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Canada's population is booming – access to family doctors hasn't kept pace
- ThrowawayTestr 3y agoThe Canadian government's plan is import people by the boatload and hope everything from housing to public services just sort of works itself out.
- fidotron 3y ago"The Century Initiative (originally the Laurier Project Foundation)[2] is a Canadian lobby group and charity that aims to increase Canada's population to 100 million by 2100." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Initiative
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoWhy would they want the population to grow so large?
- kelseyfrog 3y agoPopulation is power
- michaelje 3y agoMore consumers to consume
- barbazoo 3y agohttps://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/dv-vd/pyramid/index-en.htm https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/dv... Every country with social security has to make sure there's enough young people to pay for old people.
- cbeach 3y agoSounds a bit like a ponzi scheme to me. Unless immigrants don't age?
- barbazoo 3y agoI'm probably missing something but yeah I'm assuming it is to some degree. I don't understand how it would work unless we increase the retirement age (indefinitely) or remove old folks from the pool. At this point I'm wondering WHAT IS a sustainable policy? Is there a country this all doesn't apply to that has figured things out somehow?
- zo1 3y agoWe're cattle to be farmed. More heads of cattle = bigger farm. Quality of life, national identity, indigenous populations, etc all take second place to that except in lip service and politician platitudes.
- n4r9 3y ago> Growing our population to 100 million by 2100 would reduce the burden on government revenues to fund health care, old age security, and other services. It would also mean more skilled workers, innovation, and dynamism in the Canadian economy. 100 million by 2100 is not just a number. It’s a vision for the Canada we want to build for future generations. https://www.centuryinitiative.ca/why-100m https://www.centuryinitiative.ca/why-100m Not that I agree...
- morkalork 3y agoMoney, power. Canada has a lot of space and natural resource, with proper development it could support a much larger population. Politicians seem to have an outsized view of the significance of Canada on the international stage (e.g. trying for and failing to get a seat on the UN security council), when in reality we are small and not that important. Maybe they believe with a larger population, and thus economy, there would be more weight to throw around in international politics.
- kelipso 3y agoJust speculating but Canada has large land mass and potentially much more livable area given climate change. With a much larger population driving a ramped up economy, you could imagine Canada being a global player... Lots of ifs though.
- michael1999 3y agoThere are a few groups pursing this goal: - People who imagine Canada as a global player. 100 million puts you in the big leagues. - People who fear our current demographics. Given our birth rate, our pension system is bankrupt without multiple 100k new arrivals every year. An aging population does similarly bad things to our health systems. - People who worship GDP over GDP per capita. - Our ownership aristocrats (aka the new Family Compact, a subset of the GDP group). If you own big tracts of land, or control national chains in protected industries, then your income tends to a stable fraction of total GDP. Every new arrival is a forced customer of your monopolistic supply.
- goodSteveramos 3y agoNobody pushing more immigration also supports pro-natal policies to encourage higher native birth rates.
- michael1999 3y agoThat is trivially refuted by the website. https://www.centuryinitiative.ca/our-work#focus-4-early-childhood-support https://www.centuryinitiative.ca/our-work#focus-4-early-chil... And all governments of the last 30 years have been spending money on children: Harper had sports credits, and the Universal Canada Child Benefit. Trudeau replaced it with Canada Child Benefit and has added daycare subsidies, dental and drug cover for minors. The bigger problem is that nobody in the world has figured out what effective "pro-natal" policies look like. You can't push on a string.
- michael1999 3y agoThe family compact doesn't have strong feelings about where their customers come from. But Canada's TFR fell below 2 in the 80s, and hasn't really changed since. If you have a magic wand, don't hold back. Given how old our demographics are, even if our 20-year-olds all started having 3 kids each, TFR wouldn't even climb much. Demographic decline is baked in the cake without immigration.
- goodSteveramos 3y ago
- AlexandrB 3y ago> Multiple founders and affiliates of the organization have been employed by McKinsey & Company, a multinational consulting firm. Due to this, the Century Initiative has been connected to a scandal over McKinsey consulting expenses by Justin Trudeau's government, in which whistleblowers have highlighted McKinsey's large and growing influence over Canadian immigration policy. McKinsey's influence on government policy around the world seems unhealthy.
- calf 3y agoI'm Canadian, immigrated as a child from Taiwan. It's pretty scary that the powers that be want more immigration yet don't actually have a real implementation for it. This goes against everything engineers value, obviously for many of us here. The likely consequence is a lot of harm and disruption to people in the future. I mean, I guess the real plan is the Canadian 1% exploiting a booming immigrant society.
- JohnMakin 3y agoMost western countries are seeing severely declining birth rates right now. What is different about canada? Is this driven by immigration?
- jeffbee 3y agoPeople tend to ignore or underestimate the contribution of longevity to population growth even while birth rates decline.
- shwoopdiwoop 3y agoWould that not make the situation worse? I would think that having more older people as part of the population means less productivity and a much bigger strain on the health care system.
- jeffbee 3y agoI don't know what qualitative framework you are using to judge "worse". I am only remarking that increasing longevity is a non-negligible contributor to population. The process involves births and deaths, so you can't look only at births. You have to look at how many people are dying at what ages.
- folkrav 3y agoLast I checked, in Quebec specifically, 25%+ of the population is 65 and up, and it's trending upward. Immigration rates definitely have to do with the shorter-term issues, but this has been going on for decades at this point.
- verisimi 3y agoYes. Opening paragraph: > Canada is going through an unprecedented growth spurt, having added well over a million people last year after a similarly historic intake in 2022.
- JohnMakin 3y ago
- verisimi 3y agoOn the plus side, iatrogenic causes of death will drop.
