Foreign Arrivals Drive Canada's Rapid Population Growth

Canada recorded its fastest population growth since 1957 in 2022, adding more than one million residents in a single year to reach 39.5 million, the first time the country grew by over a million people in a 12 month span.

International migration drove nearly 96 percent of that increase, with the government welcoming a record 437,180 new immigrants and setting targets to reach 500,000 arrivals a year by 2025.

A surge in temporary residents holding work or study permits, which climbed to 607,782, added further to the totals.

Statistics Canada tied the influx to high job vacancies and labor shortages, along with an aging population in which one in seven residents is between 55 and 64.

The intake also included people fleeing Ukraine, Afghanistan, and earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

Officials acknowledged the rapid growth could strain housing, infrastructure, transportation, and public services in some regions, making population one of the year's defining policy debates.

The million resident year was the peak. Statistics Canada now records the first annual decline in records back to the 1940s: 102,000 fewer people in 2025, then another 55,025 gone in the first quarter of 2026, leaving 41,417,056 residents on April 1, per Global News. Ottawa wants the temporary population under 5 percent by the end of 2027 and allows only 385,000 new temporary arrivals in 2026, while permanent admissions fell 18.6 percent last year to about 394,000, CBC News reports. Colleges built on foreign tuition absorb the cut, and Bank of Montreal's Robert Kavcic expects growth near zero through 2027. The next test is Statistics Canada's second quarter estimate in September 2026, when preliminary figures get revised.