120,000 Could Be the Tip of The Iceberg

  

A CBC story this morning stated that “applications from people around the world seeking Canadian citizenship certificates have been rising rapidly in recent months, fuelled by thousands of applications from the United States.”  Under Bill C-3, those who can prove they were descended from a Canadian ancestor even if that ancestor left several generations ago can now apply for citizenship.  Apparently, half of the applications are from the United States and the number of applications in general has soared to the point where there are now about 120,000 applications for citizenship waiting to be adjudicated and processed.

This is potentially just a drop in the bucket given that since the mid 19th century, literally several million Canadians emigrated to the United States.  The period from 1867 to 1896 prior to the opening of the Canadian west, was a period of relatively anemic economic growth in Canada and many residents of Canada crossed the border into the opportunities offered by the larger US economy.

Indeed, by the 1910 US Census, Canadians were one of the largest categories of foreigners in the United States. As estimated by G.E. Jackson in a 1923 article in the American Academy of Political and Social Science, between 1850 and 1920, 1,890,000 Canadian born citizens moved to the United States.  Figure 1 provides a chart of the numbers on Canadian net emigration to the United States provided by Jackson in his article. Note the decline after 1900 as the Canadian wheat boom era and prairie settlement and the industrialization of central Canada offered more opportunities and slowed the outflow.

 

In 1910, there were 1,204,637 Canadian born residents living in the United States.  One imagines that their descendants easily number ten-fold today.  If there are 10 to 12 million Americans of Canadian ancestry, then potentially, there could be many more applications to come regarding the recovery of lost Canadian citizenship.

Of course, it is unlikely that there will be ten million applications for lost citizenship from the United States, but the ultimate numbers could be more substantial than one might think.  In any event, this story certainly helps highlight what for many Canadians is a forgotten aspect of our past.

The Real Issue in Thunder Bay’s Municipal Election

  

With the fall municipal election looming and the slate of ward candidates being somewhat thin ahead of the August 21^st filing deadline, Thunder Bay’s municipal race is not as contested as the 2022 election – at least aside from the mayor’s chair.  That year saw six candidates vie for the mayor’s position and 54 candidates for assorted councillor positions. At present, there are seven candidates for mayor but only seventeen running for council positions with several wards having only one candidate.  There is of course still over a week to go, and one can expect more candidates to file.

There are any number of reasons why there may currently be a dearth of candidates.  One reason may simply be to keep your powder dry.  After all, once you have filed you are campaigning and become a target for others and it is useful, especially if you are established, to minimize the amount of time you have to campaign.  On the other hand, there have been a significant number of current council members who have stated they are not running again and that may indicate the positions have become less attractive for reasons ranging from compensation to social media attacks.  After all, when a ward incumbent leaves the position, one might expect it would attract more entry.

Then, there is the possibility that being a councillor does not really seem to provide much influence over municipal issues given that issues have become increasingly complex and much is being dictated by the province.  Moreover, the role of council increasingly seems to be one of simply selecting from options provided by administration transforming the role more into that of an advisory board to the city manager.   It is not that councillors cannot rear up and change things but the complexity and intractability of some of the current issues (crime, infrastructure, green space, housing affordability, homelessness) make the task particularly daunting given the abuse that comes with the process.

Of course, the real sleeper issue here is not even the current dearth of candidates but the composition of the mayor’s race.  There are seven candidates at present for the position but only one has previously held municipal office or any elected office for that matter.  Now that in of itself is not necessarily a problem.  After all, this is Canada and our current Prime Minister went into the top job without ever having held any elected office.  If a former central banker can become prime minister, then surely local businesspeople and professionals can become mayor without having previously been a mayor or councillor.

The real issue with respect to the mayor’s position is the following.  Ontario now provides for strong mayor powers that ostensibly are tied to provincial priorities such as housing, transit and infrastructure.  These powers if exercised include proposing the municipal budget (subject to a two-thirds veto by council), assuming the powers of the Chief Administrative Officer, hiring and dismissing of staff including the Chief Administrative Officer (but excluding certain positions such as the City Treasurer, police and fire chief, etc.…) and the vetoing of bylaws deemed to interfere with provincial priorities.  These can potentially be very substantial powers and to his credit, the outgoing mayor formally declared his intention not to use those powers with respect to budget issues though he did say he would consider using them regarding an issue with animal keeping bylaws.

However, there now a slate of mayoral candidates with a range of backgrounds and experiences and given what we know about them, how might they interpret and use these powers?  As we move into the fall and the election heats up, there are a number of important questions that need to be addressed and answered by anyone seeking the mayor’s chair.  Along with their “vision” for Thunder Bay, they need to explain whether or not they would seek to use strong mayor powers and what are the issues and circumstances that they believe would warrant the exercise of such powers. The presence of strong powers also requires their responsible use and we need all the information we can get on that.

 

A Trade Agreement or Economic Anschluss?

