Statscan numbers

[Surrealplaces]

October Housing starts are out, with Calgary's at the top of the list (4th time this year). In the other metros, Montreal having a strong showing, but the rest kind of sluggish numbers, especially Toronto which kind of surprised me. Ottawa Gatineau still sluggish, but up from last month.

City	SFH	semi	row	apartment	total
Calgary	545	192	353	1968	3058
Montreal	161	36	81	2564	2842
Vancouver	244	128	135	1121	1628
Edmonton	526	116	108	611	1505
Toronto	327	2	277	839	1445
Ott/Gat	201	68	190	453	910

 

[Albertasaurus]

Wow, Toronto's housing starts have fallen off a cliff!

 

[Surrealplaces]

Toronto has a ton load of residential towers still u/c, so I'm guessing the numbers will be on the slow side for a while

 

[trtcttc]

Toronto has a ton load of residential towers still u/c, so I'm guessing the numbers will be on the slow side for a while

And the economics doesn't work currently, developers can't recoup their land + construction costs with the current condo market.

 

[Cowtown]

Calgary’s had strong housing starts for a few years now. I’m really curious to see what the numbers look like in the 2026 census after things settle down. The big three metros had a huge percentage of temporary foreign workers, like around 90% as the main driver of their growth the past two years.
Calgary was around 44%, plus Calgary has had good numbers from interprovincial migration.

 

[trtcttc]

Calgary’s had strong housing starts for a few years now. I’m really curious to see what the numbers look like in the 2026 census after things settle down. The big three metros had a huge percentage of temporary foreign workers, like around 90% as the main driver of their growth the past two years.
Calgary was around 44%, plus Calgary has had good numbers from interprovincial migration.

Inter-provincial migration was the talk of the town, but in reality the majority of growth was international. Interprovincial just went from 0 or negative to something similar to the early 2010s. While I'm not sure where the data is, but the make up is probably different. The earlier inter-provincial increase were likely O&G related young workers, whereas this wave was more families, and more durable migration. This is probably the first AB migration wave not directly tied to oil prices

The NPRs (asylum, study, work, etc.) more than doubled form 2023 to 2025, representing about 160,000 new residents. That's flatlined this year, and potentially decreasing. Our NPRs are about 5% of our population, whereas in Ontario, it's about 8.5%, and BC, about 8.8%.

 

[Surrealplaces]

And a few more stats relating to the percentage of non-permanent residents in the growth numbers.

Looking at the big 6 metros, it looks like Cgy/Edm/Ott are in a similar situation with around 44% of the growth coming from non-permanent residents.
The big 3 are interesting with Montreal being as high as 90% of the growth coming from non-perm residents. Tor and Van are also up there.

Mtl 90%
Van 80%
Tor 79%
Cgy 44%
Edm 43%
Ott 43 %

I wonder if this explains Montreal's strong population growth while having low housing starts over the past two years?

Calgary’s had strong housing starts for a few years now. I’m really curious to see what the numbers look like in the 2026 census after things settle down. The big three metros had a huge percentage of temporary foreign workers, like around 90% as the main driver of their growth the past two years.
Calgary was around 44%, plus Calgary has had good numbers from interprovincial migration.

Lots of NPR's for the big 3 metros, at least from July 2023- July 2024. I don't have stats for previous years, but I suspect the previous year will be similar for the big three. As trtttc mentioned, interprovincial migration was good, but most of the growth was still from international immigration.
What I am expecting to see is a slow down of all major metros, including Calgary, but Calgary's slowdown won't be as pronounced as some of the others.

There's talk that some cities might actually lose population. I guess we'll see.

 

[lemongrab]

View attachment 697114

That drop off in natural increase seemed alarming at first, but it makes sense. in 2020 the first boomers turned 75, so we're in for a couple decades of higher death rates. At the same time, we're into the valley of the birth rate wave as most boomers' kids are done having kids.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Some predictions - growth to 2049 - from Statscan on various census divisions around Canada and various growth scenarios. For Calgary Census division 6 is mainly our CMA + plus Foothills MD

I thought I'd compare Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa. Ottawa's numbers didn't look to be apples to apples, so I left them out, but here are the numbers for Calgary (Census Division 6) and Edmonton ( Census division 11)

Projection scenario3	Projection scenario LG: low-growth3	Projection scenario M1: medium-growth3	Projection scenario M2: medium-growth3	Projection scenario M3: medium-growth3	Projection scenario M4: medium-growth3	Projection scenario M5: medium-growth3	Projection scenario M6: medium-growth3	Projection scenario HG: high-growth3	Projection scenario SA: slow-aging3	Projection scenario FA: fast-aging3
Census Div 11	2,129,061	2,362,359	2,433,328	2,482,570	2,319,016	2,132,785	2,493,219	2,663,839	2,607,492	2,178,352
Census Div 6	2,746,180	3,043,769	3,135,917	3,200,967	2,989,842	2,748,661	3,212,064	3,428,191	3,355,671	2,809,544

 

[JTron]

Regardless of whichever scenario, the predictions have Calgary about 600-800k ahead by that time. Sounds about right.

