Statistics Canada reported Wednesday that Canada’s population has grown faster than at any time since the 1950s, driven by a surge in the number of temporary residents.
According to the National Statistics Agency, the population will increase by 3.2% in 2023, reaching 40,769,890 people as of January 1, 2024, the highest growth since 1957, when it increased by 3.3%.
Growth rates above 3 percent “haven’t been seen in developed countries” since the 1950s, said Frédéric Payeur, a demographer at Statistics Quebec, the province’s statistics agency.
Canada’s immigration gains are comparable to Israel in the 1960s and Ireland in 2006 and 2007, when immigration booms occurred during periods of rapid economic growth, he said. However, the population growth rate in neither country exceeded 3%.
Quebec’s population grew by 2.5 per cent, but “our conclusion is that in absolute numbers this is the largest increase we’ve ever seen,” he said. “As a percentage of the population, there was a bit more growth overall in 1957, but this was mainly due to the baby boom and waves of migration related to events in Hungary.”
More than 37,000 Hungarian refugees fled to Canada after Soviet troops crushed a rebellion against communist rule in November 1956.
Across Canada, the population increased by 1,271,872 people from January 1, 2023 to January 1, 2024. According to Statistics Canada, 97.6 per cent of its population growth was due to immigration, with 471,771 immigrants settling in the country last year and an increase of 804,901 temporary residents (mostly foreign workers).
Canada is growing at a pace not seen since the baby boom of the 1950s, and the arrival of non-permanent residents is a major driver of growth.
Quebec’s population grew by 218,000 people, and nearly 100 per cent of that increase was due to immigration, Payeur said. Although Quebec’s growth was a record for the province, it was lower than all other provinces except Newfoundland and Labrador.
According to Statistics Canada data adapted from Statistics Quebec, the province with the highest population growth in 2023 was 4.3 per cent, followed by Prince Edward Island with 3.6 per cent.
According to Statistics Canada, Ontario’s population grew by 3.4 per cent despite losing 36,197 people to other provinces. Alberta gained 55,107 people from other provinces, the largest increase since comparable data became available in 1972.
Although Quebec reported just 400 more births than deaths in 2023, the number of temporary residents increased by 174,200 and the number of permanent immigrants increased by 52,800. Approximately 9,400 people left the state. Across Canada, there were 31,103 more births than deaths, according to Statistics Canada data.
Payeur said the rate of increase in new arrivals, both as a percentage of the population and in raw numbers, was probably the highest ever officially recorded in Quebec.
According to the provincial statistics office, there are currently about 560,000 temporary residents in Quebec out of a population of about 9 million people, including 234,000 temporary foreign workers and 177,000 asylum seekers. This includes 124,000 international students.
The increase in temporary residents broke records for the second year in a row. In 2022, the number will increase by 150,700.
