how big could Canada's population get?

That's only half true. There were a lot of German, Scandinavian, Scot/Irish and Americans in the period too. The railway being completed and expanded and allowing the grain to be able reach foreign markets played a much bigger role than anything else.

The two biggest things to spur a Canadian development boom would be an earlier St. Lawrence canal and an earlier transcontinental railway. If you had the canal in the 1830s and the railway about 15 years earlier (doable, but expensive) you could probably double Canada's population by today.

I was trying to get a larger population by 1900, and was only expecting 1-2 million added by properly opening the Prairies.

I do still prefer our method of laying down the infrastructure and police services before opening it up though.
 
...And Australia has fewer still. That's because Australia and Canada are mostly deserts of one kind or another. In America, desert is the exception not the rule. You can't beat bad luck.

To be fair I'd take the Canadian "desert" over the aussie one. Canada does have the one the largest supplies of fresh water in the world. Australia not so much.

Also to bring up an earlier point both Canada and Australia received mass settlements much later than the US. In 1776 the US pop was already into the millions, Canada not even 100,000 and well Australia did have a population but it was composed entirely of Aboriginals who didn't fare so well a few years later.
 

It's

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To be fair I'd take the Canadian "desert" over the aussie one. Canada does have the one the largest supplies of fresh water in the world. Australia not so much.

Also to bring up an earlier point both Canada and Australia received mass settlements much later than the US. In 1776 the US pop was already into the millions, Canada not even 100,000 and well Australia did have a population but it was composed entirely of Aboriginals who didn't fare so well a few years later.

Fresh water isn't much use it it's frozen most of the year. Jupiter's moon Europa has plenty of (probably fresh) water too. Life needs heat and light as well as (liquid) water. This makes Arctic tundra a form of desert.

Regarding your latter point, Australia's aboriginal population was probably about 250k in 1788. Not many for 3 million square miles- and illustrates both our points about deserts and demographics!
 
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