  

As the interminable trade negotiations between Canada and the United States continue, in the absence of inside information from being at the table, one is left with trying to figure out what is going on by relying on the snippets and reports that make their way into media stories.  One of the most recent accounts as to where we are at in the Globe and Mail paints a picture of Canada that runs contrary to the public “elbows up” domestic rhetoric.  Essentially, according to this report “Canada and the United States are negotiating a deal in which Ottawa would concede on a long list of Trump administration trade demands in exchange for some relief on sectoral tariffs, as talks intensify less than two weeks before another round of threatened American levies.” Indeed, the tendency towards concessions was noted in another less flattering Globe and Mail piece.

Essentially, Canada would remove its retaliatory tariffs, return U.S. alcohol to the shelves, agree to Washington’s views on dairy quotas and in return get lower tariffs on steel and aluminum, some relief on auto and forest product tariffs and avoid the August 19^th tariff increases.  However, there is going to be a baseline set of tariffs on all Canadian goods no matter what, which will be part of continuing negotiations into the fall and we are expected to make good on our purchase of F-35 fighter jets as well as make additional commitments to joint North American security which will inevitably involve more purchases of U.S. military goods. Any new United States-Mexico-Canada trade arrangement down the road will essentially be an assortment of separate managed deals as dictated by the United States united by a continued tariff albeit one that probably favours us relative to countries outside North America. 

In some respects, one would have to say that we should not be surprised if this is the outcome.  A country with 75 percent of its exports going to a single market does not have the leverage it might imagine unless it wants to play hardball on crucial exports like oil, gas, potash and electricity and the Prime Minister has already given up that card.  Ultimately not using it is one thing but stating in advance that it will not be used is something else. The Americans want tariffs because they see them as both a way to onshore production as well as a potentially lucrative source of revenue.  And whose exports are a better source of revenue than Canada and Mexico given the sheer volume of trade.  The Americans will certainly not want to reduce their “tax base” by exempting either us or Mexico. As for the fact that tariffs on our goods are paid for by American consumers – well, it is a de facto consumption tax on Americans and if Americans want to avoid it, they can consume American products.  From the Trumpian perspective it is a win-win situation despite the fact that the evidence to date suggests that this is not working as well as they would like.

Currently, what the Americans seem to be proposing is a world where they levy tariffs on us in terms of whatever goods they want and at whatever rate they choose while we continue to admit all their products tariff free as well as spend Canadian tax dollars on American military goods. After all of our elbows up rhetoric, this is the deal it would appear we are on the road to accepting.  The real question is can we come up with a better approach?  Obviously, the best approach is multilateral free trade given the shared economic and geographic space occupied by Canada, the US and Mexico but this is now not on the table.   

 I would have to venture once again that what Canada should pursue with the Americans is essentially a deal modelled in part on the 1854 Reciprocity Treaty.  Both sides would let in raw natural resource and raw agricultural imports duty free. This would satisfy our commitments as reliable providers of the goods the Americans seem to want from us.  It would also help keep food costs down for consumers on both sides.  However, all imports of non-raw-natural resource and raw agricultural imports – anything value added - could have tariffs levied on them by either side.  (For example, oil and natural gas duty free but gasoline and petroleum products could be tariffed. Milk duty free but butter and cheese can be tariffed) The rates can be jointly negotiated, or they can simply be left up to each side based on what they think their consumers can bear and what revenues each side thinks that they think they can get. It all sounds so very 19th century but these seem to be the times we are in.

Naturally, this is a not very good outcome but think back to the period between 1870 and 1930 when Canada had a much smaller domestic market and was behind a tariff wall.  There was still economic growth and while growth in an environment of free trade would have been greater, it was not an available option.  We now have a market of 40 million people and if we combine it with a set of tax reforms that lower corporate and personal income tax rates, that could help compensate for the higher costs imposed by tariffs on American imports. Add in further reductions of inter-provincial trade restrictions and we may actually achieve the internal common market that should have been brought into existence in 1867.

Freer trade with the United States was something that was achieved over several generations and when it worked it worked well for both sides. Again, it does not seem to be an available option.  Think of it another way.  If we simply accept an outcome whereby the Americans dictate all the terms and tariffs as well as well as continue to direct our military purchases towards their goods and then arbitrarily change the terms whenever they feel it is to their benefit, well in a sense you have indeed become the 51^st state but without any of the benefits.  If the Carney government negotiates a trade deal in which we essentially grant the Americans everything they want and we obtain only what they deign to grant us, then we will have negotiated an economic capitulation and Anschluss and not a trade agreement.  The choice facing the Carney government is either a smaller and slower growing protectionist Canadian economy (which some might argue we have already partly achieved with the economic policies of the last decade) or Economic Anschluss with the Americans in which the Americans receive all the economic benefits of Canada as an American territory without any of the political costs.

 

Thunder Bay, Sudbury and Ontario: More Crime Trends

  

Well, with so much data available in the recent releases of crime data from statistics Canada, another crime post is definitely in order especially as a way to mark the end of the civic holiday long weekend.  This time, a focus on Thunder Bay and Greater Sudbury with respect to trends over time given they are northern Ontario’s two largest metropolitan centers, along with a comparison to Ontario as a whole to put things in perspective.  Figure 1a presents the 2025 rates for both all-criminal code incidents (excluding traffic violations) as well as the violent crime rate for Thunder Bay, Greater Sudbury, and Ontario.  As Figure 1a shows, Thunder Bay is definitely experiencing higher police reported crime rates than either Greater Sudbury or Ontario as a whole. 

