Not in the ones you're used to.  Rather the huge difference in population make-up, that is growing ever larger, between large Canadian cities and the Rest of Canada/Québec.  Moreover the two metropolises of Toronto and Vancouver are becoming very different indeed, even from other large cities.  Two solitudes?  How good for Canada, what may be the most rapid peaceful demographic change any modern country has seen?  A change into which we have effectively sleep-walked following the Liberal government's change to a colour-blind immigration policy in 1967, and all subsequent governments' encouragement of large scale immigration--especially of the "family class".

The latest projections from Statistics Canada:

By 2031, between 25% and 28% of the population could be foreign-born. This would surpass the proportion of 22% observed between 1911 and 1931, the highest during the twentieth century. About 55% of this population would be born in Asia.

Between 29% and 32% of the population could belong to a visible minority group, as defined in the Employment Equity Act. This would be nearly double the proportion reported by the 2006 Census. The visible minority population is likely to increase rapidly among the Canadian-born, many of whom are children and grandchildren of immigrants.

The vast majority (96%) of people belonging to a visible minority group would continue to live in one of the 33 census metropolitan areas. By 2031, according to the reference scenario, visible minority groups would comprise 63% of the population of Toronto, 59% in Vancouver [emphasis added] and 31% in Montréal. In contrast, they would comprise no more than 5% of the population in St. John's, Greater Sudbury, Trois-Rivières, Québec or Saguenay...

The South Asian population, which would still be the largest visible minority group, could more than double from roughly 1.3 million in 2006 to between 3.2 million and 4.1 million. The Chinese population is projected to grow from 1.3 million to between 2.4 million and 3.0 million.

South Asians would represent 28% of the population belonging to visible minority groups, up from 25%, while the share of Chinese would decline from 24% to 21%. This is because Chinese women have one of the lowest fertility rates in Canada, unlike South Asian women. Also, people born in China have a higher propensity to emigrate than South Asians...

By 2031, the number of people having a non-Christian religion in Canada would almost double from 8% of the population in 2006 to 14% in 2031...

Within the population having a non-Christian religion, about one-half would be a Muslim by 2031 [or seven percent of the total population], up from 35% in 2006.

By 2031, according to the reference scenario, more than 71% of all visible minority people would live in Canada's three largest census metropolitan areas: Toronto, Vancouver and Montréal...

Some other large cities:

...Visible minority

2006  2031

Calgary     22      38

Edmonton  17      29

Halifax       7       12

Hamilton    12      25

London      11      22

Ottawa       19      36

Québec      2        5

Regina       7        12

Saskatoon  6        13

Victoria       10      17

Winnipeg    15      27

News stories here (interactive map), here and here.

Mark

Ottawa

Update thought: Toronto is the media capital of the RoC.  Yet that city will be vastly unlike almost any other part of the country.  A recipe for big problems I would think.  See:

The inimitable Ibbitson's Canada

Read all about it at The Torch.

Mark

Ottawa

When people feel before they think:

 

In interviews, however, two former senior commanders in the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) told the BBC that the vast majority of the money was stolen by rebels to buy weapons for their fight to overthrow the Ethiopian Government.

The claims sparked controversy, not least because one of the rebel leaders implicated was Meles Zenawi, now the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and still a leading recipient of Western aid. Previous allegations have centred on the role of the Government of Mengistu Haile Mariam, which had been accused of stealing aid and diverting food supplies away from rebel areas.

These are just allegations, about events a quarter century ago in a very desperate and politically complex part of the world. Bob Geldof might be entirely correct in dismissing the claim that 95% of the funds were diverted from starving people to gun toting rebels. The figure does seem a touch high. Yet the story has some legs, because it is plausible that something more than a small margin of aid drifted into the wrong hands. One of the perils of private charity is that givers often feel before they think. Compelled by the suffering of the victim, they fail to scrutinize the motives and methods of the charities involved. Even with the best of motives charities are sometimes duped by local conmen, both great and small. Governments are no better, indeed far worse given the track record of the welfare state. Part of the problem with both is that people regard compassion as an unquestionable emotion. You feel sorry or guilty and act to relieve those feelings, rather than trying to think through what is in the best long-term interests of the party you are trying to help. It's easier to feel than think. So much of the problem of helping those who cannot help themselves, is clouded in hazy sentimentality and overweening righteousness.

