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100,000,000 Canadians by 2100! A tripling of Canada’s population over the next eight decades is the objective of a new organization, the Century Initiative. Canada needs to “get bigger, a lot bigger,” says one of the organization’s leaders.

It’s a long shot, that 100 million.

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But a report Thursday from the Trudeau government’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth boldly proposes that Canada boost annual immigration to 450,000. While the council stopped short of mentioning a target, immigration at that rate would easily propel Canada to 100 million before the end of the 21st century.

It seems preposterous at a time when much of the rest of the world has become increasingly wary of immigration — from Trumpian America to Brexit Britain and xenophobic Europe — that Canada might break from the pack.

But we could. And we should.

The immigration targets were only one part of the advisory council’s three major policy recommendations. Far more important — or so it seemed — were the big idea of a $200-billion federal infrastructure development bank and a new push to attract foreign investment. The dramatic political innovation in the report, however, was the call for a rethinking of Canada as a larger, fatter and more prosperous nation.