- TMWNN 3y agoContext: An amazingly high portion of Canadians don't have a family doctor <https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/despite-more-doctors-many-canadians-don-t-have-a-family-physician-report-1.4611149 https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/despite-more-doctors-many-cana...>. In Atlantic Canada (the four easternmost provinces) it is impossible, repeat impossible, to get a family doctor if you don't have one <https://web.archive.org/web/20190226051406/https://www.thetelegram.com/in-depth/doctor-shortage/what-we-learned-and-what-you-said-about-doctor-shortage-in-atlantic-canada-286436/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190226051406/https://www.thete...>. It's one thing to have shortages in rural areas—that happens in the US too—but Halifax?!? I've heard the same occurs in Vancouver too.
- SleepilyLimping 3y agoI've had two family doctors over the last four years, and they've both closed their practice to become specialists; much better paying, much easier work. I've been going to walk-in clinics who technically have "consistent" doctors I see every time I go in, but those people vanish without a trace, too.
- swader999 3y agoFeels like a ponzi scheme that even immigrants are starting to see.
- cybercity 3y agoWork 70 hours. Always on. At Google they would give you stock options for that and you'd retire at 45. The medical field runs on empathy. Imagine if the medical profession followed market capitalism. Cyberpunk 2077 Trauma Team.
- goodSteveramos 3y agoClearly you need to read more Ann Rand novels you hippy freak /s. It’s amazing to me how greedy people can not comprehend the idea that other people are motivated by things other than money.
- soperj 3y agoThis is just a prioritization problem. We have more doctors per capita than we did 20 years ago, they just don't pay them properly to be family doctors.
- hesdeadjim 3y agoMy father was a GP who ran and taught a residency program for the speciality. In the 80s and 90s the program was extremely competitive, but by the 00’s they struggled to fill a class. Med students caught on, why work your ass off in the most thankless field of medicine to make 200-300k when you could be a cardiologist and make $1mm reading X-rays?
- ActionHank 3y agoIt also takes ages to see any specialists, so it's not like there is a glut of cardiologists running around.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bryanlarsen 3y agoThe bottleneck is the residency programs. The cardiology residencies are massively oversubscribed, whereas the GP residencies get the dregs.
- cybercity 3y agoEvery few weeks they do a walk-in (or crawl-in) for those who are not insured. It's not a thankless job but it sure as hell doesn't pay the bills.
- soperj 3y agoWho's not insured?
- beaeglebeached 3y ago
- Tryanasorus 3y ago[flagged]
- kaycebasques 3y agoIs it fair to assume that access to doctors is even worse for immigrants than it is for citizens? Assuming that citizens are the country's top priority, like they usually are in most countries. (I know some Canadian immigrants on the path to citizenship who are planning to have their first baby but have not been able to see a doctor for a year plus. Just curious if they're situation is worse than citizens, the same, or better.)
- ivraatiems 3y agoDepends on what kind of immigrant they are. For people who are permanent residents or otherwise have a legal work visa, I don't think it's much different.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- stackedinserter 3y agoIn Canada, the whole so called "free" healthcare system is collapsing, not just access to family doctors. If you get sick and you're not visibly dying right now – good luck to get any help. The best you can hope for is $60 10 min appointment via zoom with a doctor that can't even refer you to a specialist. Also, you can spend 6-10 hours in your local ER to get help, or be told to come tomorrow because we don't have radiologist or something. Oh there's an option to subscribe to "case management" plan at your local doctor office for $2000/year per person, then you can magically have ad-hoc slots, phone consultations, referrals to specialists etc.
- calf 3y agoI live in BC, personally went through this ordeal this year involving two medical issues. One was during the holidays so access to specialists was even worse. I did not know about "case management plans". That's a lot of money but for the price of a nice Apple laptop, a more personalized assessment of my chronic digestive issues? I might resort to that.
- stackedinserter 3y agoThey can be called something else, it's just an example from the nearest clinic that offers that.
- calf 3y agoI see, I'm in the Vancouver area and my family doctor's clinic doesn't seem to offer that, at least on their website.
- thedangler 3y agoYou also have people that go to the ER for nothing plugging up the system. I was in the ER waiting to get stitches and someone had a blister. Why are you at the ER for a blister on your finger.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
- mthoms 3y agoRelevant: A cap on international students has been announced today. https://web.archive.org/web/20240122144208/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-international-student-visa-cap-miller-immigration/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240122144208/https://www.thegl...
- weberer 3y agoDon't worry, the Canadian government came up with a solution for that as well. https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c631558a457188d2bd2b5cfd360a867 https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c63...
- jacknews 3y agoSome of these institutions and services have been built up over, and by, generations. I think it's unfair to expect them to suddenly cater for a mass of new arrivals.
- debacle 3y agoThe role of the family doctor (in the US) has changed drastically in the last ~8 years. They are a heuristic wearing a lab coat doing mostly data entry. The healthcare industry (in the US) needs sweeping reform to embrace technological and sociological realities for the 2020s. The AMA is a brake on progress, and not crazy progress or "disruption," but basic things like providing more direct access to care. Insurance companies are changing some aspects, but mostly in ways that benefit them, not the individual.
- tharmas 3y agoThis high Immigration policy reminds me of China's campaign against the sparrow (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422018800259 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03064220188002...) and its one child policy. Total disasters. The bureaucrats tried to solve one problem but ended up creating new problems that were far worse.
- aaomidi 3y agoI feel like comparing this to the systemic killing of sparrows is not...correct.
- tharmas 3y agoThe similarity is in not thinking about unintended consequences of govt policy. Solve one problem but create another (or more), which might even be worse. The cure being worse than the disease, as it were. The Canadian govt sought to solve a demographics problem but have created a massive housing affordability problem. What with the climate in Canada, proper housing is a serious necessity.