Canada: Population 40,769,890
StatCan says country’s growth rate in 2023 was highest since 1957
Canada’s population grew faster last year than it has at any time since the 1950s, amid a surge in the number of temporary residents, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday.
The statistics agency says the population grew by 3.2 per cent in 2023, reaching 40,769,890 as of Jan. 1, the highest rate since 1957, when it grew 3.3 per cent.
“About 98 per cent of population growth was explained by international migration and, in fact, it’s mostly the temporary immigration component that’s driving population growth in Canada,” said Patrick Charbonneau, chief of Statistics Canada’s Centre for Demography.
Across Canada, the population rose by 1,271,872 between Jan. 1, 2023 and Jan. 1, 2024, with 471,771 immigrants settling in the country last year and the number of temporary residents rising by 804,901.
Most of those temporary residents are coming to Canada to work, Charbonneau said in an interview Wednesday, but a significant percentage are international students. Around one in 10 are asylum seekers.
Net growth rates from migration above three per cent have “never been see in a developed country” since the 1950s, said Frédéric Payeur, a demographer at Quebec’s Institut de la statistique du Québec.
Canada’s migration-driven increase is comparable to Israel’s in the 1960s and Ireland’s in 2006 and 2007 — when the country experienced an immigration boom during a period of rapid economic growth, he said. But even then, neither of those countries had population increases above three per cent.
In Quebec, where the population grew by 2.5 per cent, “in absolute numbers, this is the most growth ever seen,” he said. “As a proportion of the population, in 1957, there was a bit more overall growth, but that was mainly due to the baby boom, combined with a wave of migration linked to events in Hungary.” More than 37,000 Hungarian refugees fled to Canada after Soviet troops crushed an uprising against Communist rule in November 1956.
Almost 100 per cent of Quebec’s increase of 218,000 people came from immigration, Payeur said. Quebec’s growth, though recordsetting for the province, was lower than that of any other province, except Newfoundland and Labrador.
The new data comes less than a week after federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said he plans to set targets next fall to reduce the percentage of Canada’s population made up by temporary residents.
Alberta saw the most population growth in 2023 — 4.3 per cent — according to Statistics Canada data adapted by the Quebec statistics agency, followed by Prince Edward Island with 3.6 per cent.
Ontario’s population grew by 3.4 per cent, even while it lost 36,197 residents to other provinces, Statistics Canada said. Alberta gained 55,107 people from other provinces, the largest gain since comparable data became available in 1972.