Records and a nation by the numbers
Sony has decided to get back into the record business. Real records; vinyl. Of course, what goes round doesn’t always come round. The company didn’t mothball the facilities from before, so they’re reinventing the wheel. A new pressing plant. I’m intrigued, but not enough to consider buying a turntable. Someone will rip the new material to digital, and life will go on (for the rest of us).
Happened to catch a news program that explained what went on during the Suez crisis… another in a long line of events that happened when I wasn’t old enough to understand the ramifications. To condense the story into a capsule, I’m putting it into context that has Canadian importance.
Let’s see. A guy decided the canal was his (in the national sense) and the rest of the world protested. Tempers flared, and it required the intervention of Mike Pearson to a) invent peace keepers, b) get a Nobel prize and c) lose the next election. That’s a Canadian success story on so many levels. Time to see if there’s a YouTube video that covers the salient points, and then share it with my progeny. Parent as educator.
Another squirrel transport, this evening. We seem to have achieved equilibrium, with no surplus hanging around on/under the front step.
On the eve of our national holiday, Canada by the numbers:
Canada’s population is 10 times its size in 1870, the year of the first census after Confederation. Here is a closer look at the people who make up the country:
- 35.2 million: the population in 2016.
- 3.5 million: the population in 1870.
- 41: the average age of a citizen in 2016.
- 1.4 million: number of people who reported having an Indigenous identity in 2011 (4.3 per cent of the country’s total population).
- 17 million: number of people from around the world who have made their home in Canada since 1867.
- 20.6 per cent: proportion of the population listed as foreign born in 2011 (the highest among G8 countries).
- 6.2 million: number of people who self-identify as being part of a visible minority group in 2011 (the three largest identify as South Asian, Chinese and black, and make up 60 per cent of the visible minority population).
- Over 200: number of ethnic origins reported in 2011.
Canada is made up of 10 provinces and three territories, and, in terms of sheer geography, we’re the second largest country:
- 9,984,670 square km: total area.
- 5,514 km: longest distance from east to west.
- 4,634 km: longest distance from north to south.
- 1,169,561 square km: total area of fresh water.
