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Jack Mintz: This week’s population numbers spell trouble ahead

Internal migration to Alberta and B.C. is changing political balances while continuing net emigration is reducing our growth potential

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Statistics Canada this week released its latest population figures. Some of the trends will become increasingly worrisome if they continue.

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With the scaling back of temporary and student visas, it was widely predicted that population would sag. But the Liberal government had to reverse course after mismanaging immigration so as to pursue growth through a population burst rather than productivity.

That’s not the only lesson from Statistics Canada’s data, however. Population flows continue to favour the two largest western provinces — Alberta and British Columbia — and that has important political implications. And the rise in emigration as we continue to lose our best and brightest to other countries, including the United States, means economic trouble ahead.

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Canada’s population on Jan. 1 was 41,472,081 — 102,436 persons or 0.2 per cent lower than a year ago. The decline was largely driven by a loss of 462,000 non-permanent residents, as well as another 66,000 who left Canada. Those losses were offset by 394,000 immigrants qualifying for permanent residency, plus a natural increase of 31,000 via an excess of births over deaths.

What may be even more interesting than the absolute numbers is the continuing rebalancing of population away from Central and Atlantic Canada. Among the four largest provinces, accounting for almost 85 per cent of Canada’s population, Alberta had a net population gain of 60,000 this past year while the other three lost population — Ontario by 119,000, Quebec by 9,600 and British Columbia by 41,500. Together, the six smaller provinces and the three territories were basically static, with a gain of only 7,000 (or 0.02 per cent).

Canadians are following that classic American advice: “Go West, young man.” About a third of Alberta’s population growth, 22,000 people, was from inflows from the rest of Canada. British Columbia gained 3,000 interprovincial migrants, while 14,000 Ontarians and 7,600 Quebecers sought greener pastures elsewhere in Canada.

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Ontario’s population was 33 per cent of Canada’s in 1949, Quebec’s 29 per cent — not far apart. Now those numbers are 38 and 22 per cent, a big gap. Together, B.C. and Alberta have almost one and half million more people than Quebec.

As a recent Aristotle Foundation report showed, the shift to the West is creating a greater economic and political imbalance in Canada. Once just over a quarter of Canada’s population, the western provinces and the territories now account for a third (not to mention 36 per cent of GDP). Political representation hasn’t kept up with the demographic shift, however. Population per House of Commons seat is about 15 per cent higher than the national average in B.C., Alberta and Ontario. The big winners are the smaller provinces. Quebec is also over-represented, though only slightly, with 23 per cent seats compared to 22 per cent of the population.

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As I explained in a 2019 report for the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, federations can break up when smaller, richer regions can’t stop others from using federal spending, taxation and regulation to seize their wealth. Even many Albertans who don’t support separation believe that’s what’s been happening in Canada in recent decades. Every year they see $19 billion of their federal tax payments leave the province to fund federal programs in other parts of the country.

The emigration trends are also a concern. From 2015-19 net emigration totalled 231,000. But from 2021-25 it grew by a quarter, to 292,000. Since 2015, well over half a million people have left Canada and not returned.

Based on data from the 2021 census, Statistics Canada reports that people leaving were typically young (two-thirds were between 20 and 44 years of age) and highly educated (70 per cent had university degrees, almost half of those a master’s degree or higher). Roughly two-fifths of emigrants were Canadian-born. The rest were immigrants who decided to move on. As of 2020, 1.3 million Canadians lived outside Canada, three-fifths in the U.S., eight per cent in the U.K. and five per cent in Australia.

None of this is good news. But it’s not a surprise, given our poor productivity performance since 2015. We are losing our best and brightest to better opportunities elsewhere. And that hurts us economically. In a 2023 research paper, Massimo Anelli and three others found that a one per cent increase in Italy’s emigration rate led to 4.8 per cent decline in business creation in the country’s municipalities. As 2024 Nobelist Daron Acemoglu argues, firm creation is critical for the introduction of new technologies, so the loss of Canadian entrepreneurial capacity hurts our growth potential.

Current population trends are a challenge for Canada. They can lead to ever more serious regional tensions as the West, especially Alberta, continues to grow faster than other parts of the country, while a brain drain that isn’t reversed will sap Canada’s economic strength. Both federal and provincial politicians need to focus on making it more attractive for Canadian entrepreneurs to stay in Canada.

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