(OTTAWA) Canada's population grew at its fastest pace since the 1950s last year, amid an increase in the number of temporary residents, Statistics Canada said Wednesday.
The federal agency says the Canadian population will grow by 3.2% in 2023, its fastest rate since 3.3% in 1957. This increase brought the Canadian population to 40,769,890 inhabitants on 1er January 2024, an increase of 1,271,872 people in one year.
Statistics Canada says most of this growth of 3.2% last year was due to temporary migration. Without this temporary migration, the federal agency indicates that the Canadian population growth rate would have been 1.2%.
Frédéric Payeur, a demographer at the Institut de la Tourisme du Québec, asserts that since the 1950s “it has never been observed in a developed country.”
Canada's immigration growth is comparable to that of Israel in the 1960s and Ireland in 2006 and 2007 — when that country experienced an immigration boom during a period of rapid economic growth, Mr. Payeur said. But even then, none of these countries saw population growth of more than 3%, he said.
“Our conclusion is that, in absolute terms, this is the strongest growth ever seen,” Mr. Payeur said. As a proportion of the population, the overall increase was slightly higher in 1957, but this was mainly due to the baby boom, combined with a wave of immigration related to events in Hungary. »
More than 37,000 Hungarian refugees fled to Canada in November 1956 when Soviet forces crushed an uprising against communist rule.
Across Canada, the population grew by 1,271,872 between 1er January 2023 and 1er January 2024. According to Statistics Canada, 97.6% of this population growth is the result of immigration: 471,771 immigrants settled in the country last year and the number of temporary residents – most of whom are foreign workers – increased by 804,901.
Lose weight Quebec
In Quebec, the population growth rate is 2.5% by the end of 2023, compared to 3.4% in the rest of Canada without the province.
“Québec's population weight in Canada as a whole will again decrease slightly to 22.0% on January 1, 2024, compared to 22.2% on January 1, 2023,” the Institute of Statistics asserted on Wednesday. A press release in Quebec (ISQ).
According to ISQ, Quebec's population is expected to increase by 218,000 to 8.98 million residents in 2023. This growth is almost entirely dependent on international migration – particularly temporary migration (+174,200), “which is three times higher than permanent migration (+52,800),” the institute notes.
The number of these “permanent residents” reached 1er Last January there were 560,000 in Quebec. According to ISQ, this group notably includes 234,000 temporary foreign workers, 177,000 refugees and 124,000 international students, some of whom have work permits.
Using administrative data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Statistics Canada estimates that Quebec will make up 19% of Canada's temporary foreign workers, 54% of asylum seekers and 12% of international students by January 1, 2024.
Quebec Statistics Institute
Quebec's population growth, although a record, was lower than that of any other province except Newfoundland and Labrador.
According to Statistics Canada data received by ISQ, Alberta will experience the highest population growth in 2023 at 4.3%; Prince Edward Island follows with a rate of 3.6%.
Ontario's population grew by 3.4%, although it lost 36,197 residents to other provinces, Statistics Canada said. Alberta welcomed 55,107 people from other provinces, the largest increase since comparable data became available in 1972.
Quebec reports only 400 more births than 77,550 deaths in 2023. “In 2023, a total of 77,950 births were recorded in Quebec, the lowest number since 2005,” the ISQ indicates. The general trend has been downward since 2013 and has been observed internationally and elsewhere in Canada. »
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