Canada's total population is nearly 37 million New immigrants are the main force in population growth

TORONTO, Feb. 9 (China News Service) -- The latest census data released by Statistics Canada on February 9 shows that as of spring 2021, Canada's total population is about 36.992 million. The main factors of population growth come from new immigrants.

Compared to the 2016 census, Canada's population grew by 5.2%. The CBI said the country remains the fastest growing population among the seven largest industrial countries in the West (G7).

In the 2016-2021 census cycle, Canada's population grew by about 1.8 million, of which four-fifths were newcomers, and the rest came from natural growth, the difference between births and deaths.

In this 5-year cycle, population growth peaked in 2019 with an increase of 1.6%. However, the cross-border travel restrictions widely implemented by the international community after the emergence of the new crown epidemic have significantly dragged down population growth. Canada's population grew by just 0.4 percent in 2020, the lowest in a century. However, since mid-2021, the country's population growth has returned to pre-pandemic levels.

The trend of urbanization in various places is continuing. There are currently 41 metropolitan areas with a population of more than 100,000, compared with 35 in the previous census cycle. Nearly 27.3 million people, or nearly three-quarters of the country's total population, live in metropolitan areas. The three metropolitan areas of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver attract more than a third of the population.

Toronto, Canada's largest city, has a population of 6.202 million, followed by Montreal, with a population of about 4.292 million, and Vancouver, with a population of 2.643 million. Downtown Vancouver and Toronto have the highest population density in the country.

Due to its vast size, Canada has one of the lowest population densities in the world. The average population per square kilometre is less than 4 people.

By province, Ontario accounts for about 38.5 percent of the country's population, while Quebec accounts for about 23 percent. The Yukon population grew by more than 12%, the highest in the country. Newfoundland and Labrador were the only provinces to experience negative population growth in the previous census cycle, a 1.8 percent drop.

Canada's natural population growth rate was just 0.1 per cent in 2021, the lowest on record. But the Bureau of Statistics does not expect the number of deaths in the country to exceed the number of births in the next 50 years.

Canada is a low-fertility country, and its fertility rate has been declining since 2008. Another earlier survey by the Bureau of Statistics showed that the COVID-19 pandemic has further reduced Canadians' willingness to have children.

Based on recent population growth projections, the Canadian Bureau of Statistics predicts that canada's population could reach 55.2 million by the end of the 2060s. (End)

Source: China News Network