Statistics Canada Reports II

[MolsonExport]

The question is: Are there a number of things to do in Airdrie?

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Does Whitby cling to the Oshawa CMA? I didn't see it listed in your figures.

Yes. If you scroll down
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recen...ge.cfm?topic=1&lang=e&dguid=2021S0503532

you'll see the Oshawa CMA is comprised of Oshawa, Whitby, and Clarington. Almost 500k for this separated Metro as of the latest population estimates.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by Surrealplaces

It's just kidding around that if Surrey became bigger than Vancouver they would change the general name of the metro from Vancouver to Surrey.

At least people in Washington State and Oregon would stop asking "which Vancouver?"

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

The question is: Are there a number of things to do in Airdrie?

Drive to Calgary.

[harls]

Originally Posted by kora

In 2024, Canada became part of the group of countries with "ultra-low fertility," with a total fertility rate of 1.25 children per woman.

The average age of mothers at the birth of their first child ... reached an all-time high of 31.8 years (in 2024).

The proportion of women aged 50 years and older with no children has also been increasing ... from 14.1% in 1990 to 17.4% in 2022.

In 2024, 51.5% of Canadian women aged 20 to 49 years were not yet mothers.

Fertility and intentions, Stats Canada, Jan 26 2026
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260126/dq260126a-eng.htm?HPA=1

Sounds about right. My first child's mom was 31 when he was born in 2007. My parents, OTOH, were both 19. Not sure if shotguns were involved in that wedding.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

Drive to Calgary.

Or, more properly, drive to Okotoks instead. There are apparent even more things to do there............

[kora]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Or, more properly, drive to Okotoks instead. There are apparent even more things to do there............

I was looking at Airdrie's 2022 downtown plan. They are trying to create a tiny downtown a few blocks long with 4 to 8 storey height limits. Going more for the Parisian height aesthetic.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Does Whitby cling to the Oshawa CMA? I didn't see it listed in your figures.

Toronto proper, already dense, gaining nearly 500K in four years? Impressive...most impressive.

It's odd that so many expect endless growth by Toronto proper that very few are fazed it's still growing by that much! Almost half a million is still very impressive for Canada's Alpha City.

Here's the Oshawa CMA


I still don't understand the discrepancy of Stat Can numbers
When I search for just the CMA, it differs from adding the individual census subdivisions population estimates, again using their own figures

2025 Oshawa CMA estimate is 493,441

[kora]

The US fared a lot better last year, growing its population by 0.5% between 2024 and 2025. It didn't have the extraordinary post-pandemic temporary worker bump that Canada had. South Carolina is the fastest growing state, just edging Idaho.

But the US is following similar trends, if for different reasons: "the foreign-born population in the Current Population Survey declined from 53.3 million in January 2025 to 51.9 million in June 2025, a decline of 1.4 million."

US Census Bureau, Jan 27 2026
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026/population-growth-slows.html
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/ra...line-in-net-international-migration.html

[jc_yyc_ca]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

The question is: Are there a number of things to do in Airdrie?

Less things than there are to do in Okotoks.

No offense to the people in Airdrie, but it's really just a large subdivision. For a city of 95,000 there really isn't much to do. I know people like it because housing is cheaper than Calgary, or even Okotoks, which isn't particularly cheap.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by kora

But the US is following similar trends, if for different reasons: "the foreign-born population in the Current Population Survey declined from 53.3 million in January 2025 to 51.9 million in June 2025, a decline of 1.4 million."

I think that missing i.4M people are probably in detention camps in El Salvador.

[jamincan]

Originally Posted by Wigs

It's odd that so many expect endless growth by Toronto proper that very few are fazed it's still growing by that much! Almost half a million is still very impressive for Canada's Alpha City.

Here's the Oshawa CMA


I still don't understand the discrepancy of Stat Can numbers
When I search for just the CMA, it differs from adding the individual census subdivisions population estimates, again using their own figures

2025 Oshawa CMA estimate is 493,441

Are both population estimates for July 1 2025? I'm assuming yes, but it is perplexing. The only time I know they deliberately obfuscate numbers is at the census tract level and below when counts are under 10 (I think or at least in that neighbourhood), they don't list the exact amount due to privacy reasons. At the CSD or CMA level, this isn't really relevant anymore though, and wouldn't explain the discrepancy anyway.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by jamincan

Are both population estimates for July 1 2025?

yes!

