Maximum Canadian Population?

Anyway, where would most of the extra people end up? I'm guessing the province ratios would be quite different, but I'm not sure how different.
 
Canada is freezing in most parts of it and as a result i don't think it can support such a population on it's own, it could import food though.
 
True ,but with a significately larger population you won't be able to feed that population on your own and will need to import food.

Eventually.
Yeah, we aren't going that big though. I think the 50-55 million mark seems reasonable.
 
By when?

Canada has roughly 45 million hectares of arable land, roughly nine times that of britain, 4 times that of Germany, or 2 and a half times france. Currently a fair chunk of that is not utilized. And a lot produces cash crops for export like mustard and canola.

I don't really find it implausible that canada could feed an inherent population of 100 million, given we have the same amount more or less of arable land as western europe. And with modern mechanized farming probably a lot more. As long as people like bread and potatoes anyway. I don't think food is going to be a limiting factor. More like finding people to live here.
 
By when?

Canada has roughly 45 million hectares of arable land, roughly nine times that of britain, 4 times that of Germany, or 2 and a half times france. Currently a fair chunk of that is not utilized. And a lot produces cash crops for export like mustard and canola.

I don't really find it implausible that canada could feed an inherent population of 100 million, given we have the same amount more or less of arable land as western europe. And with modern mechanized farming probably a lot more. As long as people like bread and potatoes anyway. I don't think food is going to be a limiting factor. More like finding people to live here.

Yes, although I suspect that all arable land is not necessarily the same, Canada could probably feed quite a lot more locals than it currently has. The biggest difficulty is getting so many more people to move there with post-1900 PODs: it would be easier with an earlier POD (France and the Spanish, and, oh, the Portuguese colonize the territory of OTLs USA, British start colonizing Canada in 1600-and-a-bit)

Bruce
 
Assuming you can main a 30%/decade (slightly below 2.7%/year) increase from the turn of the century, you're still only at about 75 million by the turn of the millennium.
 
Let's say the Know Nothings are also combined with the Manifest Destiny ideology with a xenophobic undertone, so that only white, British-descended Protestants have a God-given duty to take over all of North America. For whatever reason, the US fails to claim the Oregon Territory. Canada, a vast and empty landmass loyal to a heretical crown, should be the first takeover target of the US. In order to pre-empt such a threat, Britain thus commences an open door immigration policy towards the Canadian Prairies much earlier than OTL, claiming that anyone who is sincere can claim loyalty to Her Majesty. By the present day the Prairie provinces have 10 million people. 15 million in BC and Oregon, and five million in the Atlantic provinces, and Canada has almost 50 million today.

The prairies can't really be settled any faster. The reason it took long in OTL was availability of transportation to the prairies and available crops for planation. You'd need a way earlier trans-continental railroad and earlier crops suited for the harsh Canadian climate.
 
Yes, although I suspect that all arable land is not necessarily the same, Canada could probably feed quite a lot more locals than it currently has. The biggest difficulty is getting so many more people to move there with post-1900 PODs: it would be easier with an earlier POD (France and the Spanish, and, oh, the Portuguese colonize the territory of OTLs USA, British start colonizing Canada in 1600-and-a-bit)

Bruce

Well technically the POD I'm planning to work with is in the 1860s, but there isn't any major change until the 1900s (apart from a lot less French Canadians moving to the US).
 
Well I'm going to start posting some demographics info to run by everyone starting, well probably next week since I'll be down in the Horseshoe after my exam.
 
Yeah, I think unless global warming starts making some of Canada's land more livable, ~50 million people is your upper limit.

Canada could have a population of 50 million and still export food in large amounts, not to mention Canada's fisheries could support many.

Beedok, I'd say if you are wanting to aim fairly big population with OTL borders a population of 55-60 million is probably about the upper limit. As far as distribution, if you are earlier settling the prairies you could conceivably expand Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton to make them roughly the size of Vancouver, but a lot of that additional population is going to land in Ontario, making Toronto a million-population city in the early 20th Century (OTL, this didn't happen until after WWII), Ottawa would be considerably bigger than now, as would Hamilton, London, Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, St. Catherines, Windsor, Kingston and Peterborough. If you are dumping more population on the Prairies, you could also expand Saskatoon and Regina into bigger cities.

By 2010, you'd have the Toronto area about 7.5 million (OTL: 5.7 million), Montreal about 5.5 million (OTL: 3.8 million), Vancouver about 4.5 million (OTL: 2.4 million), Calgary about 2.5 million (OTL: 1.3 million), Edmonton about 2 million (OTL: 1.2 million), Ottawa and Winnipeg about 1.5 million (OTL: 1.1 million for Ottawa, 740,000 for Winnipeg). The Prairie Provinces would have rather more political clout than now, but the possibility of moving Canada's economic center of gravity that far west of OTL is unlikely.

