Statistics Canada Reports II

[GreaterMontréal]

Even before the amalgamation, Montreal had about 1M people.

[giallo]

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

There's 700,000 people in Surrey ?? Basically it'll be bigger than Vancouver in a couple years.

That's nuts that's like if Laval was bigger than Montreal.

Surrey will definitely have a larger population than Vancouver at some point. When it surpasses the COV is anyone's guess. Vancouver's still adding quite a few people these days.

Surrey is super suburban, but this recent boom has brought some density to its core.

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[savevp]

Originally Posted by rdaner

Interesting! My thesis is that we are closer to UK cities now and I wonder if this last year did the trick?!

In terms of type of housing stock breakdown? Aside from Alberta, we've probably leapfrogged the UK and are closer to Germany or Scandinavia. Now our 'apartment' category is mostly high rise rather than mid, but I wouldn't be surprised if the ratios of housing type were similar nowadays.

[GreaterMontréal]

Montreal single family homes will cost a fortune in 10-15 years. They represent only 6% of the total new housing.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

This is exactly right.

According to Ottawa, we are expected to see population decline of about 80,000 in both of the next 2 years which is the first time in our history that we will experience population decline. Canada's intake will be about 390k and 370k respectively but those intakes will be more than offset by the number of students & TFW who will be forced to leave in the next 2 years as their Visa expire.

The population is not going to shrink at any time in the foreseeable future. There are too many variables to consider, and there is no chance that there is a mass exodus of TFW's or International Students.

We also have to keep in mind some of the incoming policies of the Trump administration, may make Canada see a huge influx of undocumented workers from America. This happened on a small scale in 2017, but with Trump wanting to expel 11 million people, it's almost a certainty that a significant portion of that number will head across the northern border, to seek asylum.

[Rico Rommheim]

It's actually quite interesting to see how slowly Laval and Longueuil are growing. You'd think they'd be booming, oddly enough the city of Montreal is growing quickly and s basically at 2M and yet all I hear in the news is how people are streaming out of the city for the suburbs.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by ericmacm

Very interesting to see Calgary solidifying its lead over the others in its cohort, but it isn’t particularly surprising though. Kitchener is also very clearly exploding, and I wonder how much longer it will be until StatsCan redefines the CMA to include Guelph.

This will probably never happen. If anything the only CMA's that would merge, would be Oshawa merging into Toronto, or perhaps Abbotsford merging into the Vancouver area. Even that is a long shit.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

So Surrey is the fastest growing city in Canada???

I think Moncton is?

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

I think Moncton is?

For cities, it is Surrey. For metro Areas, it is Kitchener-Waterloo.

[ssiguy]

Noteworthy that Brampton has now overtaken Mississauga. Burlington is a stand out in those city figures with just 0.5% yet it is sandwiched between Hamilton & Oakville which are both growing at over quadruple that rate. Anyone know why this is as Burlington has always been quite a nice city?

The Calgary number are bizarre but I suspect that, quite unlike Kitchener, they are primarily the result of high interprovincial migration as opposed to Kitchener's being overwhelmingly due to foreign students.

[Wigs]

Why is Calgary bizarre? My Uncle & Aunt retired from the GTA to Calgary (sell high, buy low) so I'm sure others have as well. That's 2 added to the population that weren't there 4 or 5 years ago. They enjoy being a short drive to the Rockies.

Another Uncle & Aunt retired from the GTA to Nova Scotia. He's built himself a real paradise out there on his spacious property near an inlet.

[GeneralLea]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Noteworthy that Brampton has now overtaken Mississauga. Burlington is a stand out in those city figures with just 0.5% yet it is sandwiched between Hamilton & Oakville which are both growing at over quadruple that rate. Anyone know why this is as Burlington has always been quite a nice city?

The Calgary number are bizarre but I suspect that, quite unlike Kitchener, they are primarily the result of high interprovincial migration as opposed to Kitchener's being overwhelmingly due to foreign students.

Good question regarding Burlington. I'm not sure why they haven't been building as much subdivisions as Oakville, but I assume they have less land than Oakville to spare, given the parklands around 14 Mile and 16 Mile Creek/Greenbelt?

[ScreamingViking]

Burlington's urban area is basically built-out, with no desire to try to expand it (which would be difficult north of the 403 and 407, where the terrain isn't as easy to build on)

The city's government and citizens are also fighting high-rise development at present. Future growth will largely depend on how that fight goes.

