The discussion at Shire Hall last week of the new Watson & Associates population growth forecast for PEC was timely: it coincided with StatsCan’s release of population predictions for the country.

Those are robust. 

The high growth scenario sees Canada nearly doubling its current 41 million residents to 75.8 million by 2075. That’s 1.3 percent average annual growth. 

In the medium-growth scenario, the population reaches 57.4 million by 2075, a 38 percent increase, or a .67 percent annual growth rate. 

Right now, sharp reductions in federal immigration policy in 2025 mean the population is declining. That’s because without strong immigration, we don’t grow; we shrink. The birth rate is not high enough even to replace the population we already have. 

That also means that how fast Canada grows is a matter of federal policy. While recent overly rapid population growth strained the housing supply, transit infrastructure, and public services, and the government sharply reduced targets in response, most analysts expect a healthy rebound. Soon. 

Immigration rates will increase as sharply as they dropped, and the Canadian population will continue to grow by hundreds of thousands every year because an influx of new residents is essential to grow the labour force and the tax base as birth rates decline and the population ages. 

Sound familiar? We face the same situation in this little County; it’s just on a smaller scale. We, too, must grow the labour force and the tax base as birth rates decline and our population ages.

A report that is being brandished about 
to justify not building out 
the infrastructure developers say they need when they need it 
in fact says the opposite. 
Growth projections in the County have dropped because it cannot service 
any new housing. 

That means the debate at Shire Hall should not be, “we are not growing therefore we don’t need new infrastructure.” The opposite is the case. We are not growing because we don’t have the infrastructure. 

Developer after developer lined up at the podium last week: representatives from Base31, Sterling Homes, Port Picton Homes, Vineridge Towns, even Habitat for Humanity. Most were there in person, a couple appeared on Zoom, one sent a written statement. All said the same thing. We want to build new and affordable houses. But we cannot, because not only is the infrastructure not in place, we don’t know when it will be. 

That brings me to Watson’s newly constricted growth projection. This not only backs off its own 2023 high growth scenario of 2.4 percent a year, it fails to offer a high growth scenario at all. The 2025 report predicts only a medium growth range of about .8 to 1%. 

The arguments in favour of this curtailed horizon cite the real estate market of the past three years, which, as developer after developer noted, has been tough. People are unwilling to sell or buy or move in the current climate. 

Canada’s — and particularly Toronto’s — overpriced real estate was the main target of onerous post-pandemic interest rate increases designed to bring it down to earth. This is a good thing. It’s painful for would-be sellers, of course, but over the long term, a drop in Canada’s house prices, which are among the most unaffordable in the world, will be good for everyone. 

Arguments in favour also cite the sharply lowered immigration rate of 2025. But that, too, is a short-term variable as well as a matter of federal policy. Long term, barring an invasion from the United States, and if we can mitigate the catastrophic effects of climate change on our fragile northern climate, Canada will continue to be one of the most attractive places in the world to move to.

In short, even though long term growth projections are supposed, in fact, to consider the long term, the next 25 years, Watson’s are rooted in present circumstance in a way I find bizarre. 

Likewise, those who spoke to object to high-growth scenarios at Council last week mostly stuck to immediate concerns: tariffs, immigration levels, interest rates, and a slow housing market. 

But what if we go back and consider the national StatsCan forecast for high growth over the next fifty years? The lion’s share of population growth in Canada is in Ontario. About half of all migrants to Canada, permanent and temporary, come to Ontario. There, high growth scenarios predict an increase of about 35 percent, from the current 16 million people to 22 million over 25 years. That is a growth rate of about 1.3 percent per year.

What does that mean for the County? Eastern Ontario, where Prince Edward sits, is expected to enjoy the fastest growth in the province over the next quarter-century, from 2.1 million to almost 3 million people. Again a rate of about 1.3 percent annually. 

But according to Watson’s projections, most of that will miss us. Why? In the medium term, because we don’t have the servicing infrastructure to build new houses fast enough. The report reads: “Picton and Wellington… face municipal servicing constraints…anticipated to limit residential development over the next several years.”

A report that is being brandished about to justify not building out the infrastructure developers say they need when they need it in fact says the opposite. Growth projections in the County have dropped because it simply cannot service the new housing we need. 

If you build more affordable houses here, people will move here. That will in itself will create new jobs. Lots of them. Development charges will help to pay for the infrastructure up front — how much exactly we don’t know yet, as the County-wide Development Charges study is still underway — while the expanded property tax base will contribute millions more in taxes every year to County coffers. Those, too, will support the new infrastructure. 

Without development, the future here looks bleak. We need new water and wastewater infrastructure in Picton and in Wellington whether we like it or not. That developers are here and willing to get it built is a gift. Not every community in rural Ontario has the luxury of sitting about bickering over whether it wants more residents or not. 

If we want in on Canada’s, and Ontario’s, coming building and population boom, we need to act like it. Now.