Canada’s population growth rate continues to decline, largely owing to declining migration trends, Statistics Canada said on Wednesday.
The population of Canada reached an estimated 41,798,407 people on July 1, 2026, an increase of 189,425 people or 0.5 per cent from July 1, 2025.
This marked the lowest July-to-July growth in total population size since 1944/1945 and the lowest July-to-July percentage increase since 1915/1916, the agency added.
Canada’s population growth rate for July peaked at 2.8 per cent in 2023/2024, but has been steadily slowing on an annual basis since then.
The growth rate has more than halved compared to July 2024/2025, when it was 1.1 per cent.
In the second quarter of the year, from April 1 to July 1, Canada saw its population increase by 80,343 people or 0.2 per cent. This was the lowest growth in a second quarter since the second quarter of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic had all but halted immigration levels.
Statistics Canada credited “changing international migration trends” with not only the slowdown in the population growth rate, but also with the average age in Canada increasing over the past two years.
As of July 1, 2026, the average Canadian was 42.1 years old.
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The number of non-permanent residents in Canada dropped by 154,614 people from July 2025 to reach 2,779,774 on July 1, 2026, or 6.7 per cent of the total population.
On Oct. 1, 2025, non-permanent residents were 7.2 per cent of the total population.
This was mostly led by a massive decline in the number of study permit holders (declined by 140,827) and work-and-study permit holders (81,163 drop).
The two segments that saw the largest declines in population were people between 20 and 24 years (2.4 per cent) and people between 25 and 29 (3.1 per cent).
Canada welcomed 99,148 immigrants in the second quarter of 2026, according to Statistics Canada. This number is 4.2 per cent lower than in the second quarter of 2025 (103,527).
Canadians over 65 now form 20 per cent of the population, an increase of 0.6 per cent, while Canadians aged 0 to 14 form 15 per cent of the population, a decline of 0.1 per cent.
Alberta had the fastest growing population (1.5 per cent), while British Columbia had the slowest rate of growth (0.1 per cent). The only province or territory to register a decline in population was the Northwest Territories, where the population declined by 0.3 per cent.
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Fertility and birth rate
In 2025, Canada’s fertility rate was unchanged at 1.26 children per woman.
The fertility rate has been steadily declining in Canada since 2009. The drops got sharper between 2017 and 2023, except for 2021 when an increase was recorded.
There was a smaller 0.8 per cent decline in 2024, before plateauing in 2025.
There were 372,521 babies born in Canada in 2025, a 1.6 per cent increase compared with 2024. There were more boys (51.3 per cent) born in Canada than girls (48.7 per cent).
In 2025, 43.8 per cent of mothers who gave birth in Canada were born in other countries, up from 32.7 per cent in 2021.
No it’s not in fact just in 6yrs it rose to 41.4 million in 2026 from 35.7 million in 2020. They’re making you all feel guilty so now they’ll say we need to bring more 3rd world garbage over. In reality they wanna breed out us real Canadians.
The more woman enter the workforce the less breeding they do and as a result they get more cancer due to hormones
mainly through lifetime exposure to estrogen and progesterone and through how many ovulatory cycles a woman has.
Breast cancer (especially ER-positive, the most common type):
Never having children, or having the first child later, is associated with higher long-term risk.
Each extra year of delay in first birth is estimated at roughly +3% risk; nulliparous women have modestly higher risk than women who had at least one child.
Breastfeeding adds protection, particularly for some aggressive subtypes.
Pregnancy is not instantly protective: risk rises for about 5–20 years after a birth (stronger if the birth is later), then falls below the never-pregnant baseline. So “had kids later” can look worse in the short run and better decades later.
Canceraustralia
Ovarian and endometrial cancers:
More full-term pregnancies and longer oral-contraceptive use generally lower risk (fewer lifetime ovulations).
Never giving birth is a recognized risk factor for ovarian cancer.
Oxford projects Edmonton’s population and workforce will be the second-fastest growing in Canada and the United States over the next five years.
The designation seemingly applies to the metropolitan region, as Oxford lists our population as 1.7 million. (In January, Edmonton Global tracked Statistics Canada data from July 2024 and 2025 that indicated Edmonton was Canada’s fastest growing metropolitan area.) Other key figures in the Oxford report list the region’s GDP at US$81 billion, or $48,200 per person.
Best news I’ve heard all day. There is no healthy or bright future on the horizon. We’re all being worked to death and the idea of starting a family is disorienting. As someone in my 30’s, I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t bring children into the world. I cannot in good conscience conceive a life that will be forced to live a meaningless existence.
