OTTAWA, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) –– Canada’s birth rate is continuing to plummet, reaching yet another all-time low.
According to Statistics Canada’s latest births and stillbirths’ data released on September 25, in 2023 10 of the 13 provinces and territories recorded a new record low birth rate, with the national average clocking in at just 1.26 children per woman.
Characterizing the new data, Statistics Canada announced that the country has “joined the group of ‘lowest-low’ fertility countries, including South Korea, Spain, Italy, and Japan, with 1.3 children per woman or less.”
By comparison, the United States’ overall fertility rate was 1.62 per woman in 2023.
When looking at the data, the province of British Columbia had the lowest fertility rate at 1.00 children per woman. The province with the highest fertility rate was Saskatchewan, which still stood at a low figure of 1.63. The northern territory of Nunavut had the highest birth rate out of any major jurisdiction in the country, at 2.48.
As for the other provinces, Quebec’s birth rate came in at 1.38, with Ontario’s at 1.22, Alberta’s at 1.41, and Manitoba’s at 1.52. Atlantic provinces’ rates were extremely low, with Nova Scotia’s clocking in at just 1.05 births per woman.
In order for a country to maintain its population, the birth rate must be 2.0 or higher, with it needing to be at least 2.1 births per woman for a nation to grow irrespective of immigration.
The statistics also revealed that not only are Canadian women not having babies but when they do, they are older than before. The average age of first-time mothers is now 31.5 years, up from 27.5 in 1991.
In total, there were 351,878 babies born in Canada in 2023, a number that would be much greater if not for abortion. For context, in 2022, 97,211 Canadian babies were killed by abortion.
Overall, Canada’s birth rate has been on the decline for decades. Canada’s current Liberal federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been heavily promoting contraception and abortion, instead using immigration as a means of growing the population.
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.”
Like abortion, contraception is condemned by the Catholic Church as gravely sinful. The Church also makes clear that abortion, contraception and other anti-life interventions are contrary to natural law, and thus their moral impermissibility is knowable by all through reason.