Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard: Confronting Canada's fertility crisis
The devaluation of the family causes demographic decline and social problems that neither the state nor the market can solve alone.
In recent months, the issue of birth rates has risen to prominence in Quebec politics. After the subject had long been taboo, data showing a historic low in fertility in 2024 and 2025, at around 1.35 children per woman, has sparked a new consensus among politicians. Elected officials from all parties, with the exception of the left-wing party Québec Solidaire, now see this as a problem for the future of the welfare state and the Quebec nation.
From a Quebec perspective, the way this issue is treated in English Canada is perplexing. Fertility is much less prominent in the public debate. Birth rates are sometimes even treated as an exclusively Quebec issue, almost as a reproach, on the grounds that Francophones are being inconsistent by wanting to protect their identity while accepting fewer immigrants, even as their birth rate has hit a historic low. This criticism is not without merit, since a nation without children has no future, but one still wonders whether English Canada is aware that its own birth rate has been even lower than Quebec’s for the past 20 years.
Read Deputy Editor Kate Marland’s front-page feature in the National Post on how ‘Anti-family propaganda has devastated a generation of women’.
Canadians want two children but have only 1.25 on average
According to the latest available data, from 2024, Canada’s fertility rate stands at 1.25 children per woman, ranging from a high of 1.5 in the Prairies to 1.02 in British Columbia. Quebec was slightly above the average at 1.34. These figures all fall short of what is considered ‘replacement fertility’ at 2.1 children per woman. Doesn’t Canada care about its economic and cultural future too? Given these figures, Canada certainly should discuss the issue.
Above all, this situation is not the result of mere individual choices. A new Cardus study by researcher Lyman Stone documents a widely known fact: Canadians’ desired number of children is significantly higher than the number reflected by their actual fertility rate. Both men and women would like to have an average of two children, indicating a troubling gap of about 0.75 children between families’ ideals and their actual outcomes.
There are many reasons for this gap. Survey respondents cite material challenges, such as being unable to afford basic necessities, housing, or child care. The declining birth rate is therefore related, at least in part, to the cost-of-living crisis that particularly affects young adults as they reach the age at which they might start a family. Other factors related to life trajectories fall under what Mike Moffatt and Cara Stern call the ‘milestone recession’, which delays or limits young people’s ability to reach important milestones of adulthood, such as stable employment, home ownership or marriage. The drop in births across the country may well be a symptom of disillusionment among young Canadians, who increasingly feel that, despite their best efforts, they may be unable to achieve the same standard of living as their parents.
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A winning issue for the Conservatives
This generational anxiety is undoubtedly one of the reasons why more and more young people have turned to the Conservative Party since Pierre Poilievre took the helm and made it central to his campaign. Stone’s study also reveals a significant gap between the desire for children among right-wing and left-wing voters in Canada: women who voted for the right want, on average, 0.34 more children than those who voted for the left, and right-wing men want 0.92 more children than their left-wing counterparts. That said, on both the left and the right, the gap between the desired family size and the actual birth rate remains.
Do these marked differences mean that young people who aspire to start a family are shifting towards the right, or are they, rather, the product of a left-wing ideology that too often devalues the family? It is difficult to say, but these differences nevertheless indicate that this unfulfilled desire for children represents fertile ground for the Conservative Party; that desire exists across the country and is more pronounced among Conservative voters.
Thus, we must applaud the proposal put forward last May by the MP Garnett Genuis to improve the parental leave currently available in Canada. He proposes a more flexible form of leave that can be spread over 18 months and combined with study or vocational training. He also proposes that parents who care for other children during their leave, for example through babysitting or a home-based daycare service, should not be penalised for doing so.
This more ‘social’ perspective deserves greater prominence on the right and in the public debate. Unlike a strictly economic perspective, it recognises that human beings are not primarily workers; they also belong to a family, a community and a nation. Time spent with family matters, and it is only natural that our family policies prioritise it, rather than focusing solely on getting young parents back to work as quickly as possible.
More broadly, the birth rate crisis currently facing the country should remind us that no society, whether liberal or social-democratic, can survive without strong families. The family is the basic unit of a nation, the first place where solidarity is expressed and a school of virtue. Its devaluation leads not only to demographic decline but also to social problems that neither the state nor the market can solve alone, such as the loneliness epidemic, homelessness and the housing crisis. Thus, it will be impossible to rebuild the nation and social cohesion in our time without restoring the family to the central role it deserves in our social order.
While progressives increasingly look down on the family as an obsolete or oppressive institution, conservatives are the only ones capable of leading this restoration.
Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard is a contributing editor at Without Diminishment, an author and researcher at Cardus. His latest book, Anti-Civilization: Why Our Societies Are Collapsing from Within, was published in September 2025 by Presses de la Cité. He was formerly a speechwriter and strategic planning advisor in the office of the Premier of Québec.
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This is an issue conservatives have raised and lead on, and I believe resonates strongly with most young ppl. Family formation is being delayed (or eliminated) in life plans bec starting careers and home purchases are increasingly difficult. I do agree the Libs and NDP have been mostly absent from this discussion, too. So yes, I agree this is something conservatives should continue to lead on bec it’s important to young ppl and our greater society.
You lost me at the last paragraph: "While progressives increasingly look down on the family as an obsolete or oppressive institution, conservatives are the only ones capable of leading this restoration."