Like statist like son. Mike Layton is running for Toronto's City Council:

 

If elected, Mike Layton would be continuing a family tradition of politics.

His great-great grand-uncle was a father of confederation, his great-grandfather was a Quebec cabinet minister and his grandfather was a Liberal Party activist and a Progressive Conservative MP and cabinet minister.

Politicians breed politicians. Have any of these people held a real job? For generations?

It's everybody's fault but ours:

"Unprincipled speculators are making billions every day by betting on a Greek default," said Mr Papandreou, who met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington on Monday.

"That is why Europe and America must say 'enough is enough' to those speculators who only place value on immediate returns, with utter disregard for the consequences on the larger economic system - not to mention the human consequences of lost jobs, foreclosed homes, and decimated pensions," he added.

Strangely the Canadian dollar seems untroubled by speculators. Perhaps speculators as a class just really like Canadians? We are a lovely bunch after all. Or might speculation on Greek debt have something to do with Greece's finances looking like a dog's breakfast? Blaming the money markets is a time honoured tradition. For much of the 20th century the British government, for reasons of national prestige, tried to prop up the value of the pound sterling versus the US dollar. Trying to maintain a pre-World War One valuation, when Britain was a net creditor, well into the 1930s, by which time it was a net debtor. The change in status meant that instead of receiving dividend and interest payments from abroad, the British were now paying vast sums to finance their war debt, mostly to Americans.

This change in money flows placed a strong downward pressure on the pound, which the Treasury was obliged to prop up through purchasing, and the quasi-private Bank of England by keeping interest rates unusually high. The game could be sustained for only so long before either the Treasury ran out of money, or the Bank was forced to lower rates for domestic reasons. As a result periodic devaluations continued until the early 1970s, with the collapse of Bretton Woods. During one of the perennial sterling crises of the 1950s, the then Shadow Chancellor, Harold Wilson, quipped: "it was the end of an era, and all the financiers, all the little gnomes in Zürich and other financial centres, had begun to make their dispensations in regard to sterling." The "gnomes of Zürich" became all purpose villains for British officialdom then on. It was never the country's shoddy finances, its outdated industries or high tax rates, it was always the evil speculators. It was a politically useful bit of scapegoating.

Few people understand what speculators do, except that it involves lots of math and they make lots of money, without producing anything of obvious tangible value. Speculation, however, is vital to a modern economy. By spotting arbitrage opportunities speculators help keep markets efficient. They are constantly testing to see if something is truly worth the current market price. In effect, they are keeping everyone honest and on their toes, a sort of checks and balance system for large and highly liquid markets. Whether it's bond market vigilantes in the 1980s, George Soros forcing the pound out of the ERM in 1992, or today Greek debt being discounted like month old feta, it's an important part of keeping a market economy healthy. In many ways global financial markets are the only real check on the power of large national governments, their electorates benefiting greatly by spending their children's inheritance. The Greeks are being taken to task for their fiscal incontinence, and like schoolchildren they are blaming their teacher for the punishment they are about to receive. In one sense, however, the Greeks are not completely to blame for their actions.

They have been given license to misbehave for decades, along with the other PIGS economies, by the ultimate financiers of the European project, Germany. Just as Quebec's over generous welfare state is subsidized by Ontario and Alberta, so the hyper productive German worker has underwritten the profligacy of southern Europe. The success of both Canada's equalization programs, and the EUs literally innumerable wealth transfer schemes, rested upon moral blackmail. In the case of Quebec it was blaming English Canada for its relative backwardness up until the 1960s, and the subsequent threats of declaring independence. For Germany the situation is more obvious and painful, the guilt of two World Wars and the Holocaust. The 1940s may seem like ancient history to North Americans, but Europeans have long memories, especially when they're trying to extort money out someone else:

 

Mr Pangalos made the remarks during a wide-ranging BBC interview about Greece's financial difficulties.

