Statistics Canada is pushing to refresh long-outdated estimates of how many Canadian citizens live outside the country, warning Parliament that existing figures are based on incomplete data and no longer reflect a rapidly growing population.Appearing before the Senate foreign affairs committee, Statistics Canada demography director Laurent Martel said the agency lacks reliable, up-to-date information on Canadians abroad who may be eligible to vote or claim federal benefits, despite recent changes to citizenship law that added tens of thousands of new citizens.“Very little data are available on Canadians living abroad,” Martel told senators, noting that administrative records remain patchy and inconsistent.Blacklock's Reporter says Statistics Canada last produced an estimate in 2022, putting the number of Canadian citizens living overseas between 4,038,800 and 5,549,800. The study, based largely on the 2016 census and consultations with immigration and foreign affairs departments, was conducted on an ad hoc basis.Martel said those numbers are already stale.“Our numbers were from 2016,” he said. “The Canadian population has increased rapidly over the last few years, and there is all reason to believe the Canadian diaspora is also increasing.”.Earlier research suggested that Canadians born in Canada account for only about one-third of citizens living abroad. The majority are citizens by descent, meaning they were born outside the country to Canadian parents. Martel said no comprehensive database exists to track how many such citizens reside overseas.The estimates rely on demographic modeling that tracks emigration dating back to 1921, creating what Martel described as a cumulative effect that could place the overseas population at roughly four million or more.The issue has taken on new urgency following Parliament’s passage of Bill C-3 last November, which amended the Citizenship Act to extend citizenship by descent to grandchildren of Canadians born abroad. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the change created about 115,000 new citizens..The previous Conservative government had limited citizenship by descent to one generation after spending $75.8 million evacuating 13,270 Lebanese-Canadians from Beirut during the 2006 conflict.Elections Canada officials also told the committee that participation among Canadians abroad remains limited. Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Michel Roussel said roughly 100,000 Canadians living overseas are registered on the international electors list, with about 32,000 applying for mail-in ballots during the last federal campaign.Roussel said the largest concentrations of Canadian voters abroad are found in Britain, Australia, Germany, and South Korea, while Hong Kong remains one of the largest destinations for the broader Canadian diaspora.
