Statistics Canada Reports II

[jc_yyc_ca]

Here's a list of the metros over 500K. We won't see this kind of list very often where Toronto and Vancouver are at the bottom. Maybe one more year, but outside of that not very often if ever again.

Calgary +52351
Edmonton +50717
Ottawa +38048
Montreal +25024
Winnipeg +11748
St Catherines +10062
Quebec +8916
Hamilton +8464
Halifax +8462
Vancouver +6323
London +6127
Kitchener Waterloo +2166
Toronto -992

[Chocolite]

Originally Posted by someone123

I'm surprised how much overall growth there was in different CMAs/CAs and how the impact of nonpermanent migrants leaving is so disparate. The Toronto CMA alone accounts for a significant portion of the slow-down in the national population growth rate.

One of the things affecting Toronto’s CMA growth rate is how many people have left Toronto CMA to an adjacent CA or CMA. Over recent years if you take international immigration out of the picture, Toronto CMA has always been losing population, but a large amount of it is to neighboring CA’s. At some point, when other CMA‘s join in with Toronto and the golden horseshoe becomes one big CMA. It’s going to be a whopping amount of people.

[kora]

Originally Posted by jc_yyc_ca

Here's a list of the metros over 500K. We won't see this kind of list very often where Toronto and Vancouver are at the bottom. Maybe one more year, but outside of that not very often if ever again.

Cities have golden ages and then periods of stasis or decline. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a time in the 2030s or 2040s when cities like Vancouver and Toronto stopped growing for years or decades. We likely won't ever see Chicago grow again significantly and yet once it was seen as an unstoppable boomtown.

[jc_yyc_ca]

Originally Posted by kora

Cities have golden ages and then periods of stasis or decline. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a time in the 2030s or 2040s when cities like Vancouver and Toronto stopped growing for years or decades. We likely won't ever see Chicago grow again significantly and yet once it was seen as an unstoppable boomtown.

That's true. I don't know if it will apply to Vancouver as much though, and I only say that because it's a desirable city for people around the globe who have money. I won't be surprised if it always has strong growth, even if it never becomes affordable for most people.

[jc_yyc_ca]

Originally Posted by missing_middle

Calgary's growth is pretty impressive. Could get to 2M relatively soon just on strong inter-provincial growth...

If only we had Okotoks, it would be so much sooner!

Sorry, can't do a stats day without mentioning Okotoks

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Wigs

True, but Toronto CMA is still up by well over 600,000 from 2021. They added a London CMA equivalent in population before the recent decline that I'll call a "blip" in the grand scheme of things.

I'm glad to see St. Catharines-Niagara CMA grew by 10,000 in a year, putting the CMA over 500k with 503,670 estimated population.
The larger Niagara Region itself has got to be around 560,000-565,000 by now.

Toronto's likely going to drop even more substantially for the 2026 an maybe even the 2027 figures. It's not going to be a 1-year blip - this is more of the start of a multi-year trend.

2026 will see the loss shift to more metros too. I suspect most major metros (I.e. the 10 biggest metros) will see losses in 2026, excepting Calgary and Edmonton.

[missing_middle]

The numbers just bare truth of my theory that Alberta is the most scalable province/has the least compromises for people. In that you get some combination offering of relatively decent economy/urban size/affordable housing.

Everywhere else is a compromise to a stronger degree.

Strong economy/urban offerings? -> Expensive housing.

Cheap housing? -> Poor economy/smaller remote backwater.

And in a scenario where Calgary continues to grow....it just kind of self-reinforces this.

[Coldrsx]

^not quite and it comes down to desirability, existing investment community/outlook, immigration port of call and a variety of other factors.

Alberta's economy is boom and bust, but generally outpaces Canada, still has affordable housing options, a lot of jobs despite the unemployment rate and a lot of accessible-urban offerings for its two main metros.

