Quote:
Originally Posted by Drybrain
My guess is these growth rates won't stay stable, though. If the feds follow through with a reduction in temporary immigation, it'll cut signfiicantly into growth numbers nationwide. We're also seeing in Nova Scotia a tempering of the interprovincial influx that's dominated for the past eight or nine years. (Last Q3 saw a slight interprovincial decline, the first in almost a decade. Then it was back into a strong positive in Q4, but this past Q1 was a modest decline.)
I'm guessing that as housing costs have grown in Nova Scotia, it's less attractive for people seeking a cost-of-living refuge, so from now on we'll see a mix of up quarters and down quarters for interprovincial migration, for a more flat trend overall. The cost advantage is still there, but less so than in the recent past. That seems to bear out in the stats. There hasn't been meaningful uptick in outmigration, what we're seeing is mostly a decline in IN-migration. That might also explain why New Brunswick, where housing is still significantly cheaper, is still posting big interprovincial gains.
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I think you are right on this, agree totally. The interprovincial numbers have not been gangbusters for the last while, they've been OK and still better than the lost/dark years when NS would just bleed people and always suffer negative migration. But the major growth appears to have paused at least, too early to necessarily forecast a trend, but a noticeable slowdown. But as others have said, a big reason is the number of Ontarians leaving Ontario for NS has gone down, compared to ~2020-2023. While Ontario is still suffering heavy interprovincial losses overall, the region benefitting most has shifted from the Maritimes to Alberta.
And that brings me to the topic of Alberta, the beast itself. When they get on a high, man they get on a high. They are arguably as big a factor or more in the weakening of NL, PE, and NS in interprovincial migration. Yes Ontario has slowed, but Alberta was by far the biggest drag on their numbers, the losses to AB were so big they overshadowed the smaller gains from elsewhere. But that is what AB does, and they do it time and time again. Circumstances behind the population boom may be slightly different each time for AB, but the intensity always seems to happen and brings huge numbers that no other province ever does. The job market this time is not insanely strong in AB relative to other places (employment growth, unemployment rates etc. are mediocre really, they aren't a shining star amongst all laggards). And whereas AB offers a sizeable savings real estate wise for BC and Ontario buyers, they are not cheaper overall than Maritimes prices, are they? I'd imagine Calgary at least would be more expensive than most places in the Maritimes? Yes, I know wages are higher in AB still, but other provinces have really caught up. Yes overall you can likely still make more in AB, but it's not
as polar opposite as the 90s and much of the 2000s, it was just a different world out there compared to the Maritimes. They are still unequal in terms of wealth and opportunity, but not nearly to the extent it was before. And yet look, the Maritimes are again losing to AB in significant numbers. We all know BC and ON are losing because of the extremity of the affordability crisis. Although the Maritimes have gotten more expensive, they are nowhere near BC and ON, and I can't imagine many areas being less afordable compared to AB. Of course they are also touted for low taxes. No sales tax is appealing, and the tax differences between the Maritimes and AB still quite significant. But that's really the main area of difference at the moment, hard to justify such a pull to AB from the Maritimes nowadays. Taxes matter, but have come down as dominant factors compared to years back. I feel like quality of life and real estate prices have shot up and replaced taxes and wages as dominant drivers. So the Maritimes shouldn't be losing much to AB right now, it's not like the oil sands are 2000s era gangbusters right now... Office employment is still tepid, and the air of unlimited money and streets paved with gold amongst Albertans is far less common now than it was pre-2015. Many are choosing AB because it's cheaper for housing and that's pretty much 90% of the reasoning. The low taxes, cleanliness (Calgary), decent job market, and options for outdoor recreation are all plusses for Alberta, but they are more add-ons perks and not drivers anymore. The quest for housing is the only real factor, everything else is gravy really.