 

[Albertasaurus]

Its conceivable (although unlikely) that Calgary could surpass Vancouver by 2049, especially if Vancouver experiences a few years of decline/stagnation due to the cuts in immigration. Perhaps due to the volatile nature of growth in Calgary, its growth rate has often been underestimated. At a minimum, it's likely that Calgary will be more often compared with Vancouver rather than Ottawa and Edmonton in 20 years - in part due to its higher international profile, but also as it edges closer to Van in population.

 

[BKha]

It's hard to predict something so far off, but I feel those numbers are realistic. If you had asked me 20 years ago, I would have predicted Calgary and Edmonton to be about the same population, or Edmonton having a higher population due to a predicted decline in the oil and gas industry. Things are different now though.
1) The decline in oil will be a slower more drawn out process, and much of that decline has already happened and Calgary was affected, but not to the extend many thought would happen.
2) Gas will still carry on for a while, and although it too will decline it's decline will be slower than Oil's decline.
3) 20 years ago the provincial government and even the federal government were generating far more jobs in Edmonton than Calgary, but this isn't the case anymore. Still more provincial jobs in Edmonton, the the gap has narrowed as jobs are now being spread out more around the province. Same for Federal jobs.
4) Over the past 20 years Calgary created a whole new industry for itself, in distribution, warehousing, transportation and aviation and has taken over as the dominant hub for the prairies and also can be argued for the whole of western Canada.
5) In recent years Calgary has become the 4th largest recipient of Venture Capital money for Canadian metros, and about 90% of Alberta's VC money goes to Calgary. I don't see a lot of change in that area anytime soon.
6) Some other intangibles like a much better connected airport, and proximity to the Rockies also help more than people think.

I don't want this to come across as an Calgary boosterism post, but these are things that are factoring into Calgary's growth.

 

[kora]

It's hard to predict something so far off, but I feel those numbers are realistic. If you had asked me 20 years ago, I would have predicted Calgary and Edmonton to be about the same population, or Edmonton having a higher population due to a predicted decline in the oil and gas industry. Things are different now though.
1) The decline in oil will be a slower more drawn out process, and much of that decline has already happened and Calgary was affected, but not to the extend many thought would happen.
2) Gas will still carry on for a while, and although it too will decline it's decline will be slower than Oil's decline.
3) 20 years ago the provincial government and even the federal government were generating far more jobs in Edmonton than Calgary, but this isn't the case anymore. Still more provincial jobs in Edmonton, the the gap has narrowed as jobs are now being spread out more around the province. Same for Federal jobs.
4) Over the past 20 years Calgary created a whole new industry for itself, in distribution, warehousing, transportation and aviation and has taken over as the dominant hub for the prairies and also can be argued for the whole of western Canada.
5) In recent years Calgary has become the 4th largest recipient of Venture Capital money for Canadian metros, and about 90% of Alberta's VC money goes to Calgary. I don't see a lot of change in that area anytime soon.
6) Some other intangibles like a much better connected airport, and proximity to the Rockies also help more than people think.

I don't want this to come across as an Calgary boosterism post, but these are things that are factoring into Calgary's growth.

Calgary is a big player in Western Canada. Its influence spreads far and wide. Here in Victoria, the Calgary connections are extraordinary and widespread across industries. Calgarians moving and visiting here, Calgary companies operating here, Calgary consultants working here, etc. Edmonton is just not part of the conversation.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

It's hard to predict something so far off, but I feel those numbers are realistic. If you had asked me 20 years ago, I would have predicted Calgary and Edmonton to be about the same population, or Edmonton having a higher population due to a predicted decline in the oil and gas industry. Things are different now though.
1) The decline in oil will be a slower more drawn out process, and much of that decline has already happened and Calgary was affected, but not to the extend many thought would happen.
2) Gas will still carry on for a while, and although it too will decline it's decline will be slower than Oil's decline.
3) 20 years ago the provincial government and even the federal government were generating far more jobs in Edmonton than Calgary, but this isn't the case anymore. Still more provincial jobs in Edmonton, the the gap has narrowed as jobs are now being spread out more around the province. Same for Federal jobs.
4) Over the past 20 years Calgary created a whole new industry for itself, in distribution, warehousing, transportation and aviation and has taken over as the dominant hub for the prairies and also can be argued for the whole of western Canada.
5) In recent years Calgary has become the 4th largest recipient of Venture Capital money for Canadian metros, and about 90% of Alberta's VC money goes to Calgary. I don't see a lot of change in that area anytime soon.
6) Some other intangibles like a much better connected airport, and proximity to the Rockies also help more than people think.

I don't want this to come across as an Calgary boosterism post, but these are things that are factoring into Calgary's growth.

One item about the decline in oil and gas jobs. Edmonton, was where a lot of the field workers seemed to live. It is those jobs that have declined as a bit of faster pace as automation and initial buildout of projects have progressed.