Winnipeg CMA in 5 years (2026)

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by wags_in_the_peg

i wonder what % of that increase pay taxes and contribute? the school my wife works at is bursting and they cant handle the huge class sizes. the add'l wear on our roads is showing.

All immigrants pay taxes.....other than refugees (only 30,000 people per year), immigrants don't come to Canada and go on social assistance.


immigrants cause potholes is a new take.....all those immigrants drivin' their F-150's all over the place just tearin' up our good Canadian taxpayer paid for roads.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by Hecate

Why do people celebrate this when our city’s infrastructure is barely sufficient for a city of around 600,000 people. More sprawl, more pollution, more wildlife trapped and killed by endless traffic. Housing for our locals is becoming more unaffordable by the week. It’s not something to celebrate.

where does this assertion that our infrastructure is built for 600,000 people come from? There are cities half the size of Winnipeg with twice the number of people.....the issue isn't population growth. The issue is where we have built places for everyone to live.....we are far better off to change that than to fear growth.

all those immigrants killing wildlife in traffic.....evil immigrants.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by Justanothermember

Eventually Ottawa will crack down on immigration, potentially hard if the Tories get in. When that happens, these record growth rates will disappear because the city is not a top destination of choice for Canadian citizens. I think this is the crux of the situation and something that both the city and provincial governments need to address in order to keep a reasonably steady growth rate during leaner times.

The immigration increase in 2021 and 2022 was done to slow inflation, fill supply chain gaps and reduce labour shortages due to the impact of the global pandemic on the workforce....it was done for very specific economic reasons....immigration is already back to pre-pandemic levels.

The baby boom generation is aging through the workforce...higher rates of immigration are needed to balance the impact of this on the economy...no Conservative government will cut immigration....they will rage farm now because it buys votes, but immigration is driving our economy...we saw what happened to the economy after the low immigration rates during the pandemic....its the reason they temporarily increased it.

[bomberjet]

Has anybody in this forum actually talked to immigrants??

Holy hell. Half my office are immigrants. With University educations and high paying jobs. They're not sitting on Main St holding out their hand. Give your heads a shake.

[Winnipeg Grump]

Originally Posted by trueviking

The immigration increase in 2021 and 2022 was done to slow inflation, fill supply chain gaps and reduce labour shortages due to the impact of the global pandemic on the workforce....it was done for very specific economic reasons....immigration is already back to pre-pandemic levels.

The baby boom generation is aging through the workforce...higher rates of immigration are needed to balance the impact of this on the economy...no Conservative government will cut immigration....they will rage farm now because it buys votes, but immigration is driving our economy...we saw what happened to the economy after the low immigration rates during the pandemic....its the reason they temporarily increased it.

Man, demographics will tell you everything, if you just pay attention.

By the way, birth rates are declining in more than just the 'western' countries - look into what China is facing, as an example. The more affluent/educated a society becomes, the lower the birth rate. All of these countries around the world coming up with policies to convince women to have a bunch more kids and by and the large the response is "nah, I'm good". It's an interesting issue to look into.

[Winnipeg Grump]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Has anybody in this forum actually talked to immigrants??

Holy hell. Half my office are immigrants. With University educations and high paying jobs. They're not sitting on Main St holding out their hand. Give your heads a shake.

This!
Our office has a good number of new Canadians working.

[Justanothermember]

Originally Posted by Winnipeg Grump

Man, demographics will tell you everything, if you just pay attention.

By the way, birth rates are declining in more than just the 'western' countries - look into what China is facing, as an example. The more affluent/educated a society becomes, the lower the birth rate. All of these countries around the world coming up with policies to convince women to have a bunch more kids and by and the large the response is "nah, I'm good". It's an interesting issue to look into.

Japan and South Korea are a few other examples. India is also on track to be in the same position China is in now towards the end of the century as it becomes a more affluent country. The majority comes down to cost. If having kids was cheap, people would have more. But they aren't, so they don't.

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Has anybody in this forum actually talked to immigrants??

Holy hell. Half my office are immigrants. With University educations and high paying jobs. They're not sitting on Main St holding out their hand. Give your heads a shake.

Same. They are definitely not street people.

[FactaNV]

The conversation has to be how do we make Winnipeg and Manitoba generally more attractive to migrants, citizens or foreigners. How do we set the economic conditions to attract the right people to grow our economy (and tax base).

[Spocket]

I have no issue with immigrants but there are simply too many coming in. I don't blame them: as near as I can tell, they got the old bait and switch.

We can't handle how many people are entering the country. We just can't. Whose fault it is is a moot point. What we need to do first and foremost is get cracking on the housing crisis. We're rapidly approaching a point of no-return where the only way to solve it will be draconian. Putting landlords in charge of solving it, as we've done so far, is clearly not the way to go and obviously never was. Costs need to come down, far more needs to be built and wages need to rise. It's amazing how quickly the middle class is being decimated by government inaction and I don't care which party actually gets moving, one of them has to. It's not a partisan argument: they've all failed us miserably on this and they've said nothing to suggest they're taking the problem seriously, either.

