The chief executive officer of a Montreal-based think-tank says Canada is quickly becoming a nation of immigrants as record-breaking immigration fuels the bulk of the country’s population growth.
“I think we’re increasingly becoming a country of immigrants,” Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) CEO Jack Jedwab reportedly told the National Post.
“In terms of identity dimensions, we’re seeing across the board changes in terms of patterns of religious identification, less so of ethnicity, but more multiple identity.”
A new poll conducted by Leger for the ACS suggests Canada’s population will double in the next 25 years and nearly half of Canadians will by then identify as racialized or visible minorities.
With that growing immigrant population, the Leger poll indicates Canada’s demographics will change and Christianity will lose its status as the religion of the majority of the country’s residents.
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While 77 per cent of Christians identified as Christians in 2001, only 53 per cent of the Canadian population listed Christian as their religion by 2021, the Leger poll notes.
The percentage of Canadians who report being atheists, though, is on the rise. In the past 20 years, the percentage of those who report no religion has grown from 16.5 per cent to 34.6 per cent in 2021.
In the third quarter of 2023, temporary foreign workers and international students – and new permanent residents to Canada – drove the fastest quarterly population growth in Canada since the heady, post-war Baby Boom year of 1957.
“Canada’s population was estimated at 40,528,396 on Oct. 1, 2023, an increase of 430,635 people up 1.1 per cent from July 1,” reports Statistics Canada.
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“This was the highest population growth rate in any quarter since the second quarter of 1957, which saw growth of 1.2 per cent, when Canada’s population grew by 198,000 people.”
Almost all, 96 per cent, of Canada’s population growth was then due to immigration.
“The rest of this gain, four per cent, was the result of natural increase, or the difference between the number of births and deaths,” notes Statistics Canada.
“The contribution of natural increase to population growth is expected to remain low in the coming years because of population aging, lower fertility levels, and the high number of immigrants and non-permanent residents coming to Canada.”
Canada Welcomed Greatest Number Of New Residents In A Single Quarter In 2023
In its report, Record-High Population Growth Continues, Fuelled By Strong Permanent And Temporary Immigration, Statistics Canada noted in mid-December that Canada welcomed 107,972 new permanent residents in the third quarter.
“From January to September 2023, immigration reached 79.8 per cent, or 371,299 new permanent residents of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) target of 465,000 immigrants for the year,” noted the statistical and demographic services agency.
“From July 1 to October 1, the country saw the number of non-permanent residents continue to increase. The total non-permanent resident population increased from 2,198,679 to 2,511,437.
That’s an additional 312,758 temporary residents during the third quarter alone, the greatest quarterly increase going back to 1971 when data on non-permanent residents became available.
The gain in temporary residents was mostly due to an increase in the number of work and study permit holders and, to a lesser extent, an increase in the number of refugee claimants.