The following was sent to Islands Trust Council and the Driftwood for publication.
By Erik Andersen
In keeping with your invitation to comment, I offer the following.
Statistics Canada conveniently has the nation’s population divided into two categories. First is “urban” and second is “rural”. Statistics Canada produced a chart of these two categories titled Census of Population, 1851 to 2021. Over about 170 years the “rural” population that started at around 3 million, progressed to the less than an impressive of 7 million today. In total contrast, the urban population, almost non existent in 1851, now is about about 33 million, out of a total 40 million.
I think it is safe to say that along the way, around the 1940s, urbanites captured control of the parliament of Canada and have had a choke hold ever since.
That overwhelming dominance of Canada’s economy by urbanites need not be an issue, but was and is. From the Fraser Institute we fortunately have a record of the Federal Government Net Debt, 1867 – 2015 in Billions of Dollars. The Fraser Institute chart shows the Canadian debt history remained very reasonable until about 1975 when its vector changed, from about $20 billion, going almost vertical to $692 billion by 2015.
A correlation calculation could be done but I think it is not needed, since it is clear that the dominant urban population were making the running in Canada’s economic life from which we got far too much debt. This out of balance economy is also demonstrated by the history of the division of Canada’s GDP, separated into two categories, “Goods” and “Services.” According to an Ottawa source at Finance, the ratio in the 1960s was about 60 per cent of total GDP came from “Goods” and 40 per cent from “Services.” Over the intervening 65 years Canada and BC have made a transition to about 20 per cent from “Goods” and 80 per cent from “Services”. The recent decisions by BC Ferries to buy new ferries from China and Eastern Europe is a current example of the economic model of getting what you need or want by sending out a lot of borrowed money and employment as well.
The dominant population category has taken Canada to an “order in everything we need or want” from the rest of the world economy model. This economic model has and is producing Government budget deficits (to be funded by borrowing) and the practice of “regressive” taxation, that is when citizens are required to pay taxes that do not relate to affordability. This practice has been brought into focus by a Fraser Institute Study, released July 22, 2025, having the opening headline, “Average Canadian families spent 42.3 per cent of income on taxes – more than on housing, food and clothing combined.” It is also behind the rising rates of substance addiction, deaths of despair and homelessness.
It is clear to me that the Trust is attempting to “urbanize” the “rural” islands in the Gulf of Georgia and it is my opinion that such a transformation would import very bad money habits, demonstrated by the urbanites, where our economy is turned into a new playground for the scammers and free-riders that now populate Canada’s urban centres. Hands off. “Preserve” and “Protect.”
The writer is a retired economist living on Gabriola Island.