Here are net migration numbers for the developed english-speaking countries from June 2022-June 2023:
- USA +1,138,989 (+3.4)
- Canada +1,131,181 (+28.6)
- UK +672,000 (+10.0)
- Australia +518,087 (+19.7)
- NZ +101,518 (+19.6)
These numbers are high everywhere but in Canada the rate is insane. Remember that Canada has roughly one-tenth the population of the USA and it's adding immigrants at the same pace. The numbers are also unsustainable in the Australian and New Zealand and have created something of a political crisis in the UK.
It's useful to break down the number of immigrants by 1000 people who already live in the country:
- USA +3.4
- Canada +28.6
- UK +10.0
- Australia +19.7
- NZ +19.6
What's even crazier is that Canadian immigration is accelerating. In the third quarter of this year alone, the population expanded by 430,000 -- more than 1%.
This is in a country which is blessed with the second-largest land mass but where it's utterly impossible to get anything built in a reasonable time frame. To match this level of growth, Canada would need to build 680,000 homes per year. The current pace is 212,000.
By increasing the population by 4% per year, Canada is growing GDP with population alone but per-capita GDP is shrinking and has been stagnant since 2016.
These numbers have turned Canadians against immigration and deeply against Prime Minister Trudeau.
Even the Canadian banks have had enough. Here are the economists at Scotia:
Immigration is excessive full stop. Canada just added about 431k people in Q3 alone (here). That’s like presto, here’s a new city of London, Ontario created in one quarter. Or almost a new City of Hamilton. A 1.1% q/q nonannualized increase in population in one quarter. Statcan noted that even just the first 9 months of this year exceeded population growth for any other year since Confederation in 1867. In percentage terms, q/q population growth of 1.1% was the fastest since 1957. Population growth is now at 3.2% y/y and the fastest of any peer group major industrialized nation by far. Population has increased by 1.25 million people in just one year and population is 2.29 million higher than two years ago in a country that started with just 38.2 million folks at the time and now has 40.5.
The problem remains that there is little to no housing available for them and it’s only going to get worse.
