A report released Wednesday by Statistics Canada (StatsCan) shows Wild Rose Country was the preferred destination for interprovincial migrants, with Calgary and Edmonton showing the fastest growth rates in the country, 5.9% and 4.1% respectively, for central metropolitan areas (CMAs) with populations of one million or more. According to the report, “from July 1 2022 to July 1 2023, Alberta overtook BC as the region recording the biggest gains from exchanges between provinces. All four CMAs in Alberta saw net gains from exchanges with other provinces, with Calgary (+26,662), Edmonton (+16,082) and Lethbridge (+1,651) recording their highest net gains since at least 2001/2002 and Red Deer (+1,277) recording its highest since 2005/2006.” Meanwhile, the Vancouver CMA saw its highest net loss to interprovincial migration in more than 20 years after having recorded its most important net gain the previous year. In Ontario, every CMA saw a net loss from interprovincial migration over the 12- month period ending July 1 2023, marking the second year in a row that all CMAs in the province had net losses, with 12 out of 15 seeing their largest net losses since at least 2001/2002. StatsCan suggests more affordable housing is one of the draws for Alberta. “These trends are in line with the analysis from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's 2024 Housing Market Outlook which indicates that “more affordable home prices and a stronger economic outlook in the Prairies make them particularly attractive to homebuyers and job seekers at the expense of Ontario and British Columbia.” The CMAs of Toronto (-93,024), Montréal (-20,624) and Vancouver (-18,399) experienced “high levels of net losses to migratory exchanges with other regions of their respective provinces. Those net losses from large CMAs are often reflected as net gains in smaller municipalities in their periphery, fuelling urban spread,” says the report. As of July 1 2023 the report says the total population of the 41 CMAs in Canada's was 29,814,146 people, with the population rate of growth of the CMAs, +3.5%, outpacing Canada as a whole, +2.9%, from July 1 2022, to July 1 2023. Canada continues to get more urbanized, as the proportion of Canadians living in a CMA reached almost three in four (74.4%) on July 1 2023. “Census agglomerations (CAs) saw a population growth rate of 2%, while areas outside CMAs and CAs grew at a combined rate of 1.1%,” says the report. “However, it should be noted that the population growth rate for areas outside CMAs and CAs was at its highest in over 20 years and that 2022/2023 was the third consecutive year in which these regions grew faster than 1%.” There were 33 CMAs that grew at a faster pace than they did during the previous year. The CMA of Halifax, NS experienced growth of 3.9% from July 1 2022 to July 1 2023 making it home to 518,711 people. During the same period, the CMAs of Kitchener–Cambridge–Waterloo, ON and Moncton, NB saw the fastest annual population growth of any CMA since at least 2001/2002 — the earliest period for which comparable data are available — at 6% each, due in large part to strong international migration. While interprovincial migration played the biggest role in population shifts, StatsCan says international migration remains important for growth in CMAs. “For the first time since at least 2001/2002, the population growth resulting from the net increase in the number of non-permanent residents (NPRs) was higher than that from immigrants in most CMAs (31 of 41) from July 1 2022 to July 1 2023. This finding is in line with high increases of NPRs observed at the national level,” it says. “Permanent immigration remains a significant component of population growth in CMAs and, while the Government of Canada’s Immigration Levels Plan determines the number of immigrants, regional dynamics change over time.” StatsCan says from July 1 2022, to July 1 2023, all CMAs in BC, except for Abbotsford–Mission, saw fewer immigrants than the previous year, while several CMAs saw increases in the annual number of immigrants arriving over the same period, with St. John's NLL (+81.2%), Saskatoon SK (+69.4%) and Regina SK (+68.6%) seeing the largest changes.
