OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's population in the fourth quarter increased at the slowest pace since the pandemic, data showed on Wednesday, as a government crackdown on immigration announced last year takes shape.
Its population in the quarter ended Dec. 31 rose by 0.2% to 41.53 million people and marked the slowest growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2020 when it grew by 0.1%, Statistics Canada said.
The moderate pace was primarily led by a reduced number of non-permanent residents.
Canada had been welcoming of migrants, but immigration contributed to an affordability and housing crisis last year.
Facing growing discontent, late last year former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced measures expected to result in a population decline of 0.2% in both 2025 and 2026.
The new plan is set to bring in 395,000 new permanent residents in 2025, 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027, down from 485,000 in 2024.
Industry groups have warned that slowing immigration could impact availability of labor and hurt demand, especially at a time when tariffs from the U.S. have already started hurting consumer and business sentiment.
"There were 28,341 fewer non-permanent residents in the country on January 1, 2025, than on October 1, 2024," Statscan said, adding that it was the largest decline since the third quarter of 2020 when Canada welcomed roughly 68,000 people.
The non-permanent residents in the country at the end of the fourth quarter made up 7.3% of the total population, marginally down from 7.4% in the end of the third quarter, data showed.
However, due to strong growth in the first two quarters of last year, the country's population surged by 744,324 people in 2024, a growth rate of 1.8%.
While this was lower than the rate of growth seen in 2022 of 2.5% and in 2023 of 3.1%, it was still higher than that in any year from 1972 to 2021, Statscan said.
(Reporting by Promit Mukherjee, Editing by Nick Zieminski)
