Challenge: Housing 303,000 immigrants every year

January 9, 2019

There are 100,000 more immigrants arriving in Canada each year than there are new homes being built—perhaps the best indication that the current housing downturn will be brief, if brutal.
In the past year, according to Statistics Canada, “international migration was the highest ever measured in Canada’s history.”
Immigration in 2018 accounted for 79.6 per cent of the country’s population growth, a proportion never previously observed and part of an upward trend that began in the 1990s.
Canada welcomed 303,257 immigrants from 2017 to 2018 and that number is likely to increase this year. This is the new normal—but total housing starts are struggling to top 200,000 units.
Immigration has helped push Canada’s population growth to the highest among G7 countries. It is twice the growth of the United States and more than twice as high as in the United Kingdom, France or Germany, Statistics Canada confirms.
While growth soared in B.C. and Alberta, both Ontario and Quebec saw the strongest annual population growth in 30 years from 2017 to 2018.