06-04 The Future

It would be presumptuous to pretend to forecast the future with any accuracy. So much change is inevitable. To begin, we have artificial intelligence, whatever the hell that is. And we have an aging population. How about changes in culture as the result of immigration. And, in communications, we have as many people getting news off web-sites as television.
Then there is the possibility that there are other life-forms beyond earth. How about war and peace. And what about future inventions we cannot even imagine today that can change the way we live. The cartoon says it all regarding how confusing it is to talk about the future.
In the mid 1980s officials of the Department of Manpower and Immigration gave a presentation to the federal cabinet and the leadership of the business community that I will never forget.
Without getting techy they said that the so-called white population, representing Canadian descendants from Europe where not having enough children to replace themselves. This means there will not be the necessary future taxpayers to support our public pension systems and health care. The only answer is immigration.
And this demographic reality is a problem for all the developed economies. I remember them explaining that this is not as acute a problem for the United States, because their Hispanic population were having relatively large families.
And you can see the results today when you go on the subway in Toronto and see more Hispanics and Asians than whites. But I love it when young Chinese Canadians jump up to give my wife and myself a seat. It feels like our culture is changing but for the better rather than for the worse.
Smart political parties will embrace multi-cultural societies and immigration to stay in power in the future. The problem with what is called the Trump effect on politics that attempts to bring the uneducated white population together as a political force is that this is a shrinking part of the population.
In my opinion, what is call nationalist populist economics is just a current political phase. And it is about whites not having babies more than about whites that cannot find jobs.
One of the ways Canada has more successfully dealt with the reality of free trade and open borders is having a better social underpinning with generous health care and public pension schemes.
One of the more surprising statistics provided at our special briefing was that in every category, such as job creation, incomes earned and taxes paid, immigrants out-perform those born in Canada.
So, to me demographics is probably the strongest predictor of future political activity.
But then we have what is called artificial intelligence which is about machines thinking like humans. That is machines with the ability to reason, plan, source knowledge, and learn. The easiest example to explain this technology is self driving cars. Or how about self driving trucks putting millions out of work.
But all these technologies can create new forms of enterprise and new kinds of jobs. Media stories always ignore the potential good news about change. And why? Good news is not newsy.
It does not seem to be an amazing predictor of the future when today people are getting as much of their news off web-sites as off television. Young people, anyway. So, we can say with confidence that social media is becoming mainstream and impacting politics. Unfortunately, a lot of what you read on social media is not prepared by professional journalists. In that sense, social media as a source of news is dangerous.
My life’s work in politics, heading up a political advocacy group called the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, was to ensure that society does not become centralized around the forces of big government, big business and big labour by promoting public policy that encourages and supports small scale enterprise everywhere.
It would be my judgement call looking at the future of politics is that concentration of power is a greater political threat than demographics or technology. Nothing has changed, in other words.
That’s the way I see it anyways.