Woke up this morning with a small hand tugging at my pyjamas.
鈥淚t鈥檚 Mother鈥檚 Day,鈥� the child said. 鈥淲hat shall we make her for breakfast? Bacon and eggs? No, she doesn鈥檛 eat bacon. How about pancakes?鈥�
I opened one bleary eye, saw a boy of about eight: 鈥淲ho are you?鈥�
鈥淚鈥檓 Bob, your temporary foreign child,鈥� the boy replied.
鈥淧补谤诲辞苍?鈥�
鈥淵ou are the Tremblays, are you not?鈥� he asked, frowning at a clipboard. 鈥淒on鈥檛 tell me I came to the wrong house. Gosh, that鈥檚 embarrassing. Sorry, I鈥檓 new to the country.鈥�
鈥淲here are your parents?鈥� I demanded.
鈥淭he Tremblays are my new parents,鈥� he beamed. 鈥淎t least, they are for the next two years. Then 鈥� poof 鈥� I get shipped back to my dusty village when Canada is done with me.鈥�
鈥淪o you鈥檙e an immigrant?鈥�
鈥淥h no, immigrants get to stay. I鈥檓 just here under the Temporary Foreign Child Program, filling a critical need when no qualified 91原创 citizen or permanent resident is available.鈥�
鈥凌别补濒濒测?鈥�
鈥淐anada鈥檚 Economic Action Plan, working for you,鈥� he replied hastily. It sounded memorized.
I had to admit, there was a certain logic to this temporary-child notion, though. Canada has had a shortage of children for years, much more pronounced than any lack of skilled workers.
They say a country needs a fertility rate 鈥� the average number of children per woman 鈥� of 2.1 to maintain a stable population without bolstering it through immigration. Canada hasn鈥檛 hit that level since 1971. For the past four decades, we have been burying more than we birth, a trend that gives nervous economists kittens (though not babies).
Canada鈥檚 fertility rate peaked at 3.94 in 1959, bottomed out at 1.51 in 2002, inched up slightly after that, but then began nosing down again in 2008.
As of 2011, it was languishing around 1.61, with B.C.鈥檚 rate of 1.42 trailing every other province and territory in Canada. That鈥檚 lower than Roberto Luongo鈥檚 goals-against average.
Evidence of our near-childless society is everywhere. The demographic teeter-totter has tilted in favour of the grey-haired: the 2011 census showed seniors now outnumber minors in the capital region. The Greater Victoria School District has seen enrolment fall from a high of 32,000 around 1970 to 18,700 today, even as the overall population has grown.
The shift is particularly evident up-Island, magnified over the last generation by the collapse of the resource industries. When the mills closed and the fisheries dried up, families moved out, their homes often snapped up by empty-nest retirees and seasonal residents.
Up in Tahsis, just 36 students roam a school built for 400. In Woss, seven kids echo around one that used to have 200. Places like Echo Bay, Youbou, Union Bay and Quatsino are hollowed out, no school at all.
The remaining small-town kids lose out. Play dates require three days of travel. School bands become quartets. Sports groups fall short of players. For a while, Gold River鈥檚 high school had to drop its basketball team, go with three-on-three tourneys instead, though the program has since rebounded (as it were).
So, yes, you can see the attraction of bringing in temporary foreign children on short-term contracts to fill the holes left by the dearth of native-born youngsters.
鈥淲e have many advantages,鈥� Bob said, as though reading my mind.
鈥淲e can fill out the bench on the hockey teams, play the tuba (nobody wants to play the tuba) in music class, sell Girl Guide cookies, give adults an excuse to buy fireworks on Halloween.
You know all those Gulf Islanders who complain they have been cut off from their grandchildren by high ferry fares? Bob would be happy to go from house to house, collecting cookies and loose pocket change.
鈥淏est of all, you can boot us out when we鈥檙e no longer cute. We鈥檙e like puppies you can return to the store when they get too big. No worry about eye-rolling insolence as the children age. No teenage pregnancies. No expensive weddings to pay for.鈥�
Well, yes, but it really did seem like a one-sided arrangement, tossing out people when we鈥檙e done with them 鈥� just as we do with temporary foreign workers.
I shrugged. 鈥淲e鈥檒l have pancakes,鈥� I told Bob. 鈥淎nd don鈥檛 forget to call your mother back home.鈥�
