Statistics Canada will reveal the state of our nation, Wednesday, by releasing the first results from the 2011 census, focusing on population trends. There are those who believe the numbers will prove our country is committing demographic suicide.
The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada – it will not shock you to hear they are socially conservative – released an internationally co-authored report Monday arguing for urgent government action to promote larger families and two-parent households.
Actually, Bradford Wilcox, a University of Virginia sociologist who co-authored the study, expects to see Statscan report a slight uptick in Canada’s birthrate.
But two facts remain: First, our underfunded pension schemes and skyrocketing health-care costs stem in part from the simple fact that, sometime around 1970, Canadians stopped having the necessary 2.1 children per woman needed to sustain the population.
Second, an increasing number of children are raised in single-parent environments, which places them at greater risk of poverty, poor nutrition and inadequate education.
“Although there are always exceptions ... most scientists who study these questions would say that the stable two-parent family is better than the alternative,” Prof. Wilcox observes.
For the authors of The Sustainable Demographic Dividend, government tax policies should encourage couples to have children; child care subsidies should allow women to balance work and parenting in whatever way most suits them; government advertising campaigns should promote the advantages of married family life (the authors cite studies showing married couples are more likely to stay together than those who cohabit), just as previous campaigns warned against cigarette smoking or driving while impaired.
The Harper government hears this message, which is why it prefers direct child care grants to parents rather than subsidies for daycare centres, and is promising income-splitting for families with children once the budget is balanced. (This will allow parents to pool their income for tax purposes.) Many of these policies infuriate those who have fought for women’s equality. But in terms of pure social utility, the family-values crowd has a point.
The decision by couples across the developed world to have fewer children was, for decades, a social blessing. It gave women the freedom to work, it increased family income, and it allowed parents and governments to lavish resources on those children who were around, leading to improved education and productivity.
But we’re paying a price for all those children who weren’t born, because today they’re not working and paying taxes and contributing to pension plans. They’re not buying houses and cars and sofas. They aren’t inventing anything or starting up new businesses or writing songs. They are a generation of potential, lost.
Canada has covered part of the gap through immigration. But we would have to take in many times the 250,000 or so people who come here every year to fully replace the missing children.
For many people, it’s worth delaying retirement and paying more for health care in exchange for the social revolution that a declining birth rate made possible.
Yes, growing up in a stable household with a mother and father committed to each other is the best world for a child. But being able to have and raise a child outside marriage, or on your own completely, or in a gay relationship, without being branded by an intolerant community is just as important. Security matters, but so does diversity.
But balance matters, too. Why should government policies favour working parents over those where one chooses to stay home to focus on the children? Why shouldn’t parents have the flexibility and freedom to choose the child care they prefer?
Though the idea of a government advertising campaign promoting married families still feels deeply weird.
Congratulations to Bradford Wilcox for being able to get this issue at least
as an article on the Globe and Mail where hopefully, Mr. Harper will be provided
a copy.
Fact is, Mr. Harper wishes the older age group would just disappear so he now
wishes to change the retirement age because of the exploding demographic time
bomb that is also an economic time bomb whose fuse was lit decades ago by
extreme feminists, the gay and lesbian community of making heterosexual
relationships politically and legally correct.
MR. HARPER, you can virtually solve the entire problem in a few years if you ACT
NOW to dramatically overhaul Family Law in Canada to provide children and
fathers legal rights that do not presently exist and the lack of is primarily
responsible for the negative population growth.
Men have no legal rights, its Male Sharia Law where a female sense of
entitlement encourages women to abuse men, rob them of their S.Perm and
illegally transfer their income to a mother regardless of her substantial better
income and net family income.
Child support is designed to give mothers custody, it fails to allow for the
cost of both parents parenting children. Even if one parent has the children 10%
of the time, they often have the greater cost of parenting and live in a poverty
standard while she lives it up.
Increasingly, children grow up without a father, children have NO legal right to
equal parenting after separation.
MEMO TO MR. HARPER - Make it your mission to remove Family Law and give Children
a Legal Presumption to Equal Parenting.
Make the "tender years doctrine" Illegal, Tell judges to end their abuse of men
and their children.
Give Children the legal right to have their own DNA confirm their parents DNA,
their Father's and their Mother's DNA. The problem is, over 25% of Canadian
children, have a father named who is not their father or NO father named at all.
Now, increasingly, a child's biological mother is not the mother named on the
birth certificate.
MR. HARPER, please take note of the changes in Australia and then most recently
in the United Kingdom that provide children more legal rights.
The UK failed to copy the Australian model, too many extreme feminists and
entrenched hatred towards fathers in the UK have created such bias that even the
powers in the UK can't bring themselves to acknowledge that the UK is
increasingly breeding an ever increasing percentage of dysfunctional fatherless
children.
MR. HARPER, END DEBTORS PRISONS for FATHERS. The entire enforcement process
criminalizes fatherhood and is being used improperly to prevent children from
having fathers.
Notice that our family courts throw holy water on mothers who habitually destroy
their children's relationships with their father, that's not a criminal offense,
these dead beat mothers never get jailed, in fact they get rewarded with custody
for abducting children to other countries, and other cities etc.
Mr. Harper its time for you to get off the pot and end the cess pool of Male
Gender Apartheid in Canada that is the primary cause of Canada's negative
population growth that is as Bradford Wilcox calls it, a "Demographic Time Bomb"
www.OttawaMensCentre.com
as posted reduced to fit in one post
Congratulations to Bradford Wilcox for being able to get
this issue at least as an article on the Globe and Mail where hopefully, Mr.
Harper will be provided a copy.
Men have no legal rights, its Male Sharia Law where a female sense of
entitlement encourages women to abuse men, rob them of their S.Perm and
illegally transfer their income to a mother regardless of her substantial better
income and net family income.
Child support is designed to give mothers custody, it fails to allow for the
cost of both parents parenting children. Even if one parent has the children 10%
of the time, they often have the greater cost of parenting and live in a poverty
standard while she lives it up.
Increasingly, children grow up without a father, children have NO legal right to
equal parenting after separation.
MEMO TO MR. HARPER - Make it your mission to remove Family Law and give Children
a Legal Presumption to Equal Parenting.
Make the "tender years doctrine" Illegal, Tell judges to end their abuse of men
and their children.
Give Children the legal right to have their own DNA confirm their parents DNA,
their Father's and their Mother's DNA. The problem is, over 25% of Canadian
children, have a father named who is not their father or NO father named at all.
Now, increasingly, a child's biological mother is not the mother named on the
birth certificate.
MR. HARPER, please take note of the changes in Australia and then most recently
in the United Kingdom that provide children more legal rights.
The UK failed to copy the Australian model, too many extreme feminists and
entrenched hatred towards fathers in the UK have created such bias that even the
powers in the UK can't bring themselves to acknowledge that the UK is
increasingly breeding an ever increasing percentage of dysfunctional fatherless
children.
MR. HARPER, END DEBTORS PRISONS for FATHERS. The entire enforcement process
criminalizes fatherhood and is being used improperly to prevent children from
having fathers.
Notice that our family courts throw holy water on mothers who habitually destroy
their children's relationships with their father, that's not a criminal offense,
these dead beat mothers never get jailed, in fact they get rewarded with custody
for abducting children to other countries, and other cities etc.
Mr. Harper its time for you to get off the pot and end the cess pool of Male
Gender Apartheid in Canada that is the primary cause of Canada's negative
population growth that is as Bradford Wilcox calls it, a "Demographic Time Bomb"
www.OttawaMensCentre.com