That all being said, it's simple math: same number of homes + way more people in need of them = untenable situation. I don't want to stop immigration for any stupid ideological reasons, I'm a realist. I want people to have a place to live. They can't. That includes immigrants. We've already become one of the world's top "regret" destinations because of how much our cost of living has increased beyond wages. If we don't get some serious action on the housing and cost of living crises very soon, we're going to have a much bigger problem than limiting immigrants. We won't be able to attract any in the first place.

[roccerfeller]

Some embarrassing comments in this thread - should not just give your head a shake but maybe go shake it another country if you’re so self righteous feeling or threatened about newcomers

I mean unless you’re 100% indigenous, you (or someone in your family tree) is ultimately an immigrant … you’re insulting your ancestor who worked their ass off to make you/your parents/grandparents etc have the opportunities you grew up with

I digress….back to the topic

The population number is fantastic news for Winnipeg. Don’t recall the last time saw that much growth and it’s fun to go back it the beginning of the thread and see comments about where we thought the population would be today and why

[Winnipegger]

I think the national conversation about immigration has to become quite a bit more nuanced than either "immigration = good" or "immigration = bad".

Canada, almost every province, and every city including Winnipeg has seen a dramatic increase in population over the last two years (2024 won't be reflected in the statistics for quite some time but we can infer from provincial quarterly stats) that has been absolutely unmatched by anything we've ever seen before. The City of Winnipeg grew by over 30,000 people last year alone, which is probably the single largest increase in population observed in our history. I'd wager many cities have observed something similar. I don't think anyone here understands the magnitude of that number. The second largest increase Winnipeg saw was back in 2017 when population increased by less than half that amount, a little less than 15,000 people on net. 2023's population growth figure was more than double that.

To many people's points here, how much have we expanded hospital capacity and practicing doctors? Have we added Transit busses and drivers? Are there more police and firefighters to respond to calls? How much has local employment grown in higher paying industries like finance, advanced manufacturing, and technical services? While the employment rate has only seen some minor declines since the onset of such aggressive immigration targets, the question remains on what roles are recent immigrants filling in our society?

If people dig into the numbers for the CMA, you will see that the massive increase in population this past year is driven by abnormal amounts of non-permanent residents which are those here to study at post-secondary institutions or here on temporary work permits. We saw an 18,000 person increase in non-permanent residents in the last year which is absolutely mind boggling considering the historical trend has been between 2,000 to 4,000 per year. Why such a dramatic shift? Why did non permanent residents increase by over 350% this year compared to the historical average? And what are all those non pr's doing? I can tell you that the UofM or UofW's enrollment in bachelor programs surely didn't increase by 18,000, nor did employment in high paying or much needed sectors.

While immigration plays an extremely vital role in supplementing our labour force to replace an aging population, and there are shortages of skilled workers in certain sectors, the dramatic inflow we've seen in the last 2 years isn't necessarily alleviating this pressure. Immigration has been a key driver for success in Canada's history, and much of the population in this country is here because they or their parents/grandparents immigrated here from another country. And there is no denying the importance of well run immigration program to both provide opportunity to those abroad and strengthen the resilience of our own economy. But what we've seen these last 2 years is so far beyond what we need.

So yeah, I think it's important that Canadians across all platforms should be discussing the validity of the current immigration program. What was once a strong, stable source of growth for Canada has now been transformed by the current Federal government into some sort of mechanism being used by diploma mills, landlords, and large corporations to push up tuition for useless programs and rent while keeping wages low in low-skilled sectors that these non-prs occupy. This isn't coming from a place of racism or fear of immigrants, but rather a place of wondering whether Canada is able to handle such a dramatic increase in population (above historical norms) in such a short amount of time.

Most Canadians welcomed the steady, well thought-out immigration policy that worked to supplement our labour force while considering the existing supply of housing, infrastructure, and public amenities. What we've seen these last 2 years is a complete break from that policy which is now doing nothing but pushing up enrollment as strip mall diploma mills, pushing up rental prices in urban markets, and suppressing wages so that Tim Hortons, McDonalds, and Sobeys can maintain their profit margins via cheap labour. The Feds broke the system and they will pay the price next election.

[pspeid]

Re: Winnipeg's growth. Great to see. I have a chance to see it hit the 1 million mark if I avoid too many drive-thru burgers.

Re: immigration. I understand the need to be able to supply appropriate housing, medical coverage, school spaces, etc. However, some of the arguments for slowing immigration give me the feeling that the people we are talking about are little more than economic/energy units to be plugged into the machine that is the economy. Immigrants are human beings who often can't wait to leave the country they happened to be born in for a better chance at life. Asking them to simply disappear until we need them smacks way too much of corporate thinking for my stomach.