[GeneralLea]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

Burlington's urban area is basically built-out, with no desire to try to expand it (which would be difficult north of the 403 and 407, where the terrain isn't as easy to build on)

The city's government and citizens are also fighting high-rise development at present. Future growth will largely depend on how that fight goes.

Thanks for letting us know. I had a feeling it had to do with this, as my experience with the areas outside of the subdivisions/built up areas is they tend to become quite hilly or swampy due to the numerous waterways and watersheds in the region.
I'm amazed by how much Oakville is building these days, and they still have a lot of acreage left over for them to build out.

[craner]

Originally Posted by Surrealplaces

Calgary and Edmonton will probably have higher growth than Ottawa for the next couple of years at least. As Immigration slows down, Alberta is still getting a lot of net interprovincial growth, and most of that growth going to the two cities.
Trends over the next few years is anyone's guess. Something not captured easily in stats is how many people have left the Ottawa CMA to an area near the CMA. I know a few co-workers who have left Ottawa and moved to places just outside the CMA, especially to towns or acreages to the south towards Cornwall and those people will be counted again when the CMA borders expand.

Conversely, Foothills MD adjacent to the south of Calgary has about ~85,000 people that will be joined to the Calgary CMA sometime.
For those not familiar with Foothills MD, it's the MD that contains, you got it........world famous Okotoks

So are these 2021 boundaries the most recent or is Ottawa’s boundaries due to expand next year? Next census?

[KnoxfordGuy]

Can a CMA join another CMA? I thought that was not allowed?

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Noteworthy that Brampton has now overtaken Mississauga. Burlington is a stand out in those city figures with just 0.5% yet it is sandwiched between Hamilton & Oakville which are both growing at over quadruple that rate. Anyone know why this is as Burlington has always been quite a nice city?

The Calgary number are bizarre but I suspect that, quite unlike Kitchener, they are primarily the result of high interprovincial migration as opposed to Kitchener's being overwhelmingly due to foreign students.

In both Calgary and Kitchener, non-permanent residents were the biggest contributor to growth, but yes, it's probably safe to assume that in Kitchener's case that means a lot more students. Of Calgary's 100,000 new residents, 44,000 were non-permanent newcomers, so we have to consider that those growth numbers will be unwound through 2025 and 2026 as more non-permanent residents leave than come in.

In other words, growth to Calgary will drop substantially next year, as it will everywhere, but the city will probably still grow more than most others as long as the interprovincial gains stay strong--it had far and away the highest net interprovincial gains, with 20,000 people. Kitchener had a net loss of 1,900 (which is typical, only CMAs in Alberta, along with Ottawa, Saint John and Fredericton, experienced positive interprovincial growth last year. Even Halifax, a big interprovincial gainer in the 2022 and 2023, turned to a small net loss, even as the rest of NS experienced net growth.)

But I wonder: some of the biggest growth numbers this year were in cities with large numbers of non-permanent residents. As they leave, and their cohort isn't replaced, I wonder if we'll see those cities shrink slightly. Kitchener, for example, grew buy 33,000 people. 25,000 of those were non-permanent residents, and nearly another 10,000 were permanent residents. With PR intake going down by about 20 per cent, and NPR flatlining on net, a lot of cities that posted big numbers due to NPRs this year may be very flat in 2025. Not only Kitchener, of course, lots of places.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by KnoxfordGuy

Can a CMA join another CMA? I thought that was not allowed?

They can't

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Why is Calgary bizarre? My Uncle & Aunt retired from the GTA to Calgary (sell high, buy low) so I'm sure others have as well. That's 2 added to the population that weren't there 4 or 5 years ago. They enjoy being a short drive to the Rockies.

Another Uncle & Aunt retired from the GTA to Nova Scotia. He's built himself a real paradise out there on his spacious property near an inlet.

Bingo.

Calgary is uniquely positioned and (reluctantly) perhaps the best choice in the country right now to move to if you want:

-urban
-suburban
-big city amenities at 1/2 the cost
-a great food scene
-an airport that pushes WAY above its weightless
-proximity to recreation
-job opps

You just have to accept that fact that you live in Flames country.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by craner

So are these 2021 boundaries the most recent or is Ottawa’s boundaries due to expand next year? Next census?

The Windsor CMA expanded substantially a couple of years back. After the land gain, they managed to move ahead of Oshawa (far smaller CMA area), by a few thousand, but already Oshawa has caught up, and will likely pass Windsor next year.