Newcomers are increasingly choosing to stay in Quebec, according to new data from Statistics Canada. Meanwhile, Canada's population growth is at its slowest pace in two years.
Published at 6:00 a.m.
Record retention
Quebec has one of the highest retention rates for newcomers in the country. In 2022, 93.4% of admitted immigrants were still residing there one year after their arrival, compared to 84.6% in 2019. This increase almost entirely reduces the gap with Ontario, which has a retention rate of 94.6 %. The improvement is particularly marked among economic class immigrants. Conversely, provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia are seeing their retention rates drop.
Growth at its lowest
Canada had 41,465,298 inhabitants on 1is October 2024, an increase of 176,699 people compared to the previous quarter. This is the lowest quarterly increase since 2022. This slowdown reflects federal measures aimed at curbing the growth in the number of non-permanent residents, to respond to issues such as pressure on housing. International migration, including permanent and temporary immigrants, remains the main engine of growth, accounting for 92% of the total increase, while natural increase (births minus deaths) contributes only 8%.
The temporary challenge
Despite efforts to limit it, the number of non-permanent residents (NPR) continues to increase, reaching 3,049,277 in Canada. However, growth is slowing: the quarterly increase of 42,000 is significantly lower than the jumps of more than 200,000 recorded earlier this year. This slowdown is largely attributable to the decline in the number of international students. However, the federal objective of reducing the proportion of temporary residents to 5% of the population by 2026 still remains out of reach: this proportion increased from 7% in the second quarter to 7.4% in the fourth. In Quebec, it is 6.7%.
An engine of growth
Quebec stands out for having a higher rate of growth in temporary immigrants than in the rest of Canada. With 614,677 RNPs, their number increased by 4.5% in the fourth quarter, compared to just 1.6% nationally. This gap is mainly explained by the absence of a drop in the number of foreign students in Quebec. Furthermore, the number of asylum seekers continued to grow: 174,137 nationally, with an increase of 6.8% in Quebec, lower than that of the rest of the country (9%).