Trudeau Immigration Plan in Doubt as Population Gains Ebb Slowly
(Bloomberg) -- Canada’s rapid population growth is edging down as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government cuts back on immigration. Yet the country is still a long way from the goal of drastically reducing temporary residents — a group that’s now larger than ever.
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An estimated 250,000 people were added in the three months to July 1, representing a quarterly growth rate of 0.6%, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday in Ottawa. It marks the first time since 2020 that quarterly growth was slower than the same period a year earlier.
Canada had seen record population gains after pandemic travel restrictions eased. The country has added more than 2.35 million people since mid-2022 — that’s roughly the equivalent of Houston’s population. While surging immigration helped buoy the economy, pressures on housing costs and public services led to sharp declines in support for immigration and Trudeau, forcing him to pull the welcome mat away from some newcomers.
Trudeau’s plan to reduce immigration has focused on temporary residents, a group that includes international students, foreign workers and asylum claimants. The government’s efforts appear to be slowing the growth of this cohort, even if at a glacial pace. Canada added 118,000 temporary residents in the second quarter, the smallest net increase since the first quarter of 2023 and the third straight quarterly decline.
Still, while the growth rate of temporary immigrants has eased due to a decrease in study permit holders, the overall number of temporary residents in the country topped 3 million for the first time. The share of the cohort now reaches 7.3% in the second quarter, a full percentage point jump since the government announced its plan to pare down the proportion to 5% over the next three years.
To reach the target immediately, the number of temporary residents in the country would need to drop by 30%, or nearly a million people.
The Bank of Canada in July lifted its near-term population growth projections, anticipating the government’s plan to limit inflows of temporary residents would take longer time than previously expected to slow immigration. But as population increases normalize closer to levels near historical averages in the long run, economic growth is expected to be weaker in the coming years.
Canada’s annual population growth rate was 3% in the second quarter, a slight decline from the 3.2% pace in the first quarter, but still among the fastest in the world.
With a quarter million residents added in the second quarter, 41.3 million people now live in Canada. But while population gains showed signs of slowing, they remain higher than in any other second quarter in the five decades before 2022. International migration accounted for 96% of the increases, while births only outnumbered deaths by fewer than 10,000 — highlighting a rapidly aging populace.
For the third year in a row, the median age in Canada decreased slightly, reaching 40.3 years on July 1, while the average age saw no change from a year earlier. This contrasts with the general trend of an increasing median and average age from 1967 to 2021 and highlights the impact of high levels of immigration in recent years.
--With assistance from Jay Zhao-Murray.
(Updates with more details and context from the first paragraph.)
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