The release by Statistics Canada of a second series of data from the
2016 Census on age and sex, and type of dwelling shows just how much Canada's population age distribution has changed. In 1851, 45 percent of Canada population was aged 14 years or less while only 2.5% was 65 years and older. In 2016, only 16.6 percent of the population was aged 14 years or less while 16.9 percent was aged grater than 65 years. As noted in the release, for the first time Canada's population of seniors outnumbered its children (5.9 million seniors versus 5.8 million aged 14 years or less). It is truly a new age.
When the results are examined by CMA, it turns out that large urban centers are younger than the national average. Canada had 16.9 percent of their population aged 65 years and over and 16.6 percent aged 14 years or less. In terms of seniors, the largest proportions were in Trois-Rivieres (22.3%), Peterborough (22.2%) and St. Catharines-Niagara (21.8%) while the lowest where in the west: Saskatoon (12.8%), Edmonton (12.3 percent) and Calgary (11%). As for those aged 14 years and below, the largest proportions were again in the west: Lethbridge (19.1%), Saskatoon (18.9%) and Calgary (18.8%). The smallest were in Trois-Rivieres (14.3%), Kelowna (14.2%) and Victoria (13.1%).
The two northern Ontario centers of Thunder Bay and Sudbury were generally on the older side with Sudbury coming out slightly younger. Thunder Bay ranked 8th out of 35 CMAs in the proportion of seniors (19.8%) and 32nd out of 35 in the proportion aged 14 years or less (14.6%). Sudbury was 12th in the proportion of seniors (18.3%) and 25th in the proportion of children (15.5%). Needless to say, an aging population has implications for future economic growth and these figures suggest that northern Ontario - as represented by Thunder Bay and Sudbury - faces a future of continued slower growth.
Economic growth is a function of the stock of capital, labor, resources and technology with labour force growth an important factor in long term economic growth. In general, the growth of the supply of young people in Canada has slowed considerably and participation rates of women entering the labour force have approached that of men so future economic growth from labour force growth in Canada is going to drop. One mitigating factor is immigration which can help forestall the effects of these other trends.
In the case of northern Ontario, population aging is more pronounced than either Ontario as a whole or Canada and immigration is not a big factor in offsetting this trend. The result is that slow labour force growth is going to be even more of a factor in northern Ontario's economic performance. Thunder Bay and Sudbury are poised to be among the slowest growing CMAs for decades to come if such trends are not reversed.
The accompanying figure presents the proportion of population aged 15 to 64 for Canada's CMAs and ranks them from the highest (Calgary at 70%) to the lowest (Peterborough at 63%). The population aged 15 to 64 is the economy's source for workers - the labour force. Sudbury ranks 18th highest at 66.2 percent while Thunder Bay is 24th highest at 65.6 percent. The good news is that Sudbury is currently mid-ranked across these 35 CMAs in terms of its population share in the prime working age category and even Thunder Bay is still in the middle group though at the lower end. The bad news is that in the absence of substantial new immigration or a steep increase in the birth rate, Greater Sudbury and Thunder Bay are likely to move down in these rankings in years to come and economic performance in northern Ontario will fall accordingly. As slow as economic performance in the north has been over the last few decades, it could get worse.