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There is zero need for population growth in Canada.
Liberals are using immigration to commit genocide against Canadians.
Seems Statistics Canada still doesn’t know what they are doing. New revised numbers by StatsCan shows a population increase in all quarters. Maybe they are misrepresenting numbers to justify bring more people in?
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The new folks aren’t Canadian. They have no historical or cultural ties. Canada is simply being replaced by third world populations.
Except for Muslims, some Aboriginals, some migrants, etc., who want to be the majority and commit White elimination.
Bad Liberal immigration policy oversaturated services. Now its reversal has created a real estate bubble that will destroy wealth of many Canadians. And! Taxes taxes taxes! Elbows up!
Let’s celebrate the non-breeders some more. 3-4 months is not enough.
@ Duke…This is exactly why Alberta needs to leave this tire fire, because of half-wits like you! Thanks for your support and encouragement to vote yes on sovereignty.
P.S You purple-hairs are hilarious.
Industry experts are wrong. People juat cant afford to have kids. Life is too expensive and mostly not worth living anymore.
We can kick out the useless MAGA traitors and bring in immigrants who wants to be Canadian and willing to work and fight for Canada. And immigrants who will have children that will drive tomorrow’s economy. There’s a military barrack near my place and I see a lot of visible minorities in Canadian uniforms ready to fight for Canada. Unlike these dead beat MAGA loosers. Get out and build your Dictator’s sniper monuments.
@Darth at 1252 am. Respectfully, econometric models contradict you. We need to have a certain percentage of working age people to support social programs. Yes, agree that more immigration drives wage suppression but thats where government can and should regulate. And arguably, there is a shortage of some workers in areas with smaller populations.
Good. The Century Initiative was stupid.
What is the point of this? Every first world country is declining population. Heck, it might make people uncomfortable to talk about, but Israel is the only country right now with high levels of women’s rights that has positively trending population numbers. We can literally watch Saudi Arabia apply women’s rights, as fertility plummets. India same thing. You can look at a list of countries with most women’s rights next to a list of lowest fertility countries, and they match up almost perfectly 95% of the time.
I’m not stating this as a “bad” or “good” thing. It’s just a fact. Basically every first world nation with women’s rights is declining in population.
And the more uncomfortable dataset within that dataset (to me at least) is that the people who are reproducing are the lowest IQ among us. Data shows higher IQ people have significantly less children on average. So population is declining, and the only people who are reproducing are the dumbest among us. The future looks bleak.
What is this article supposed to have a reaction to? .05 percent? Meaningless.
Increase of 36 percent over the last 10 years. Now that’s news. It’s actually insane that the government allowed that many people to come into Canada in such a short time. Talk about that story. And all it’s of the effects it’s had on the economy etc
Global news comment section, keeping racism thriving! This place seems to be AI bots and boomers.
Look as the dehumanizing language they use. You, white cracker redneck, you’re the vermin of Canada. The old, far-right, white boomer that contributes nothing. The hardest workers are immigrants. That is undeniable.
We were better off when the population was lower. We could get doctors, we didn’t have the crime and it was possible to actually get into a career and buy a house. Now, we are competing against 500 job applicants with fake degrees.
I got out and moved to the greatest country in the world, China
@Ben,
Retirees pay taxes out of their RRSPs and pensions, working students pay taxes, the working class also pay taxes, and no, they don’t “get it all back in services”. More immigrants is not the answer to collecting taxes. That drives wage suppression and gentrification, leading us to were we are now.
The bourgeoisie and ruling classes pay very little tax by claiming expenses (sometimes by creating other supply companies to overcharge themselves) and hide their income out of circulation. They dump the bill on the rest of us and control the media to make us believe we are not paying enough tax. Not to mention the tens of billions the government gives away in foreign aide and squanders on pet projects.
I too as a canadian cant wait to retire in a country I can afford. Canada is to expensive too many taxes and no political party i trust anymore
yeh, you need immigrants have ding-ding with Pure Canadians .. and result mre Hybrid Canadians.. . and soon there are no more Canadians
Canada should reduce its population… That is better than taking in fraudulent, illegal, and criminal immigrants without screening or vetting from corrupt Third World countries.
@Eurotrash. Respectfully, using dehumanizing terms towards white people is not going to get you anywhere. If you want to make a point about systemic racism in Canada, there are probably better ways to get it across.
