Irvin Studin is the Founder, Editor-in-Chief & Publisher of Global Brief magazine, and President of the Institute for 21st Century Questions (Toronto). He has been called one of the world’s leading international policy thinkers for his generation. 

Since I wrote “Canada – Population 100 Million” in GB’s Spring/Summer 2010 issue, a bona fide national debate has taken hold about the merits and demerits of Canada having a total population of 100 million by the end of this century.
—
Will a population of 100 million not result in a Canada that is dirtier, less effective in stewarding its natural beauty?
—
While Canada’s carbon footprint will surely be larger (though not necessarily far larger as a proportion of global emissions), this same Canada will have much greater diplomatic weight in international affairs.
—
Huge investments can be made in environmental science to make Canada the global leader (with no qualifications attached to this avocation) in this field, developing and attracting the world’s best scientists to the country and to its scientific and academic institutions.

This will change at 100 million, and the favourable impact of the change will, in the net, significantly outweigh the aggregate impacts of the environmental pressures that will accompany a far larger and energetic Canada.
–
In this eighth of a series of micro-lectures to mark the 10th anniversary of Global Brief Magazine, Editor-in-Chief & Publisher Irvin Studin returns to his classic 2010 GB article, “Canada – Population 100 Million,” which created significant national and international debate. He outlines the three most important, but perhaps least appreciated, qualifications, nuances or complications to Canada getting to a population of 100 million by the year 2100.