{"id":74720,"date":"2026-06-17T14:07:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2026\/06\/17\/canadas-population-shrinks-as-lower-immigration-rates-take-hold\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T14:07:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:07:48","slug":"canadas-population-shrinks-as-lower-immigration-rates-take-hold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2026\/06\/17\/canadas-population-shrinks-as-lower-immigration-rates-take-hold\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada&#039;s population shrinks as lower immigration rates take hold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<br \/><\/p>\n<p> Lower immigration rates caused Canada\u2019s population to slightly decline in the first three months of 2026, according to Statistics Canada estimates. <\/p>\n<p> The country had about 41.4 million people as of April 1, which is a decline of 0.1 per cent, or 55,025 people, compared to the previous quarter. But the agency said its estimate is preliminary and will be updated in September. <\/p>\n<p> Canada invited 83,149 permanent immigrants in the first quarter, which is similar to the previous quarter, but down 20.2 per cent from the same quarter last year. <\/p>\n<p> The growth rate of the number of non-permanent residents, which includes newcomers such as foreign students, workers and asylum claimants, declined by 4.4 per cent compared to the previous quarter and there were about 2.55 million non-permanent residents in Canada as of April 1, according to Statistics Canada. <\/p>\n<p> But the agency said it expects a larger-than-usual change in its non-permanent residents estimate in September because of the \u201crapidly evolving context and shifting international migration policies.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> The number of permit extensions given to newcomers to continue their stay in Canada increased over the past few months, but associated processing times lengthened, it said. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cAs a result, updates of greater magnitude to recent non-permanent resident estimates may occur, which could lead to more pronounced upward changes to population estimates,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n<p> Natural population growth, measured as births minus deaths, fell by 155 people. A year earlier, the population increased naturally by 983 individuals. <\/p>\n<ul class=\"related_links\">\n<li>Canada\u2019s population could surpass 57 million by 2075 and these provinces could be the biggest drivers<\/li>\n<li>Canada&#8217;s population growth has stalled. Here&#8217;s what it means for the economy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> Canada has reported population declines in recent quarters after posting record increases in population growth rates during 2022 and 2023 in a bid to tackle job vacancies right after the pandemic. That\u2019s because the federal government has placed curbs on the number of non-permanent residents and has lowered its permanent residency targets. <\/p>\n<p> Earlier this month, Prime Minister Mark Carney linked Canada\u2019s sluggish economy to its declining population after the country reported two consecutive quarters of negative growth. <\/p>\n<p> <em>\u2022 Email: nkarim@postmedia.com<\/em> <\/p>\n\n<br \/>Canada&#039;s population shrinks as lower immigration rates take hold<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>2026-06-17 14:07:48<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lower immigration rates caused Canada\u2019s population to slightly decline in the first three months of 2026, according to Statistics Canada estimates. The country had about 41.4 million people as of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/74721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}