I honestly can't imagine how difficult it must be to make the decision to immigrate to a new country, with a different language and customs. People are willing to come to our country to build a life for themselves and their families, and contribute to the overall well-being of the nation as a whole. I personally see many, many new Canadians come through my workplace. Many of them are training to be nurses, project managers, cyber security technicians, and many other much-needed professions. Rather than saying "the supports aren't there, cut down on immigration", we should be saying "the supports aren't there, increase the supports". IMO it's a short term pain vs long term gain argument.

[bomberjet]

Was looking at some news articles and such on the topic. Immigration was ramped up post pandemic to deal with labour shortages and things of this nature. Immigration is expected to ramp back down and stabilize in the next year or so. It's already slowing.

Winnipeg is attractive to newcomers because it is cheap here. Once they get established, they move elsewhere (generally speaking) if tehy can afford to. So the people that stay in Winnipeg, generally, are the people with lower incomes. At work, we see younger immigrants either transfer out west, or leave the company because they got a position out west. They love mountains I guess lol

The older immigrants, again generally speaking, will stay around Winnipeg because they've settled and found stability.

To convince someone to stay in Winnipeg will be difficult if they can afford to move and have the freedom to do so.

[EdwardTH]

Originally Posted by Winnipegger

To many people's points here, how much have we expanded hospital capacity and practicing doctors? Have we added Transit busses and drivers? Are there more police and firefighters to respond to calls?

These are valid concerns but none of the issues with these institutions are new. None of the problems just suddenly appeared 2 years ago when immigration levels increased. The problem is not "too many immigrants", the problem is that for 3 decades government has prioritized corporate welfare and corporate tax cuts over funding public services that Canadians need.

[Jammon]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Was looking at some news articles and such on the topic. Immigration was ramped up post pandemic to deal with labour shortages and things of this nature. Immigration is expected to ramp back down and stabilize in the next year or so. It's already slowing.

Winnipeg is attractive to newcomers because it is cheap here. Once they get established, they move elsewhere (generally speaking) if tehy can afford to. So the people that stay in Winnipeg, generally, are the people with lower incomes. At work, we see younger immigrants either transfer out west, or leave the company because they got a position out west. They love mountains I guess lol

The older immigrants, again generally speaking, will stay around Winnipeg because they've settled and found stability.

To convince someone to stay in Winnipeg will be difficult if they can afford to move and have the freedom to do so.

This report does a great job looking at immigration from a professional perspective and then summarizes our immigration statistics. I have to provide data on an annual basis: https://www.gov.mb.ca/frpo/reports/a...ister_2023.pdf

[Justanothermember]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Was looking at some news articles and such on the topic. Immigration was ramped up post pandemic to deal with labour shortages and things of this nature. Immigration is expected to ramp back down and stabilize in the next year or so. It's already slowing.

Winnipeg is attractive to newcomers because it is cheap here. Once they get established, they move elsewhere (generally speaking) if tehy can afford to. So the people that stay in Winnipeg, generally, are the people with lower incomes. At work, we see younger immigrants either transfer out west, or leave the company because they got a position out west. They love mountains I guess lol

The older immigrants, again generally speaking, will stay around Winnipeg because they've settled and found stability.

To convince someone to stay in Winnipeg will be difficult if they can afford to move and have the freedom to do so.

This loops back to my original point, getting to the issue of establishing higher paying jobs to keep younger talented people here (consequently driving a more lucrative economy overall), and where I was saying civic and provincial governments have done poor jobs of addressing this issue. Obviously not all of them leave and there still are a fair few around, but more work needs to be done to keep more of them here in order for the city and province to be more competitive.

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by Justanothermember

This loops back to my original point, getting to the issue of establishing higher paying jobs to keep younger talented people here (and driving a more lucrative economy overall), and where I was saying civic and provincial governments have dome poor jobs of addressing this issue. Obviously not all of them leave and there still are a fair few around, but more work needs to be done to keep more of them here in order for the city and province to be more competitive.

Full agreeance. The question remains though, which industries can be attracted here?

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by roccerfeller

The population number is fantastic news for Winnipeg. Don’t recall the last time saw that much growth and it’s fun to go back it the beginning of the thread and see comments about where we thought the population would be today and why

From what I ahve heard, 1957. The height of the baby boom, and we just missed record growth by 0.1%. In absolute numbers, Winnipeg has never had an influx of nearly 34,000 people. Not even close.

[bomberjet]

The industry I'm in, engineering, there are equal opportunities in all major Cities and a lot of smaller Cities.

The people I work with can either transfer within our company to any major City. Or simply get a job at another firm. Once you have experience, that is very, very easy to do. There's nothing we can do besides giving them money to stay. Like here's 20 grand cash to stay. But most companies won't do that. Imagine if the Province started offering cash to people to stay here. Would be mayhem.

Attracting big companies or head office or whatever to Winnipeg won't change that in my work life. But that will attract other potential high earners to come here or stay here.