From January 1 to April 1, 2025, the population of Canada increased by 20,107 people (+0.0 %) to 41,548,787 people. This is the lowest quarterly growth recorded since the third quarter of 2020. During this quarter, the population had decreased by 1,232 people (-00 %) in the context of border restrictions aimed at slowing down the propagation of COVID’s pandemic-19.
The first quarter of 2025 (+0.0 %) was the sixth consecutive quarter during which population growth recorded a slowdown (infographic 1) following the announcements made by the federal government in 2024 aimed at reducing the levels of temporary and permanent immigration. This is the second lowest demographic increase rate in Canada (since comparable data has existed, since the first quarter of 1946), after the third quarter of 2020 (-00 %), tied with the fourth quarter of 2014 (+0.0 %).
Growth in the first quarter of 2025 was lower compared to that usually observed during a first quarter. For example, from the first quarter from 2001 to the first quarter of 2024, population growth fluctuated between an increase of 0.1 % in 2015 and an increase of 0.6 % in 2024, which represents an average growth of 0.3 % during this period.
Despite the discounts recorded from 2024, international migration represented the entire population growth in the first quarter of 2025. This result is explained by the fact that natural increase (births less deaths) was negative (-5 628), which means that there have been more deaths than births. This situation reflects the aging of the population, the drop in the fertility rate and the higher number of deaths that generally occur during the winter months. The natural increase has been negative every first quarter since 2022.
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