From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Canada’s fertility rate hit a record low of 1.33 children per woman in 2022, according to a recently released report by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

A recently released report from major Canadian think tank the Macdonald-Laurier Institute has painted a dire picture for Canada’s future, noting that the nation’s marriage and fertility rates are at extreme lows and have been on the steady decline for years.  

According to the report, titled, “Decline and fall: Trends in family formation and fertility in Canada since 2001, the number of never-been-married Canadian adults has increased significantly since 2001, notably among those 45 years and younger.  

The report notes that being in a single, unmarried state for those under 30 has become the norm and that because of a decline in marriage rates, Canada’s fertility rates have been impacted as well.  

Also troubling is that amongst couples that do get married, many of them are choosing not to have kids, and those that do only have children only have one or two, which is not statistically sufficient in boosting Canada’s birth rate into positive territory.  

The report released concerning findings relating to the decline of the traditional nuclear family, noting that the proportion of those aged 25-29 who “are in a couple dropped by 10.9 percentage points between 2001-2021.” 

“Younger people are increasingly delaying marriage or common-law relationships into the late 30s or early 40s, with a growing fraction of people remaining single well into middle age,” notes the report. 

Also, Canada’s fertility rate was only “1.3 in 2022, down from 1.6 in 2016,” it noted. 

Canada’s fertility rate hit a record low of 1.33 children per woman in 2022. According to the data collected by Statistics Canada, this is the lowest fertility rate in the past century of record keeping. For context, in the same year, 97,211 Canadian babies were killed by abortion.     

Instead of promoting marriage and child-bearing, the federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has instead resorted to using immigration to boost the population.  

Governments should ‘worry’ about low birth rates 

According to Dr. Tim Sargent, Deputy Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards, as noted in the Macdonald-Laurier Institute report, “Governments have every reason to worry.”  

“The most important step in addressing these problems is perhaps… to recognize that the declining family formation, dropping marriage rates, and deteriorating fertility are serious problems facing our society, and they should be a top priority for policymakers in our country,” noted Sargent. 

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute noted that Canada needs to ensure that there are “policies that make housing more affordable, use the tax system to incentivize family growth and the raising of children, subsidize daycare, and address the rising problem of credentialism by finding ways to reduce the formal educational requirements for jobs will allow young people to marry, afford a house, and have children earlier.” 

Some positives from the report note that in Canada, despite the fact of the current Liberal government, there are “incredible benefits, both in terms of income and broader well-being” by starting a family. 

“Adjusting for economies of scale (recognizing that couples require only 1.5 the income of a single person to have the same standard of living) the average single 35-45-year-old has only 49.2 percent of the income of their coupled counterpart,” notes the report. 

“Single parent homes have approximately 35-40 percent less income per family member relative to a two-parent family.” 

The report observed that married couples have a “significantly lower incidence of, and better survival rates from both cancer and cardiovascular disease, are less stressed, and are less likely to suffer from depression and other emotional pathologies.” 

As reported by LifeSiteNews earlier this month, a survey showed that more and more Canadians are delaying the start of families due to the rising cost of living.  

Also, instead of embracing new and current life, as taught by the Catholic Church, Trudeau’s government has instead promoted abortion, contraception, and euthanasia.  

As noted by LifeSiteNews contributor Jonathon Van Maren, a recent scheme by the Trudeau Liberals to offer free contraception to all Canadians, will only worsen Canada’s current demographic crisis.  

“Canada, like any nation, needs babies. This is an obvious, undeniable fact. It is also a truth that few seem capable of uttering,” wrote Van Maren. 

“Justin Trudeau is passionate about abortion, and his government is one of the most aggressive proponents of feticide in the world. Canada’s taxpayers fund the killing of the very children we desperately need.” 

The Toronto Maple Leafs made the “what colour is that green light?” decision to fire their head coach Sheldon Keefe last week. The removal of Keefe after five years followed a dispiriting first-round playoff series loss to a very ordinary Boston Bruins team. Coaching may or may not have been the root cause of that loss. (Keefe himself admitted “teams are waiting for the Leafs to beat themselves”.)

The real reason for the firing is 1967, and we don’t think we need add more than that.

In essence, the management of MLSE— the owner of the Maple Leafs and a lot of other sports stuff in Toronto— needed to throw a body to the baying hounds of disappointment. Also known as Leafs Nation. Newly minted CEO Keith Pelley, fresh from the PGA Tour/ LIV psychodrama, was certainly not going to pay the price.

