Ontario cities overtake Regina, Saskatoon in population growth

A construction worker pushes a wheelbarrow at a home construction site in Saskatoon on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Laura Woodward/CTV Saskatoon)

After leading the country in annual population growth in in 2017, Regina and Saskatoon saw a slowdown in 2018.

However the cities still rank sixth and eighth, respectively, and above the national average for all Census Metropolitan Areas (CMA), according to figures released by Statistics Canada on Friday.

Last year's fastest growing urban areas were in Ontario: Peterborough, Kitchener–Cambridge–Waterloo, Ottawa–Gatineau, Windsor and London.

Permanent and temporary immigration is the key driver of population growth in urban Canada, and is linked to higher targets for permanent immigration and programs to encourage the admission of temporary workers and foreign students, Statistics Canada said.

Canada continues to become more urbanized with 26.5 million people living in a CMA, and with gworth in large urban areas (1.8 per cent) outpacing the rest of the country (0.6 per cent).

Canada's three largest CMAs—Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver—are now home to over one-third of Canadians (35.7 per cent).

Population growth in Alberta's CMAs continues to be affected by the downturn in commodity production that began in 2014 and the resulting rise in unemployment rates, according to Statistics Canada.

For the third consecutive year, the CMA of Calgary was not among the top 10 for population growth in Canada.