TORONTO -- With lower rates of international migration and climbing death rates, Canada saw its lowest population growth rate percentage last year since 1916, Statistics Canada reports.
The data released Thursday indicates that Canada’s population increased by 0.4 per cent in 2020. This is approximately one-quarter of the growth seen in 2019, and the lowest annual growth rate percentage since 1916, when Canada was at war.
“Since the majority of growth in Canada comes from international migration (86% in 2019), the restrictions on international travel greatly impacted the population growth patterns in the country,” Statistics Canada said in a statement to CTVNews.ca. “Had the pandemic not have occurred, we would have had every reason to expect growth in Canada to have continued as it has in the recent past.”
The agency reported that, with the exception of Nunavut, the population slightly increased in most provinces and territories last year. Both Ontario and British Columbia had a 0.4 per cent increase in population in 2020, however this was Ontario’s lowest growth rate since 1917 and British Columbia’s lowest growth rate since 1874. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the population declined by 0.6 per cent.
HOW COVID-19 AFFECTED THE ANNUAL POPULATION GROWTH RATE
INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION
According to StatCan, the effect that the pandemic had on international migration made it the root cause of Canada’s lower numbers in population growth last year.
“International migration has accounted for more than three-quarters of the total population growth since 2016, reaching 85.7 per cent in 2019,” the agency wrote in their report. “Following border and travel restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19 in March 2020, this percentage fell to 58 per cent.”
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Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada estimated that approximately 341,000 individuals immigrated to Canada prior to the pandemic. Last year, Canada had just under 187,000 individuals immigrate, making it the lowest number since 1998. This is also about half of what the numbers were in 2019.
“This has a long-term implication. Canada needs this demographic and [the] socio-economic boost of immigration,” Anna Triandafyllidou, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration, told CTVNews.ca on Thursday. “The economy is growing, and is going to grow after we can put the pandemic behind [us], and I think clearly the immigration is part of the demographic picture.”
NON-PERMANENT RESIDENTS
In 2020, Canada saw more non-permanent residents leaving Canada than coming into Canada. This year, there was a decrease of 86,535 non-permanent residents, as opposed to the 190,952 increase in 2019. StatCan says that these numbers reflect the net loss of non-permanent residents that every province and territory had last year, with the exception of Prince Edward Island.
Triandafyllidou says that many people come to Canada on work permits to work, for instance, in the tourism and transport industry. With the companies in these industries operating under COVID-19 restrictions, many workers have been forced to leave due to layoffs and permit restrictions.
“People find themselves in this situation where they cannot take up another job offer even if they have one because the work permit is a closed work permit, so it’s valid only for that employer and that job,” said Triandafyllidou. “So people who had an uncertain status had fallen from a temporary work permit to a visitor status.”
NUMBER OF DEATHS
Last year, Canada hit a record high in the number of deaths recorded in a single year, reporting over 300,000 deaths in 2020. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, COVID-19 accounted for approximately one death out of every 20 deaths in Canada last year.
