Statistics Canada Reports II

[kora]

Immigrants by city in 2025, top 10
Toronto: 55,760
Montréal, 26,545
Ottawa: 23,845
Calgary: 22,635
Edmonton: 17,950
Brampton: 15,230
Winnipeg: 14,035
Vancouver: 12,670
Mississauga: 11,175
Surrey: 10,275

Permanent Residents – Monthly IRCC Updates
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada
Permanent Residents by Province/Territory, Census Division and Census Subdivision
https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/f7e5498e-0ad8-4417-85c9-9b8aff9b9eda

[Changing City]

[QUOTE=kora;10556999]Immigrants by city in 2025, top 10

Thanks. I looked at the data to understand what it showed. So those are the top 10 CSDs with the number of total new permanent residents by intended destination who arrived in 2025.

There's always a problem comparing cities like Calgary, which has most of the CMA's population, with Vancouver which has less that a quarter of Metro Vancouver's population (and only 4% of the land area).

[KnoxfordGuy]

Originally Posted by theman23

The headline was written that way because the Atlantic provinces declined for the first time in years in Q4, whereas the other provinces like BC have already been declining for a while.

Why are news outlets just reporting this now? Q4 numbers dropped over 2 months ago.

[jc_yyc_ca]

Housing starts for January.


source

[trece verde]

Originally Posted by jc_yyc_ca

Housing starts for January.


source

If one was cynical, it could be said that the reason Vancouver had more housing starts in January is because it's the only part of the country listed where you can build housing in January....

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Or with Canadians realizing they were being taken for an expensive ride by Justin Trudeau and the Century Initiative.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by trece verde

If one was cynical, it could be said that the reason Vancouver had more housing starts in January is because it's the only part of the country listed where you can build housing in January....

You have to remember that housing starts is a lagging indicator and espeically for condos/apts. Housing isn't considered a "start" until it reaches ground floor. Not an issue to SFH but a very big one for condo towers where it can take more than a year just to excavate and do the underground parking.

[DavidK93]

Originally Posted by jc_yyc_ca

Housing starts for January.


source

Vancouver is getting back to normal. Not even much of a drop for Vancouver.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

You have to remember that housing starts is a lagging indicator and espeically for condos/apts. Housing isn't considered a "start" until it reaches ground floor. Not an issue to SFH but a very big one for condo towers where it can take more than a year just to excavate and do the underground parking.

If 'housing starts is a lagging indicator', building permits are a leading indicator. The vast majority of projects that obtain a permit proceed to construction. Here's the Statistics Canada data for housing units permitted in 2025 for those same six CMAs.

Toronto 34,906
Vancouver 29,401
Montreal 26,959
Calgary 20,126
Edmonton 18,685
Ottawa-Gatineau 15,007

[jc_yyc_ca]

Originally Posted by Changing City

If 'housing starts is a lagging indicator', building permits are a leading indicator. The vast majority of projects that obtain a permit proceed to construction. Here's the Statistics Canada data for housing units permitted in 2025 for those same six CMAs.

Toronto 34,906
Vancouver 29,401
Montreal 26,959
Calgary 20,126
Edmonton 18,685
Ottawa-Gatineau 15,007

Yes, generally that's the case. It's a decent indicator for what's coming, but much like housing starts it has scales also, as not all permits that are applied for at the same time start at the same time, some might be two weeks after application and some might be 6 months.

Even though housing starts have a lag, I like that they are an actual start.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by jc_yyc_ca

Yes, generally that's the case. It's a decent indicator for what's coming, but much like housing starts it has scales also, as not all permits that are applied for at the same time start at the same time, some might be two weeks after application and some might be 6 months.

Even though housing starts have a lag, I like that they are an actual start.

I agree, and I don't think CMHC Housing Starts numbers really have a lag, (that's ssiguy's view) but it's true they represent when the project reaches ground level. In some places, and with many projects, that's pretty much irrelevent, but where there's a significant hole for parking, it can easily be a year or two before construction reaches the surface.

CMHC's logic seems reasonable - sometimes there can be a significant delay between excavation and construction which could generate misleading data. Onni's second phase of Gilmore Place in Burnaby now proposes 1,770 apartments in 3 towers, and they started excavating the underground parkade in 2022, but have yet to start sales of the units or construction of the parkade - there's just a big hole which is likely to be around for several more years.