[kora]

Alberta's future is endlessly positive as long as the MAGA Make Alberta Great Again nonsense subsides

[ccw219]

Compiling these in ranked and rounded order, Canada's largest metros are:

1. Toronto - 7.1M
2. Montreal - 4.6M
3. Vancouver - 3.1M
4. Calgary - 1.8 M
5. Ottawa - 1.7M
6. Edmonton - 1.7M

7. Winnipeg - 950k
8. Quebec - 900k
9. Hamilton - 870k
10. Kitchener - 700k
11. London - 630k
12. Halifax - 540k
13 - St. Catherines - 500k
14. Oshawa - 490k
15. Windsor - 490k
16. Victoria - 450k
17. Saskatoon - 380k

The next landmark changes are 4 CMA's that are clearly on their way to half a million, plus another 3-5 looking at a future of 1 million.

[Innsertnamehere]

Calgary getting to 2-million will be then next big milestone I think. Winnipeg will also likely pass 1 million in the next few years.

The rest will likely have very slow to negative growth because of immigration changes over the next few years.. I wouldn't be surprised if we see few big milestones. If anything, I could see things regressing a bit, like Toronto falling below 7-million again.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Chocolite

One of the things affecting Toronto’s CMA growth rate is how many people have left Toronto CMA to an adjacent CA or CMA. Over recent years if you take international immigration out of the picture, Toronto CMA has always been losing population, but a large amount of it is to neighboring CA’s. At some point, when other CMA‘s join in with Toronto and the golden horseshoe becomes one big CMA. It’s going to be a whopping amount of people.

This is true. A portion of the migration flow is simply to the fringes of Toronto which happens to go from CMA to outside CMA in some cases, although that's probably true of other metro areas as well (mostly going to towns and exurbs rather than other CMAs since they are smaller).

Ontario is unique as well in having such a variety of mid-sized CMAs. London is a pretty classic metro whereas K-W (+Guelph) and St. Catharines metros are more like multi-nodal agglomerations. Oshawa and Hamilton CMA are partly GTA suburbs, mostly the Burlington part for Hamilton. They're not all directly comparable or comparable to metro areas in other parts of the country which often have a much larger hinterland despite having a smaller population.

[someone123]

Another thing that might be less obvious in this is that Halifax has surpassed 50% of Nova Scotia's population. Nova Scotia isn't that different from most other provinces in terms of urbanization, and a large portion of the population outside of the Halifax CMA should be considered the same economic region, like the Truro CA which has about 50,000 people that are a 40 minute drive or so from Halifax's airport.

The reputation of the province and politics in the province lag behind this somewhat. In NS politics you often hear that the province is basically rural or that the "real" parts are rural or Halifax is just a provincial capital parasitically built up by taxing the rural areas. But it's obvious that the Halifax area is the place to put regional infrastructure for the province, it benefits a very large proportion of the provincial population (maybe 70% able to get to the city easily, more than in most provinces) and the city's obviously too large to have an economy that's only based around the provincial government.

[ccw219]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Calgary getting to 2-million will be then next big milestone I think. Winnipeg will also likely pass 1 million in the next few years.

The rest will likely have very slow to negative growth because of immigration changes over the next few years.. I wouldn't be surprised if we see few big milestones. If anything, I could see things regressing a bit, like Toronto falling below 7-million again.

Calgary is not unique in this regard (Ottawa and Edmonton are visibly on the same track). I imagine that we'll also see Hamilton and Quebec join Winnipeg past 1M within a few years of each other.

[GreaterMontréal]

Granby is at 96k, so probably another CMA near Montreal very soon.

[ssiguy]

I'm very shocked by Toronto. Right now I can see Toronto shedding thousands but I didn't expect it to show up in the 24/25 period. The devil is, of course, in the details. Peel Region, which encompasses Brampton the East Indian capitol of Canada, saw it's population plunge by 22,000. When the stats come out next year, it will be complete carnage. KWC is no surprise as the diploma mill of Conestoga is slowing down. Hamilton, Niagara, and Barrie continue to see some growth probably due to fleeing Torontonians. London and Windsor are seeing slow but steady growth.

Chatham-Kent is very doing well which is not surprising. It is a very nice area with a lot of very pleasant small towns, has the mildest and least amount of snow outside BC, the housing is still very affordable, and yet no matter where you are you are basically within an hour max of either London or Windsor.

