The fact that the Toronto urban region has by far the largest concentration of population in Canada is both obvious and yet generally pushed into the background.
It is not that unusual to have one city that is dominant in a nation – London, Paris, Bangkok, Mexico City are all so-called “primate cities” that have more than twice the population of the next largest city. Toronto is not yet twice as large as Montreal, but it is getting close. But whereas London, Mexico City, Tokyo and other primate cities are national centres of attraction, Toronto seems to be regarded almost as a national and provincial embarrassment. The fact is that Toronto, because of its size if for no other reason, has a huge influence on almost everything Canadian – the economy, politics, culture, society.
Let me begin with some population numbers from the 2011 Canadian census, and below I will consider the relative significance of these. A “population centre” in the Canadian census is defined as somewhere with a population of at least 1000 and a density of 400 or more people per square kilometre. The ones listed below are all the “large urban population centres” with over 100,000 people, plus three smaller ones that are in the Greater Golden Horseshoe and part of the Toronto urban region.
Proportions and Relative Sizes
There’s one useful addition to the numbers above. The City of Toronto in 2011 had a population of 2.61 million. This amounted to:
- 7.8% of Canada’s population
- 20.4% of Ontario’s population
- a population greater than that of all provinces except B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec
The Toronto population centre in 2011 had:
- 15.3% of Canada’s population
- 40.0% of Ontario’s population
- a population greater than that of all provinces except Ontario and Quebec
The combined population centres of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area in 2011 had:
- 18.4% of Canada’s population
- 48% of Ontario’s population
The combined large population centres of the Greater Golden Horseshoe in 2011 had:
- 22% of Canada’s population
- 57.5% of Ontario’s population
The overall 2011 population of the Greater Golden Horseshoe at 9.03 million was 27% of Canada’s and 70.5% of Ontario’s population, greater than all the provinces except Ontario.
However you define it, the Toronto urban region represents a remarkable concentration of population within Canada. This has several significant implications.
Implications
First, information about processes and trends in Canada as a whole, and especially in other parts of Canada, always has to be measured against what is happening in the Toronto region. For example, a story in the Globe and Mail 25 November 2013 titled “Canada’s population continues to flow westward”, noted that at 36,800 Alberta had a record number of immigrants in the previous years, and noted that rates of immigration to Ontario had declined. It did not mention that immigration to the Toronto region, though it had declined slightly from previous years, still exceeded 80,000.
Secondly, because much of Toronto’s rise in population relative to Montreal and other cities has occurred in the last fifty years, social and other changes that have intensified over this period are even more concentrated in Toronto than its share of overall population. The GTHA has about 18% of Canada’s population, but it has at least 37% of all immigrants (compared with 20% for Canada as a whole). The GTHA has 40% of all recent immigrants and 43% of visible minorities in Canada (compared with 16% for Canada as a whole). [NOTE: these proportions are based on the 2006 Census for the Toronto, Hamilton and Oshawa CMAs, the most recent census for which they are available.)
Thirdly, the concentration of population translates directly into political representation because federal ridings are revised (through a non-partisan process) after each decanal census so that each riding has about 111,000 people. There are at present 308 federal ridings; Elections Canada indicates that following the 2011 census and in the next federal election there will be 338 ridings, 121 of which will be in Ontario, up from the current 106. About 60 of those will be in the GTHA, and 85 (or a quarter of all the ridings in Canada) in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Of course, the politicians elected will represent different parties, but the point is that federal political representation is remarkably concentrated in one relatively small part of the country.
Fourthly, the concentration of population in Canada’s urban regions, especially Toronto, is out of synch with the Canadian constitution which regards all urban areas and municipalities as servants of the provinces. This issue is excellently discussed in a 2006 paper from the Library of the Parliament of Canada on “Municipalities, the Constitution and the Canadian Federal System”, and a 2013 report from the Canadian Federation of Municipalities on the “State of Canada’s Cities and Communities”. Their main concerns appear to be fiscal and the limited ways municipalities have to raise funds (mostly through property taxes), rather than constitutional, but the fact is that cities tend to be treated like irresponsible children by their self-righteous provincial parents, while the federal government looks on like a benign grandparent that occasionally gives out favours. It’s not surprising that there have been intermittent appeals to make Toronto a province in its own right, for instance in Toronto: Considering Self-government (Ginger Press, 2000), to which Jane Jacobs contributed an introductory essay. I think I can say with considerable confidence that this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
In the meantime the sheer mass of the Toronto urban region will continue to drag most of the rest of Canada behind it, like it or not and regardless of whether they are aware of it. And even if rates of growth around Toronto begin to slow and those in current boom cities in other provinces, such as Calgary, begin to climb, simply arithmetic shows that it will take decades for this to have much impact. A growth rate of 2% in the Toronto population centre amounts to about 100,000 more people a year, Calgary will have to grow at almost 10% to match this. In short, Toronto’s demographic dominance in Canada is not going to be challenged any time soon.