[ssiguy]

StatsCan's new unemployment numbers are out for Feb/26 and it showed 84k job losses in one month. This is the largest single month decline in decades outside of COVID.

Unemployment went up marginally but that figure masks the fact that it would have been much higher if so many hadn't dropped out of the labour force. BC and especially Quebec had a very bad month but the numbers were bad across the nation although NFLD & Alberta seemed to have come out relatively unscathed.

[MolsonExport]

Diaper Donald Tariffman is responsible for the dismal numbers.

[Pellimo]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

StatsCan's new unemployment numbers are out for Feb/26 and it showed 84k job losses in one month. This is the largest single month decline in decades outside of COVID.

Unemployment went up marginally but that figure masks the fact that it would have been much higher if so many hadn't dropped out of the labour force. BC and especially Quebec had a very bad month but the numbers were bad across the nation although NFLD & Alberta seemed to have come out relatively unscathed.

More details here :

https://www.narcity.com/unemployment-rates-canada-by-city-february-2026

Atlantic Canada
St. John's, NL — 7.3 per cent (7.7)
Halifax — 6.1 per cent (5.8)
Moncton — 6.1 per cent (5.6)
Saint John, NB — 5.3 per cent (5.6)
Fredericton — 6.1 per cent (5.8)
Quebec
Saguenay — 3.6 per cent (4.1)
Quebec City — 2.7 per cent (3.0)
Sherbrooke — 4.8 per cent (5.1)
Trois-Rivières — 3.8 per cent (3.9)
Drummondville — 5.6 per cent (4.7)
Montreal — 6.6 per cent (6.1)
Gatineau — 6.2 per cent (6.7)
Ontario
Ottawa — 6.8 per cent (7.0)
Kingston — 5.8 per cent (6.0)
Belleville-Quinte West — 9.9 per cent (10.0)
Peterborough — 6.2 per cent (6.6)
Oshawa — 8.1 per cent (8.1)
Toronto — 8.1 per cent (7.9)
Hamilton — 6.6 per cent (7.4)
St. Catharines-Niagara — 7.1 per cent (7.3)
Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo — 8.6 per cent (8.3)
Brantford — 7.9 per cent (8.7)
Guelph — 6.3 per cent (7.0)
London — 8.8 per cent (8.2)
Windsor — 8.0 per cent (8.1)
Barrie — 8.4 per cent (8.3)
Greater Sudbury — 6.2 per cent (6.7)
Thunder Bay — 5.2 per cent (4.6)
The Prairies
Winnipeg — 6.2 per cent (6.3)
Regina — 6.9 per cent (7.2)
Saskatoon — 5.7 per cent (6.0)
Lethbridge, AB — 6.8 per cent (7.4)
Calgary — 6.6 per cent (6.7)
Red Deer, AB — 7.2 per cent (8.1)
Edmonton — 6.8 per cent (6.8)
British Columbia
Kelowna — 6.3 per cent (6.8)
Kamloops — 3.8 per cent (4.8)
Chilliwack — 7.2 per cent (7.2)
Abbotsford-Mission — 5.7 per cent (6.3)
Vancouver — 6.2 per cent (6.3)
Victoria — 4.5 per cent (4.4)
Nanaimo — 7.7 per cent (6.6)
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 13, 2026.

As is often the case, Quebec City is bucking the trend.

Its economy is “self-sufficient” in a way… with an unemployment rate falling to 2.7%....


.

[MolsonExport]

Meanwhile London circles the toilet bowl, being heavily dependent on integrated supply chains that have been upended by Cheeto Benito.

[FrAnKs]

Quebec’s population dropped at just over 9 million on the population clock.
I thought we were much closer to 9.1 than 9…

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by FrAnKs

Quebec’s population dropped at just over 9 million on the population clock.
I thought we were much closer to 9.1 than 9…

yes there have definitely been some adjustments made
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2018005-eng.htm

plus our daily population gains are in the lowish two digits.

[FrAnKs]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

yes there have definitely been some adjustments made
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2018005-eng.htm

plus our daily population gains are in the lowish two digits.

What a change from what it used to be!

[KnoxfordGuy]

I put this in the skyline thread initially. Oops.

Originally Posted by KnoxfordGuy

From Stats Can. All provinces lost population except Alberta.



https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260318/dq260318b-eng.htm

[Innsertnamehere]

Thanks.

-100,000 in Q1 2026 as well as YoY.

Ontario down 120,000 people YoY.