"They [the Nazis] took away the Greek gold that was in the Bank of Greece, they took away the Greek money and they never gave it back," he said.

Germany has rejected the allegations, describing them as "not helpful".

Germany has been one of the harshest critics of Greece since it announced that its budget deficit was four times the eurozone limits.

Yeap. The Nazis stole a lot of stuff from a lot of people, but after three generations even the less resourceful among us are capable of muddling through, without going on the international dole. The Germans are understandably miffed. Even Teutonic patience has a limit and being blamed for the sins of not only your fathers, but your great-grandfathers as well, looks less like asking for justice and more like glorified mooching. If Europe is going to end its sclerosis it will have to be Germany that acts, the rest of the continent benefiting too much from the status quo. The German Atlas needs to shrug. Telling the Greeks where to go with their junk bonds, and decades old guilt trips, would be a wunderbar start.

Further to this post (with event details),

Afstan and Canada: Tuesday, March 9, Ottawa--come to this if you can

a story in the Toronto Star:

Canada should maintain a presence in Afghanistan even after its troops leave next year, a new report says.

But the priority needs to become building up Afghanistan's civil society, investing in education and upgrading the country's shockingly low literacy rate, according to the survey by the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee. The report draws on extensive interviews with Afghan Canadians and Afghans, ranging from war lords to women's rights activists.

Canada should not be shy about using its influence to pressure the Afghan government toward democracy, according to Terry Glavin, lead author of the report, being released Tuesday in Ottawa.

"What people told us was not to be (afraid) of treading on Afghan sovereignty," Glavin said. "We must tell the president that rule of law is important."

A blue-ribbon panel is to discuss the committee's findings Tuesday. Members include retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie; Nipa Banerjee, former head of the Canadian International Development Agency in Afghanistan; Afghan ambassador Jawed Ludin and Douglas Bland, chair of defence management studies at Queen's University [more here]...

Plus from Canwest News:

Canada needs to take 'serious look' at Afghan role: Report

Canadian officials need to "grow up" and start talking seriously about the country's role in Afghanistan once the military mission there ends in 2011, says a document to be released at a public event in Ottawa Tuesday.

"Everyone wants to know, what's Canada going to do now?" said Terry Glavin, author of the "vision document" and co-founder of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee, which produced it. "Just walk away? What was it all for?"

The document takes no issue with the plan to withdraw Canada's battle group from Afghanistan at the end of 2011.

But what many have missed, Glavin said, is that Canada's development and aid package in Afghanistan is also due to expire at the end of 2011 [emphasis added].

Yet Parliament is "paralyzed. Nobody knows what to do," Glavin said. Instead, MPs are engaging in an "elaborate work-avoidance activity" focused on the treatment of Afghan detainees more than three years ago.

"We need to have a new conversation in this country about a new mission," Glavin said. "We have to think about 2011 as the beginning of something, not the end of it."..

...the committee — made up of human-rights activists, Afghan-Canadians, academics, writers and journalists — consulted more than 100 organizations and individuals in Canada and Afghanistan...

The vision document will be released at a public event at Library and Archives Canada Tuesday night [emphasis added]...

Mark

Ottawa

Update: Audio of interview with Maj.-Gen. (ret'd) MacKenzie and Terry Glavin on CFRA Ottawa this morning:

Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Afghanistan After 2011
Madely in the Morning - 8:10am --- Steve Madely is joined by Ret'd General Lewis MacKenzie, and Terry Glavin, award-winning author and journalist. They are live in studio to promote tonight's event called "Canada and Afghanistan: Keeping Our Promises" hosted by the Free Thinking Film Society of Ottawa and is also a fundraiser for the Afghan School Project.
mp3 (click here to download)