Canadian Vital Statistics; with particular reference to the Province of Ontario

Abstract

Investigations of the mortality prevailing in Canada, whether among assured lives or the population at large, have not up to the present been frequent. Such enquiries demand, first of all, a considerable extent and precision of data, and these are seldom furnished by the records of such private corporations as do business in a new country, or by the periodical censuses undertaken by Government. As to assured lives, most of the companies now transacting the business of life assurance in Canada are recent entrants into the arena, and of such of them as are not to be included in this class, it is yet true that most of their assurances have been effected at comparatively recent dates; so that an investigation into the mortality of the lives, whether undertaken by a single company (supposing its business to be of sufficient magnitude) or by any combination of companies, would be subject to the same defects as are chargeable against the Thirty American Offices' Experience, and against many others, for all of which this example—Titanic in all respects—may stand.