Half of Canadians will have at least 40 candles on their next birthday cake, according to a new population analysis from Statistics Canada.

The agency reports that the median age of Canada's population has climbed to 39.9 years as of July 1, up 0.2 years over what it was a year ago.

That means that half the people living in Canada are older than this figure, while the other half are younger, which implies that 50 per cent of the population will have lived at least four decades by the time they hit their next birthday.

StatsCan said the median age is increasing because elderly Canadians are living longer and their younger counterparts are not having enough children to replace older generations.

The populations of provinces in Atlantic Canada have the highest median ages in the country, with Newfoundland and Labrador (43.8 years), Nova Scotia (43.1 years), New Brunswick (43.0 years) and Prince Edward Island (42.2 years) all sitting above the national average.

Quebec's population had a median age of 41.4 years as of July 1, while StatsCan said that Ontario's population had a median age of 39.6 years.

British Columbia, at 41.1 years, was the only western province where the median age was higher than the national average. Manitoba (37.6 years) and Saskatchewan (37.3 years) both had a median age that was above Alberta, which at 36.0 years was the lowest among all of the provinces in Canada.

Nunavut had the youngest population in the country with a median age of just 24.8 years. The median age of the population in the Yukon was 39.2 years, compared to 31.8 years in the Northwest Territories.

StatsCan also reports that Canada's population now sits at an estimated 34,482,800 people.

In terms of the aging population, StatsCan estimates that there are currently more than 4.97 million seniors in Canada.

But that number is only going to increase as the baby boomers enter their golden years.

Only the eldest of the Canadians born in the aftermath of the Second World War have turned 65, which means that most baby boomers are still in the midst of their working lives.

StatsCan said seniors now make up about 14.4 per cent of the population, an increase of 0.3 percentage points over last year.