institute many years ago, is still not on the horizon, a "harmonized system" of censuses may be the important step towards dealing with regional and world demographic and social changes.

Censuses are an important foundation of national statistical systems. With the round of censuses held this decade, coverage of the world's population by a census will be almost complete. The Statistical Commission of the United Nations noted that the world population and housing census program has been an unprecedented success, with 191 countries or areas of the world carrying out a census between 1975 and 1984, enumerating over 95 percent of the world's population.

Of course, collecting high quality data through a census is getting tougher. In the former West Germany, large expenditures on public communications were necessary to achieve satisfactory results. Last year's experience in the U.S. resulted in much higher than expected field follow-up costs.

Extra effort and ingenuity is exactly what all of us need if we hope to achieve our census objectives in a public and government environment that is changing.

Getting the average citizen to participate in civic activities is getting tougher to bring about whether we're looking at national or local elections, volunteer activities, blood banks or censuses. However, we do not abandon such civic duties. The additional investment it takes to remind people to "Get out the vote" or "Send in the census form" is required to get people's attention in a communications environment that bombards the individual with instructions, information and ideas.

Is such an investment worth it? Categorically--yes. The census is too important, too vital to our future not to ensure it succeeds. Uses of census data are expanding both to address internal national issues and new international concerns. With trends to a world society or to that "global village" as we see developing, census information on all countries will be important to us in order to know our neighbours--both close or more distant--and also to improve our understanding of ourselves and our country.

The demographic imperatives of the next decade will be with us whether we are three, five or 10 countries in North America. The issues of support systems for the aged, renewing the labour force, poverty and many other concerns will still be with us, regardless of national boundaries. All members of this part of the global village will face the same dilemmas--we will need to develop and maintain a wider world perspective of these if we hope to succeed. We have a responsibility to ourselves and our world neighbours to concern ourselves with more than just the domestic interests of our household in the global village. We must step out into the backyard and look at what's going on in the world around us.

On June 4--on Census day--we will open the door to discovering the latest trends in Canada. Are we prepared for what we will see? Thank you.

The appreciation of the meeting was expressed by Catherine Charlton, President, The Charlton Group and a Past President, The Empire Club of Canada.