You are confusing fertility levels with birth rates. The fertility levels can be below replacement (the 2.1 you cited) while still producing natural (e.g. exclusive of immigration/emigration) population growth, at least in the near-term; Canada is an example of this, for a more extreme example see South Korea. There are still more births than deaths in Canada (the birth rate), which means there is still natural population growth, absent immigration, however slim.
Also, neither you nor anyone else can definitively claim the birth rate and/or fertility level cannot rise in the future; this assertion rests on the laughable notion that birth rates were even higher before the post-WW2 baby boom, in which case there would've been no boom at all. We have no way of predicting future conditions, just as prior generations had no way to predict the conditions we live under today.
That makes sense to cite the difference in those two rates, but it still doesn’t change the point I made about populations decling eventually. As of now, more people are being born that dying, but the point is that will change as the larger generation(s) (ie the oldest) moves on over the next however many decades. Don’t think there’s any disagreement there.
I also don’t disagree with you on your second point about not being able to predict things. The further out you get, the more impossible the task becomes. That being said, there is a fair amount we can deduce about the near future on some economic fronts (note “fair amount”) considering we know pretty accurately how many 18 year old natural born citizens will exist in Canada in a decade (a relative few will meet tragic passing and the rest of the current 8 year olds will be that age). Of course there is emigration out of Canada, immigration into Canada, as we’ve already talked about and numerous other factors. But in terms of the next however many decades, where it is possible to predict with SOME accuracy, these are the kinds of things an investor is looking at.
Anyways, overall population is but a small part of the equation. It’s a great topic to discuss but I don’t want to put too much weight into it in the realm of this thread. There’s plenty of reasons that make expansion into Canada challenging from a business sense (and given the lack of actual market competition amongst franchises) for the foreseeable future. It is too bad because Canada obvoisly has a higher concentration of true fans deserving of a team. But unfortunately, the highest professional league is a multi billion dollar corporation whose main driver is money