Canada’s population grew faster last year than it has at any time since the 1950s amid a surge in the number of temporary residents, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday.
The statistics agency says the population grew by 3.2 per cent in 2023, reaching 40,769,890 as of Jan. 1, 2024, the highest rate since 1957, when it grew 3.3 per cent.
Growth rates above three per cent have “never been see in a developed country” since the 1950s, said Frederic Payeur, a demographer at Quebec’s provincial statistics agency, the Institut de la statistique du Quebec.
Canada’s migration-driven increase is comparable to Israel’s in the 1960s and Ireland’s in 2006 and 2007 — when the country experienced an immigration boom during a period of rapid economic growth, he said. But even then, neither of those countries had population increases above three per cent.
In Quebec, where the population grew by 2.5 per cent, …