@Youknowme
You’re an idiot. Every single Indian I know sends money back home to their families. The money doesn’t stay in Canada.
@You’reOTrash
You are so boring. Do you you have any real thoughts, or do you just copy and paste your comments from one story to another.
You must really excite the ladies with that intellect.
Who cares? Only people who care are corps who profit of of mass hiring TEMPS to drive wages down. we don’t need the Mumbai slums migrating here, and the ones that are here need to go back
Millions more gotta go.
Very simple, this country will gondown drain with this rate of population. Immigrants especially Indians and Chineese were brought in to bring money and pay up taxes unlike refugees from Muslim countries and Africa. Alas Indians were the scape goat and now who are going to pay for the social benefits of impotent yt thrashes lol
Our birthrate is too low. A lot of people are retiring and not paying as much in taxes. Who will pay for, say, healthcare and OAS for these people? Immigrants.
The population isn’t declining yet, just the number of newcomers stepping off the planes every 15 minutes has reduced. Same problems persist.
Population declining yet we still can’t get a family doctor
rate continues to decline, largely owing to declining migration trends ! GOOD, KEEP IT GOING DOWN
The EU will demand we take a few million of their deplorables.
Population growth continues to decline… Got it… How about Canada’s population continues to decline.
Maybe the amount of a type of plastic in all items we a
Elaborate you psychotic leftist… every bad idea in the last 20 years has come from the left. You don’t know what a woman is, but you want to do “social reform”? Start by describing a woman not by organs, then ill listen to you… nah. You’ll still come up with something diabolical, calling it empathy.
Anyone who can leaves for the States, Canadians and immigrants.
Just check how many Canadian doctors and nurses moved over there.
Fix Canada, Carney, that’s what you were elected for!
This is not bad news
We need progressive social reform now. I’m so tired of all the anti-intellectualism and proud ignorance that is my fellow Canadian citizen.
Are consistently taught to have no hope for the future its a dangerous and divided world… oh yeah and climate change that never happened. Being 40 and watching this new generation talk about not having kids to “save the planet” its just genocide through constant propaganda, cause YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT should be minimized to the point you dont exist.
I for one will never promote climate change to the youth, cause guess what, you were just replaced, and now you have to pay for the “new Canadians” footprint. Its every man for himself the gov is a disgrace.
It’s simple, Canadians can’t afford to have kids.
To put then into college and university can bankrupt a family.
Indians and Muslims have no issues with 10 families in one home.
Hence why they are outpacing Canadians families having children
Give Canadians free education like the natives get and watch the families grow
@Z and @Anonymous. You already reduced the population of “Indians”, that’s why we have so much Eurotrash here. Now white trash inbreds are going to get a taste of their own medicine and there’s nothing you sister humpers can do but whine on the internet
A reduction in the number of white trash inbreds is always a good thing
Population growth leads to gentrification and higher house and apartment costs, lost forests and municipalities rezoning park lands for new slum apartment buildings. That’s all I’ve seen so far and the slip is real.
What kind of b.s. article is this? You left out key info, even more than the article about Trump Ave.
You left out that a 100k plus Canadians leave every year. In 2024, a year before tariffs, we had 106k leave, which broke a 57 year record. In 2024 a new record was set at 120k leaving. We all know someone who decided to leave. Dual citizenship is the hottest ticket right now. And people able and willing to do the costly and hard work of relocation also tend to be the more successful people, so yes this is a brain drain. All thanks to the Lost Liberal Decade.
Not to worry as soon as Carney ties us to the EU as an associate member the EU will tell us we have to take the illegal migrants from all of the 27 EU countries just as they have told the UK that if they want to return to the EU they will have to do.
That should please the Liberals as they would easily fill their 100 million Canadian population quota by 2035.
@Good No, maybe not entirely, but near unlimited immigration certainly hasn’t helped to remedy these problems! As Jay said, let’s keep our population small and sparse, the way Canada should be – no overcrowding!
Close the door to Indians and Muslims
This is fine with me. I like my small, sparse population thank you very much! No over-crowding for Canada please. Happy they closed the flood gates opened by Trudon’t.
Send back all the filth that came here in the last ten years.
Maybe that’s why rents are dropping in many cities. Good. We don’t need more people.
If population of indians and muslambs declining, that’s a good thing
So less immigrants but housing is still expensive and jobs are still scarce… it’s almost like immigrants are not and have never been the problem. But keep whining about it
Hahahahahaha!