Montreal is still hanging on I think because she never got the massive inflow of Indians like English Canada. Ottawa doing good BUT these stats are when Trudeau's reigh of terror when the civil service was exploding. Now that the big layoffs are starting, Ottawa will get hit hard. Calgary and Edmonton are rocking as expected but that will slow massively next year as immigration reverses and fewer Ontarians moving there as housing prices plunge in Ontario making the move make less financial sense. Vancouver is basically at nil but will plunge greatly as Indians are going home and yet, unlike Ontario, housing costs are still astronomical so the move to Alberta is still very beneficial.

PS..........Surrealplaces. Next time I tell you that your estimates are off and wildly pessimistic, you have my authorization to tell me to shut my mouth.

[GreaterMontréal]

Montreal sits in an ecoregion similar to the Lower Mainland.

Its name , the Upper St.Lawrence Plain, 17,300km². In 2018 it had 4,8M people. 5,4M in 2026.

Quebec City also sits in an ecoregion, the Middle St.Lawrence Plain, 11,100km²
1,2M people in 2017. Probably around 1.4M in 2026.

[softee]

The Toronto CMA may have declined slightly, but I wonder if the GTA (which includes Toronto, York, Peel, Durham, & Halton still grew a bit?

As someone who grew up in North Bay & now lives in Toronto, this seems like some sort of bizarro world where North Bay is growing & Toronto is shrinking.I know it's just a temporary glitch, but it's still pretty weird to see.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by softee

The Toronto CMA may have declined slightly, but I wonder if the GTA (which includes Toronto, York, Peel, Durham, & Halton still grew a bit?

As someone who grew up in North Bay & now lives in Toronto, this seems like some sort of bizarro world where North Bay is growing & Toronto is shrinking.I know it's just a temporary glitch, but it's still pretty weird to see.

The Oshawa CMA gains alone far outweigh the Toronto losses (+11,000 or so vs. -1,000 or so for Toronto), so the GTA is still growing.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I'm very shocked by Toronto. Right now I can see Toronto shedding thousands but I didn't expect it to show up in the 24/25 period. The devil is, of course, in the details. Peel Region, which encompasses Brampton the East Indian capitol of Canada, saw it's population plunge by 22,000. When the stats come out next year, it will be complete carnage. KWC is no surprise as the diploma mill of Conestoga is slowing down. Hamilton, Niagara, and Barrie continue to see some growth probably due to fleeing Torontonians. London and Windsor are seeing slow but steady growth.

Chatham-Kent is very doing well which is not surprising. It is a very nice area with a lot of very pleasant small towns, has the mildest and least amount of snow outside BC, the housing is still very affordable, and yet no matter where you are you are basically within an hour max of either London or Windsor.

Montreal is still hanging on I think because she never got the massive inflow of Indians like English Canada. Ottawa doing good BUT these stats are when Trudeau's reigh of terror when the civil service was exploding. Now that the big layoffs are starting, Ottawa will get hit hard. Calgary and Edmonton are rocking as expected but that will slow massively next year as immigration reverses and fewer Ontarians moving there as housing prices plunge in Ontario making the move make less financial sense. Vancouver is basically at nil but will plunge greatly as Indians are going home and yet, unlike Ontario, housing costs are still astronomical so the move to Alberta is still very beneficial.

PS..........Surrealplaces. Next time I tell you that your estimates are off and wildly pessimistic, you have my authorization to tell me to shut my mouth.

Where are you getting -22,000? The Stats Canada data from today says Brampton went from 783,000 to 777,000, so -6,000.

The City of Toronto went from 3,280,000 to 3,271,000, so a loss of 9,000.

Mississauga posted the largest loss - 781,000 to 764,000 - a loss of 17,000!

Most other 905 municipalities posted growth, outside of a few oddities (Uxbridge, Burlington, and Aurora from a quick search).

Hamilton actually posted some of the strongest growth in the 905 - +7,000.

The trend is clearly that the Toronto core is losing population while the outer GTA continues to grow.