CANADA’S population surpassed 41 million people in the first quarter of 2024, to reach 41,012,563 on April 1, 2024. This milestone was reached less than one year after Statistics Canada announced that the population hit the 40-million mark on June 16, 2023.

The population grew by 242,673 people during the first quarter of 2024, which corresponds to a quarterly increase of 0.6%. This growth rate is the same as that seen in the fourth quarter of 2023 (+0.6%), as well as in the first quarter of 2023 (+0.6%).

Following recent trends, almost all the population growth in Canada (99.3%, or 240,955 people) in the first quarter of 2024 was attributable to international migration (including both permanent and temporary immigration). For permanent immigration, this growth is consistent with the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) target for immigrants in 2024. For temporary immigration, most of this growth occurred prior to the announcement that caps would be placed on the number of permits issued to non-permanent residents (NPRs) in 2024.

Without temporary immigration, Canada’s population growth rate during the first quarter of 2024 would have been 0.3%. From 2001 to 2021, the first quarter growth rate in Canada ranged from 0.1% to 0.3%.

Canada added 131,810 NPRs to the population in the first quarter of 2024. This is higher than the increase observed in the first quarter of 2023 (+108,435). However, the net increase in the first quarter of 2024 was one of the lowest quarterly net increases since higher levels of temporary migration began in the second quarter of 2022. It is also lower than the record highs seen in the second (+233,361) and third (+312,758) quarters of 2023.

All provinces and territories saw an increase in the estimated number of NPRs in the first quarter of 2024, except for Prince Edward Island (-338) and New Brunswick (-218), which had fewer NPRs at the end of the quarter than at the beginning. Yukon had the same estimated number of NPRs at the beginning of the quarter as at the end.

The total number of NPRs living in Canada increased for the ninth quarter in a row to reach a record high of 2,793,594 on April 1, 2024. Of these NPRs, 2,430,282 were permit holders (work or study) and their family members and 363,312 were asylum claimants, protected persons and related groups (with or without work or study permits).

While the estimated number of people who hold only work permits (+94,299) increased in the first quarter of 2024, the number of people who hold only study permits (-24,594) decreased. A lower number of people who hold only study permits is not uncommon in a first quarter, but the magnitude of the decrease in the first quarter of 2024 was greater than that in the same quarter of 2023 (-16,003).

INTERPROVINCIAL migration (89,408 migrants) was slower in the first quarter of 2024 than in the same quarter one year earlier (97,917 migrants; -8.7%).

Most provinces and territories had net losses in their exchanges with other provinces or territories in the first quarter of 2024, except for Alberta (+12,482), New Brunswick (+1,627) and Yukon (+60). This was the 11th straight quarter of net gains for Alberta, following losses in 19 out of 24 quarters from the third quarter of 2015 to the second quarter of 2021.

The largest contributors to the net gain in Alberta were people moving there from Ontario (9,398 in-migrants) and British Columbia (9,218 in-migrants). Conversely, when people left Alberta for other places in Canada, they tended to move to British Columbia (5,744 out-migrants) and Ontario (3,893 out-migrants).

For the 10th quarter in a row, Ontario (-9,020) had the largest net loss of people to other provinces and territories in the first quarter of 2024. Ontario has posted net losses in interprovincial migration for the past 17 quarters (since the first quarter of 2020).