But that's just my $.02. :)
 
I'm Canadian and occasionally I've had fantasies of seizing power, imposing a totalitarian dictatorship, and sending political undesirables to camps in Nunavut. In all seriousness Canada's north is sparsely populated compared to equivalent Russian areas. Is it possible to have more than a million people in the territories, ideally without the equivalent of Stalinist gulags?
 
I'm Canadian and occasionally I've had fantasies of seizing power, imposing a totalitarian dictatorship, and sending political undesirables to camps in Nunavut. In all seriousness Canada's north is sparsely populated compared to equivalent Russian areas. Is it possible to have more than a million people in the territories, ideally without the equivalent of Stalinist gulags?
Send them to the North-West Territories, not Nunavut. Nunavut is for the Inuit.
 
Send them to the North-West Territories, not Nunavut. Nunavut is for the Inuit.

There is a decent point here in that Nunavut mostly (especially where what population does exists is) a collection of islands with only sometimes navigable coasts. At least the Northwest and Yukon are largely mainland with all that implies for infrastructure if we do get significant population in place. Really though I'd put my focus on developing Inuvik if there was going to be a big push into the north.
 
There is a decent point here in that Nunavut mostly (especially where what population does exists is) a collection of islands with only sometimes navigable coasts. At least the Northwest and Yukon are largely mainland with all that implies for infrastructure if we do get significant population in place. Really though I'd put my focus on developing Inuvik if there was going to be a big push into the north.

Inuvik would be one such place. If we're talking about going north, discovering a huge mineral find there that causes the growth of industries in the far north (i.e. lots of Inuviks, not just a few smaller towns) would do a lot of that.
 
Here's a map of the rough provincial boundaries I'm planning and their modern OTL populations. Which ones do you think would likely be the most increased? (I'm guessing the Prairies for sure, and BC too).

canpop.png
 
Here's a map of the rough provincial boundaries I'm planning and their modern OTL populations. Which ones do you think would likely be the most increased? (I'm guessing the Prairies for sure, and BC too).

Well Ottawa which I assume is NC (i.e. National Capital?) can easily be twice size. Peace Province can also be bigger with an earlier discovery/exploitation of the oil sands. Assinibonia also strikes me as a place that could get a substantial population boost. I'm not sure about Gaspe and New Brunswick but you could probably jam another 100,000 in each with a few more mill towns. Ontario (Toronto), Montreal and British Columbia (Vancouver) as major global cities can easily hand have another million or two each.
 
Here's a map of the rough provincial boundaries I'm planning and their modern OTL populations. Which ones do you think would likely be the most increased? (I'm guessing the Prairies for sure, and BC too).

Yes, Prairies for sure would go up, particualrly Peace, as Edmonton is well inside its territory and the oil sands being developed earlier (perhaps Britain decides to get to making them work in WWII?) would massively increase the population of that territory. (It's also not too bad in terms of land, either.) If you could get a Vancouver Island bridge built you could grow that number, too, and one could get Stikene-Haida bigger through making the cities of Prince Rupert and Kitimat somewhat bigger, and perhaps building a railroad to Alaska along the route of the Alaska Highway.

The National Capital Region, as others have pointed out, could be far bigger, and if Toronto is the bigger city than OTL I mentioned earlier than Ontario will likely be more than 6.8 million. Assiniboia seems somewhat on the small side for a bigger population Canada, too. To be honest, I don't see the point of Quebec not owning the northern part of its province, or at least splitting it between Outaouais and Cote Nord.

I'd be aiming for with those territories (Capital City):

Newfoundland and Labrador (St. John's): 875,000
Nova Scotia (Halifax): 1.85 million
Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown): 200,000
New Brunswick (Fredericton): 850,000
Gaspe (Murdochville): 600,000
Quebec (Quebec City): 3.2 million
Montreal (Montreal): 6.25 million
National Capital Region (Ottawa): 2.5 million
Ontario (Toronto): 8.75 million
Lower Canada (London): 7.1 million
Outaouais (Timmins): 1.2 million
Cote Nord (Sept-Iles): 300,000
Superior (Sault Ste. Marie): 900,000
Manitoba (Winnipeg): 2.5 million
Keewatin (Thompson): 200,000
Assiniboia (Regina): 750,000
Saskatchewan (Saskatoon): 1.4 million
Athabaska (Prince Alberta): 300,000
Alberta (Calgary): 4.5 million
Peace (Edmonton): 3.7 million
British Columbia (Kelowna): 6.5 million
Vancouver Island (Victoria): 1.7 million
Stikene-Haida (Prince Rupert): 325,000
Yukon (Whitehorse): 100,000
Northwest Territories (Yellowknife): 225,000

Total: 56.775 million
 
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