As of January 1, 2026, Canada is home to some 41,472,081 people—around 102,000, or 0.2 per cent, fewer than a year ago. Not since Confederation has Canada’s population dropped year over year. It’s a clear sign that the Trudeau government’s immigration caps, introduced after years of record-high admissions, are having their desired impact. This historic decline will have knock-on effects across the country, but especially in Atlantic Canada, where I live and work at the Université de Moncton.

Maritimers are accustomed to the ebb and flow of population growth. In 1881, 17 per cent of all Canadians lived in the region. This was a holdover from a time when a prosperous Maritime economy, propped up by robust trade with New England, the West Indies and Europe, made the region a desirable place to do business. But shortly after Confederation, protectionist trade policies were implemented to nurture an east-west economy and expand prosperity westward. This overhaul shifted trade to central Canada and kickstarted a decades-long period in which Atlantic Canada’s population declined relative to the rest of the country. By 1981, Maritimers made up nine per cent of the population. Today, they account for just 6.8 per cent.

During COVID, however, Ottawa opened the immigration floodgates to help the economy recover from the pandemic, supplement Canada’s aging workforce and counteract the declining birthrate. Between 2020 and 2025, Canada’s population grew by an astonishing 3.68 million people, and Atlantic Canada’s by around 235,000. Nova Scotia became the first Maritime province to have a population over one million. Interprovincial migration also swelled the growth: the relatively low cost of living in the Maritimes was attractive to remote workers from Quebec and Ontario, who could sell a house in Toronto for $900,000, buy a similar one in Moncton for just $400,000 and live a 20-minute drive from the ocean. 

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Atlantic Canadians had mixed feelings about the population surge. Immigrants from places like Lebanon, India, Korea and Pakistan boosted local economies by enrolling in universities and colleges, filling seasonal positions and starting their own businesses, including restaurants and real estate firms. But the influx of newcomers also stressed social infrastructure. One CEO from Ontario told me that a major drawback of moving his staff to the region was the lack of access to family doctors. Indeed, in larger cities, where much of the population growth has concentrated, housing supply, schools and hospitals were all stretched too thin.

From my perspective, this was a necessary trade-off. Newcomers were the key to keeping businesses open or expanding operations amid less-than-ideal economic conditions. Atlantic Canada’s economy would have suffered otherwise. But now the federal government has radically changed course: after Ottawa responded to public backlash and significantly lowered immigration targets, population growth in Atlantic Canada started plummeting. It took nearly a year, but in the fourth quarter of 2025, New Brunswick lost 1,000 people—its first decline since 2017. Nova Scotia fell by 1,400 people, also its first loss since 2020. Newfoundland and Labrador shrank by 200 people, and P.E.I. lost 150.

I’m disappointed. We may have opened the doors too wide and not planned properly for how to accommodate everyone, but slamming those doors shut is not the answer, either. The fact of the matter is that Canadians are not having enough children to sustain our economy. We need immigrants, plain and simple. Nearly 100 per cent of our nation’s labour force growth is thanks to newcomers who work as nurses, tradespeople, engineers and doctors. In Atlantic Canada, our aging population has created an acute need for more imported labour, not less. While Canada’s median age is 40.6, Nova Scotia’s is 42.8 and New Brunswick’s is 45.4 as of 2023. And as of 2025, one in four people living in Newfoundland and Labrador are now 65 or older. 

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In 1990, there were 20 young workers for every 10 retirees, but by 2020, that number had dropped to seven. As the population ages, governments are spending more and more to keep up with rising health-care needs. We’re throwing a lot of money at this problem, but that’s just siphoning resources from other sectors. New Brunswick posted a $1.3 billion deficit in February, and health-care costs alone were $432.5 million higher than originally proposed by Susan Holt’s Liberal government. In the hopes that more physicians would move to the province, $176 million of that went toward higher compensation for doctors. In exchange, rural schools are drawing the short stick: many are being assessed for closure in order to free up funding for health care. “New money for health care means you got to find it somewhere,” Holt said. 

As with the population boom, Maritimers are conflicted about the hollowing out. Staff at a local MP office told me that some businesspeople were pleading for more temporary workers, while others were asking for less immigration. Residents in urban centres like Halifax, Charlottetown and Moncton are likely feeling some relief. Meanwhile, rural areas have been in dire need of workers for some time now and will face greater labour shortages in sectors like natural resources and fish processing. Church Point, Nova Scotia, for example, is a small rural community that needs foreign students and has plenty of housing to accommodate them. It’s home to Université Sainte-Anne, which has the infrastructure to accommodate international students, unlike Dalhousie in Halifax.

We need a more intuitive immigration system that sends people where they’re needed and can be accommodated. One idea: governments could incentivize new Canadians to move to rural areas by awarding extra points to foreign students who attend rural schools like Université Sainte-Anne. Another option is to double down on the Atlantic Immigration Program, the federal government’s pathway to permanent residence for workers who want to live in Atlantic provinces. Since its launch in 2017, the program has brought more than 28,000 new permanent residents to Atlantic Canada and is now expected to admit roughly 5,000 people each year. Because it requires applicants to have a job offer in the region, it’s the government’s built-in mechanism to prioritize rural jobs. 

Donald J. Savoie holds the Clement-Cormier Chair in Economic Development at the Université de Moncton.

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