It would be an interesting experiment to see results if housing prices across all cities in Canada evened out so they were all in the same ballpark. Totally unrealistic I know, but hypothetically, if market forces worked perfect, and there were no or minimal artificial restrictions like BC's ALR, Ontario's greenbelt, etc strangling available development, what would happen? Georgraphic restrictions would still be there (ie. mountains and water) but if there was no government ban on development in metro areas like Vancouver or Toronto, it would make a noticeable difference. BC has always been pricier than anywhere else, nothing new there, but the price escalation for housing is unheard of. I remember cutting out a snippet from Vancouver Sun in 2004, back when everyone received and read the paper still haha. They used to publish home sales statistics in the business section, with volume, average prices, median prices, change, etc. broken out by municipality. And I remember West Van not even being at $1M average lol, it was like 998,500 or something, and would be virtually tied with Westside Vancouver in average price (they broke Vancouver into east and west, which was neat). But it was always 900,000 something, or even high 800,000s. That is insane to think about now, I may be getting old now but that isn't THAT long ago really...
Finally, I like to look at 5 year stats to get a picture as well. The census is a 5-year period for a reason, it's a good measure to see statistics over some time, but not super long (ie. 50 year comparisons lol, basically too drastic to even mean much to people). So I did various metrics all based on the latest StatCan data, available for download on all StatCan pages, not going to post each and every link, they are dynamic data fields so you can select all your own data to compare:
Population Growth April 2019-April 2024
PE +14.7%
AB +11.8%
BC +11.1%
NS +10.5%
ON +10.4%
NB +9.9%
CAN +9.6%
MB +8.8%
QC +6.9%
SK +6.0%
NL +2.5%
This period is totally arbitrary, just using the latest date and deducting five years, it isn't an official census or measurement period, but it's a handy tool for measurement.
It's interesting that 6 provinces grew faster than Canada as a whole, while 4 are slower. I have to say I was surprised mathematically by the results. With AB, BC, ON, and all the Maritimes growing as fast as they did, I would have thought the overall Canada figure would be much higher. It basically means that MB, QC, SK, and NL were able to pull the average down that much? Seems weird, but anyways.
Then look at wage growth. Year over year and 5-year provided for comparison, and order them by 5-year growth with actual weekly earnings shown
BC 5.4% / 27.3% $1,256.92
QC 5.1% / 25.4% $1,185.90
PE 4.2% / 23.7% $1,055.24
NS 5.5% / 23.2% $1,102.67
NB 3.9% / 22.3% $1,135.61
ON 4.1% / 22.2% $1,266.68
CAN 4.2% / 21.8% $1,235.68
MB 3.3% / 17.1% $1,126.35
SK 1.1% / 15.7% $1,194.10
NL 3.8% / 14.7% $1,213.87
AB 2.2% / 12.1% $1,298.87
Put another way, five years ago in March 2019, the Canada-wide average wage was only 88¢ per $1 Albertans earned. Five years later in March 2024, the Canada wide average is now 95¢ per $1 Albertans earned, so significantly narrower gap.
Will be interesting to watch what happens, but if the gap narrows significantly in relative affordability, AB will lessen its winnings from interprovincial migration especially with BC. I have posted before, BC can still attract way more people than expected given its cost. BC can still be appealing to Albertans even with higher costs, it doesn't need to be a better deal with taxes, wages, or real estate, most Albertans understand the draw isn't historic economic dominance. But once that spread becomes too insanely inflated, the dream dies quick, it's just too much spread between the two for people to look past just for the sake of other pluses. Prices in BC don't necessarily have to drop enormously, it is all relative. If BC prices fall while AB gains, and that continues for some time, the relative gap narrows even while there is a big gap.
As recently as Q2 2021, BC gained 11,467 people in interprovincial migration (in the same quarter AB, SK, MB, and ON were all negative interprovincial migration). I know it was Covid and things were weird, and the economy wasn't booming anywhere really. And it wasn't like BC was cheap in 2021 lol, we were already insanely higher than anywhere else, firmly. If a mathematician wanted to statistically correlate the migration numbers with average house prices in each province, would be interesting to see the "breaking point" when migration started reversing. I know it isn't JUST house prices blah blah, but I think it's safe to say it's the biggest factor. Would be interesting if house prices here soften and reach the same level of Q2 2021, the migration wouldn't reverse, it now becomes harder to get those people back. BC relies more on original Albertans moving here rather than BCers going back
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