Do you want me to makeup a table for KW?

[craner]

Canada’s population could hit 76 million by 2075 in high-growth scenario

http://https://globalnews.ca/news/11639688/canada-population-2075/

[Innsertnamehere]

@wigs, apologies if you've done it already, but can we see Hamilton? The CMA is only 3 municipalities so it should be fairly simple!

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by jamincan

Are both population estimates for July 1 2025? I'm assuming yes, but it is perplexing. The only time I know they deliberately obfuscate numbers is at the census tract level and below when counts are under 10 (I think or at least in that neighbourhood), they don't list the exact amount due to privacy reasons. At the CSD or CMA level, this isn't really relevant anymore though, and wouldn't explain the discrepancy anyway.

Do they release the data for CMAs and CSDs at different times? Don't forget these are just estimates, and if you make a population estimate for a few months ago, it will almost certainly be a little different if you do it a bit later, when you might have better data to generate the estimate. (I'm not entirely sure what data Stats Can use to generate their estimates). As I noted before, even estimates for July 2026 might be very different from the May 2026 census data, once it's available.

BC Stats do their own population estimates for the province, and use different data to generate their numbers. They're sometimes quite different from Stats Can estimates. Once the census data is available, they're often shown to be inaccurate in their estimates. (Usually Surrey has fewer people, and Vancouver more than they thought). They then back-cast, adjusting their estimate for every year back to the previous census date. It's often a change of thousands in some municipalities.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Done.
Unlike Montreal, this was easier and only had to be cut into 2 screenshots that I was able to line up almost perfectly
It should be noted that even though I'm using Stat Can CSD census subdivision data for each municipality that for some reason the total is off from Stat Can CMA numbers

As the forum sticklers have pointed out the 2021 Census may be undercounting population by up to 5%. But for most of us the quinquennial Census is like the official base line. Can't please everyone

This is great, thanks Wigs!

Crazy to see metro Vancouver on its own over 3 million. I was curious so I added the valley and Sea to Sky regions to see what a CSA for Vancouver would look like.



About 3.5 million in total, but surprisingly the bulk of the growth is still in Metro Van. I thought the valley would have been growing significantly faster, more at the pace of Surrey/Langley.

No surprise with Squamish at 20%, it's booming up there, and it makes sense. ~45 minutes from downtown it competes with places like Langley/Pitt Meadows but is a much more scenic area.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Do they release the data for CMAs and CSDs at different times?

They're both released at the same time every January. This year was January 14, 2026 and for the same period ending July 1

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

@wigs, apologies if you've done it already, but can we see Hamilton? The CMA is only 3 municipalities so it should be fairly simple!

Done.


As a Niagara resident it's funny that Grimbsy is part of Hamilton CMA despite being within Niagara Region.

I understand why (commuting patterns and Grimsby became a defacto suburb for those that didn't want to live in Hamilton/Stoney Creek but still wanted to be close enough to Hamilton or GTA), but if you asked the typical Grimsby resident if they wanted to be associated with Hamilton or Niagara the vast majority would say Niagara

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Toronto proper, already dense, gaining nearly 500K in four years? Impressive...most impressive.

As I mentioned a few pages back, comparing the difference between the 2025 population estimate vs. 2021 census as "growth" is misleading. There's always an undercount in the census numbers compared the estimates - especially in the 2021 census, having been taken in the midst of the pandemic. Only estimate to estimate or census to census numbers are directly comparable.

As I recall, the estimates had Toronto passing the 3 million mark back around 2019. The actual growth from 2021-2025 was probably more like 300k (still a lot!).

[jamincan]

You have to be careful about comparing CMAs as well as the undercount varies from place to place. Generally, though, the undercount isn't a significant enough factor to alter larger trends that we might be observing.