Canada could have 63 million inhabitants by 2073
June 25, 2024
Global Korean Post
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Since the last edition of Statistics Canada’s population projections for Canada, provinces and territories, released in 2022, Canada’s demographic landscape has evolved substantially: population growth has accelerated following many permanent and temporary immigrants coming to the country, fertility has reached a record-low level in 2022, and life expectancy has decreased for three years in a row (from 2020 to 2022).
Yesterday, Statistics Canada has released a new set of projections for Canada (2023 to 2073) and for the provinces and territories (2023 to 2048). These projections include several possible scenarios of the future evolution of the population, as projections are not predictions. These scenarios take into account recent trends and also the opinions of population experts who were consulted specifically during the development of these projections.
According to the various projection scenarios, Canada’s population, estimated at 40.1 million in 2023, would continue to grow over the coming decades to reach between 47.1 million and 87.2 million in 2073. According to the medium-growth scenario (M1), the Canadian population would reach 62.8 million people in 2073.
From an average of 1.12% over the last 30 years, the annual population growth rate would gradually decrease to reach 0.79% by 2072/2073, according to the medium-growth scenario (M1). In comparison, this rate would increase to 1.59% according to the high-growth scenario and would decrease to 0.07% according to the low-growth scenario.
In all scenarios, migratory increase would be the key driver of population growth in Canada, continuing a trend observed since the beginning of the 1990s. Natural increase—that is, the balance of births minus deaths—would play only a marginal role, given the anticipated rise in the number of deaths due to population aging, as well as low fertility, a situation observed in many other countries.