Nor was GM Brad Treliving who has only been on the job for two seasons. The key decisions on Toronto’s lopsided salary cap were decided long before Treliving occupied his desk. That left two people in vulnerable positions. 1) Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan, who has been drawing an MLSE cheque for a decade. 2) Keefe.

When was the last time you saw a coach fire a team president? Precisely. Keefe joins the list of (briefly) unemployed coaches who circulate in the NHL like McKinsey consultants. Shanahan gets a lukewarm mulligan from Pelley. But after the failure of the Kyle Dubas experiment— “who needs experience?”— and now just a single playoff series win in a decade Shanny’s best-before date has arrived.

Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan attends a news conference in Toronto on April 14, 2014. Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan said Peter Horachek will remain the team’s interim head coach until the end of the season. Shanahan met the media Friday for the first time since coach Randy Carlyle was fired on Tuesday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Depending on who he and Treliving enlist to coach— remember, Mike Babcock was too tough and Keefe was probably too player friendly— it had better produce instant results. Because Shanny, the pride of Mimico, is out of chances. The coach choice will also be affected by whichever player or players that management decides are superfluous to ending the Leafs’ ridiculous run of misery.

The Leafs brass’ press conference last Thursday did little to shed light on what happens after Keefe’s expulsion. Just a lot of MBA determinism on a bed of baffle gab. A crabby Steve Simmons question/rant briefly threatened the harmony of the moment, but order was restored. And the media bitching switched from the press box to social media and podcasts.

Speaking of the fourth estate, the other unmentioned aspect of this story— indeed every story in the NHL these days— is just how it was revealed to the public. When people sipped their morning Tim’s or Starbucks the (almost) coincident bulletins came down the social media pike about Keefe’s dismissal.

Predictably, Chris Johnston of Sportsnet and Daren Dreger of TSN announced the breaking news within heart beats of each other. While there had been speculation on Keefe’s fate for days, the announcement coming from the networks duo confirmed the story in the minds of the industry. That allowed everyone else drawing a cheque as a hockey journalist to pile in and swarm the dead body.

In today’s sports journalism, where social media has replaced newspapers, scoops are governed by a protocol. There are the heralds— in the NHL it’s currently Johnston and Dreger— and then there are the disseminators. The days of a rabble of reporters all scrambling to get a story bigger than who-will-play-in-tonight’s-game are gone. Today, it’s a very narrow funnel for scoops.

It’s the same in the NFL where Ian Rappaport (NFL Network) and Adam Schefter (ESPN) monopolize the tasty scoops on behalf of their employers, who also happen to be NFL rights holders. In the NBA, Brian Windhorst (ESPN) has the inside rail when it comes to the LeBron James/ Steph Curry scoops. In MLB… it’s probably Ken Rosenthal  (The Athletic) but no one cares about baseball anymore, do they?

The leagues like it this way, doling out stories to guys they can trust. None of this is criticism of Johnston or Dreger, who have deftly maneuvered themselves into the coveted “from their lips to your ears” spots. From our own experience we can remember the exhilaration of having the best source or sources on the really big stories. Like Johnston/ Dreger, we worked hard for a long time to develop those sources and only very reluctantly let anyone else horn in on our stories.

It was also our observation that this order of things journalistic suited a lot of reporters who either couldn’t get good sources or didn’t want the stress of being first on stuff. It was enough that, like the Keefe story, they’d get the goods eventually and most fans would not care who was first. So long as you had a take. So be it.

Some resentful types took potshots at our work if it upset their pals in the dressing room or the management suite. On the Stephen Ames/ Tiger Woods story in 2001, we had the late Pat Marsden tell us on air that we’d done a great job on Ames’ criticisms of Tiger. Only to hear him lambaste us— again on FAN 590— only minutes later as we listened driving home from the studio. But we digress.

Many reporters are complacent in playing the game, so long as their bosses didn’t enquire why they are getting scooped all the time by the same few rivals. With the death of daily newspapers that doesn’t happen much any longer. (Many editors today may only see stories when publication brings a libel notice.) For them a salty take is good enough.

The scoop business is also affected by the multiple roles now demanded of sports media types. In addition to their “day job” on a beat they also have to supply digital content and talk-back hits to the Mother Ship. Most also are feeding a weekly podcast, dictating time on air rather than time working the phone. There are only so many hours in a day to chase a story.

Better to play the Breaking News waiting game.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Now for pre-order, new from the team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin . Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey. From Espo to Boston in 1967 to Gretz in L.A. in 1988 to Patrick Roy leaving Montreal in 1995, the stories behind the story. Launching in paperback and Kindle on #Amazon this week. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/