Country Comments

Canada has the world’s longest coastline, is the world’s second-largest country by land area, and has its 10th-largest economy. Abundant in natural resources, Canada still maintains a healthy biocapacity reserve and is sustainable. However this surplus in resources is diminishing faster each year as the country both adds to its population and exports ever-greater amounts of goods 75% of which go to a growing population in the United States.

In 2015, Canada committed to conserve at least 17% of its terrestrial lands and waters and 10% of coastal and marine areas by 2020. Not only does Canada contain a disproportionate amount of the world’s intact ecosystems, but support of indigenous-led governance has shown great potential for advancing ambitious, effective, and socially-just conservation goals. (Mongabay)

Canada has very high literacy rates (99%), contraception adoption, and scores well on several metrics of gender equality as reported by the OECD. As a result, the average mother in Canada has 1.5 children (below replacement). Yet Canada’s population growth increases each year driven largely by immigration (75%-85% of total popualtion growth) averaging approximately 250,000-350,000 immigrants annually for the past two decades. In 2021 the government announced an all time high of 401,000 new immigrants.