 

In 2025, Thunder Bay’s crime rate was 8,374 crimes per 100,000 population compared to 4,706 per 100,000 for Greater Sudbury and 4,297 per 100,000 for Ontario.  Thunder Bay’s crime rate in 2025 was 95 percent greater than Ontario and 10 percent more than Greater Sudbury.  In terms of violent crime, Thunder Bay’s rate was 2,249 per 100,000 compared to 1,177 for Greater Sudbury and 1,078 for Ontario. Violent crime in Thunder Bay in 2025 was109 percent greater than the Ontario rate whereas Greater Sudbury was 9 percent more. 

As well, Figure 1b shows the homicide rate in Thunder Bay for 2025 was 6.1 per 100,000 while in Sudbury it was 4.1 per 100,000 and only 1.3 per 100,000 in Ontario as a whole.  Needless to say, crime rates in Thunder Bay and Sudbury are above the rates for Ontario as a whole but Thunder Bay in general is double the Ontario rate while Sudbury is only about 10 percent more.  However, in terms of homicides, both cities were well above the Ontario rate in 2025 with Thunder Bay 369 percent greater than Ontario as a whole and Sudbury 215 percent greater.

Figure 2 presents a dual scale chart for Ontario with total crimes and violent crimes per 100,000 on the left vertical axis and the homicide rate per 100,000 on the right.  Observations for the three series are plotted from 1998 to 2025 with a linear trend fitted to each series.  If one looks at the three raw series, crime rates including violent crimes and homicides generally declined from 1998 to about 2014 and then started to rise.  Over that period, the crime rate in Ontario went from 7,019 per 100,000 to 3,549 per 100,000 while the violent crime rate declined from 1,222 to 789.  Homicides also fell from 1.4 to 1.2 per 100,000. However, since then, all have increased with the crime rate in 2025 reaching 4,297 per 100,000, violent crime reaching 1,078 and the homicide rate up to 1.3 per 100,000.  In terms of an overall trend, violent crime and total crime rates over the 1998 to 2025 period still trend downwards but the homicide rate in Ontario now shows a rising long-term trend.

 

Figures 3 and 4 present parallel charts for Thunder Bay and Greater Sudbury.  Both cities follow patterns similar to the rest of the province in that overall crime and violent crime rates decline from 1998 to 2014 and then start to rise with the overall linear trend being downward for the overall 1998 to 2025 period.  Both also show noticeable rising homicide rates over the long term and declining overall crime rates when a linear trend is fitted to the 1998 to 2025 data. In the case of violent crime over the 1998 to 2025 period, Thunder Bay shows a declining violent crime rate when the linear trend is fitted while Greater Sudbury shows a gently rising violent crime rate trend.

 

 

Nevertheless, crime is a matter of both level and trend when making comparisons so Figures 5 and 6 focus on the two most serious categories –violent crimes and homicides – to compare Thunder Bay, Greater Sudbury, and Ontario more directly.  Figure 5 presents the violent crime rates and shows that Thunder Bay and Ontario do indeed trend down while Greater Sudbury trends up over the 1998 to 2025 period.  However, when one looks at the gap between Thunder Bay, Sudbury and Ontario, based on the trends, it will be the end of the 21st century when Thunder Bay matches Sudbury’s violent crime rate while it looks like it will always be double the Ontario rate. 

 

 

Things look somewhat worse when it comes to the homicide rate (see figure 6).  Both Thunder Bay and Greater Sudbury have seen a major spike in their homicide rates since 2020 which has pulled their trend lines upwards.  However, Thunder Bay is definitely in a class of its own with a level of homicides as well as an upward trajectory that makes the homicide rates in Greater Sudbury and Ontario look modest by comparison.  However, it was not always so. Up until 2008, while homicide rates in both Greater Sudbury and Thunder Bay fluctuated around the Ontario numbers, they tended to parallel each other. Indeed, for the 1998 to 2008 period, the average annual homicide rate (per 100,000 population) in Thunder Bay was 1.4, Greater Sudbury 1.4, and for Ontario it was 1.5.  For the 2015 to 2025 period, the average homicide rate in Thunder Bay was 6.1 while for Greater Sudbury it was 2.2 and for Ontario 1.6.

Taken over the long run, Thunder Bay has always had generally higher crime rates than Ontario as a whole and the gap has been fairly consistent.  However, its reputation as Ontario’s “murder city” is a relatively recent phenomenon. Thunder Bay’s average homicide rates were not out of line with the rest of the province prior to 2008 and it has only been since then that homicide rates in Thunder Bay have soared. It is indeed an interesting question as to what factors are responsible for the increase since 2008.  What is it about the post 2008 period that makes that year in Thunder Bay such a break with the past when it comes to homicides? Sudbury has seen a similar type of spike in homicide rates since 2015 though it remains to be seen if that new upward trend will continue.  Given that this is a municipal election year in Ontario, these numbers should be an interesting focus for debate.