Population continues to surge despite concerns on housing
Unsplash/Katie Moum
Canada’s surging population showed no signs of letting up in the first three months of this year, with international migration continuing to grow at near record pace.
The number of people living in Canada jumped by 242,673 between January and March, bringing the country’s population above 41 million for the first time, the national statistics agency reported this week. The population is growing at an annual clip of more than 3 per cent, the fastest since the 1950s and three times the average over the post WWII era.
SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA
Canada added almost 243,000 people in the first quarter, bringing the total population above 41 million for the first time.
Almost all of the increase over the past year was driven by flows from international migrants — one third of these were immigrants and the other two-thirds non-permanent residents such as foreign students and temporary workers.
The pace of population growth is unsustainable and has exacerbated the nation’s housing affordability crisis, prompting the government to pledge it will scale back inflows of non-permanent residents.
Data released from Statistics Canada shows the country’s population grew by about 1.3 million over the past 12 months.
The governing Liberal Party has said non-permanent residents — currently numbering about 2.8 million people — should make up no more than 5 per cent of the Canadian population in three years. That implies a reduction of about 500,000 in the category over that period — a move that would reduce the pace of population growth to about 1 per cent annually.
The quarterly figures from Statistics Canada predated the government’s announcement of new targets. But the numbers show just how abrupt the reversal of foreign student and temporary worker inflows will need to be in order to curb population growth.
Tepid GDP growth
The increase in immigration has helped support the economy, keeping it out of a recession. Gross domestic product grew at a year-over-year pace of just 0.5 per cent in the first quarter, despite a population increase that was six times as much.
The bad news is that the economy isn’t able to absorb the large increase of international migration, both in terms of housing and employment.
Canada’s unemployment rate has increased to 6.2 per cent this year, the highest since the pandemic, in large part because the supply of workers is increasing at historically accelerated rates.
