Canadian census data shows a nation on the move, and what provinces we’re moving to

Canadians, it seems, on the whole are on the move from bigger provinces to smaller ones.

That's one of the takeaways from Statistics Canada's release of data on mobility and migration gleaned from the 2021 Census.

During the census, Canadians were asked what province they were living in currently and what province they'd been living in a year ago, and five years ago.

When the numbers get crunched, the Maritime provinces, along with B.C. and Yukon, are the only places that show a net influx of people in the five years preceding the census.

When only the year preceding census is considered, Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec can be added to that list.

To be fair, the numbers represent just a sliver of those provinces' populations. In the most extreme case - Nova Scotia in the five-year data - the net influx of people only represents 2.65 per cent of the province's 2021 population.

But it does offer some backing to the anecdotal idea that over the last few years, more Canadians were turning their eyes eastward.

To Craig Jones, the numbers also suggest some differences in the type of immigration to the eastern provinces.

Jones, a PhD candidate in geography at UBC, studies interprovincial and intraprovincial migration in Canada.

Nova Scotia's population growth due to interprovincial migration over the five years pre-census was 25,725. Over the same period, the province's overall population growth was 46,000. That means that more than 50 per cent of Nova Scotia's population increase was a result of interprovincial migration.

By contrast, Ontario had a net exodus of 9,500 over the same period - more people left than entered. But the province's population over that time increased by 800,000.

Which would seem to indicate, said Jones, that reasons for those population growths are different.

The population growth of Nova Scotia is largely driven by interprovincial migration, whereas in Ontario, population growth is driven largely by international immigration," he says.

For the most part, those interprovincial migrants to most provinces are coming from Ontario.

Over the five-year period before census, the largest number of migrants to the four Atlantic Canada provinces, Quebec, Manitoba and Nunavut have come from Ontario.

That seems to speak to a mass emigration from Ontario, but according to the StatCan numbers, that's not entirely the case.

The number of people leaving Ontario is largely offset by the number coming to the province from elsewhere in the country.

In Ontario, 238,140 people left the province in the five years before the census to live elsewhere in the country. Over the same period 228,640 migrated to Ontario from other parts of Canada.

That's a net exodus of 9,500 people - or 0.07 per cent of Ontario's population.

The numbers reported for the one-year period before the census show a slight difference in the net number of people leaving Ontario.

Over the year preceding the census, 88,720 people left the province to live elsewhere in the country, compared to 53,850 who migrated to Ontario.

That's a net loss of 34,870 people for Ontario, more than over the five-year period, but still only representing 0.25 per cent of the province's population.

It's almost definitely not" statistically significant, said Jones. It's hard to know if there's a cause, or if it's just people moving."

In fact, over the five-year period, Ontario averaged an exit of 47,628 people per year. and an influx of 45,728, for a total of 93,356 movements in and out of the province on average annually over that period.

In the year before the census - essentially May 2020 to May 2021, more or less the first year of the coronavirus pandemic - 88,720 left Ontario for other parts of Canada, and 53,850 entered the province, a total of 142,570.

So while it is difficult to make definitive conclusions about the net movement of migrants in and out of Ontario, it is reasonable to say that, over that period, the number of people on the move had increased substantially.

I think what's interesting is just that people are on the move, there's a mobility," says Laura Bisaillon, professor of sociology and immigration at the University of Toronto. And more questions arise.

I'm thinking of things that did happen here, like COVID, like all sorts of media about the appeal of the Maritime provinces. And you have as well the demographic reality of baby boomers retiring and either relocating or relocating seasonally.

Baby boomers are the most affluent people in the 21st century. They have a lot of wealth, generally speaking. So they have a lot of buying power, a lot of invested wealth, a lot of property."

The Statistics Canada also indicates, with a few exceptions, that Ontario is the most popular choice for migrants from other provinces.

Those exceptions include Saskatchewan, where more people moved to Alberta; Yukon and the Northwest Territories, where more people moved to B.C. and Alberta respectively; and Alberta and B.C., who were each other's biggest migrant partners.

In fact, in absolute numbers, the biggest movement of Canadians over the five-year period preceding the census has been from Alberta to B.C., followed by Ontarians moving to B.C.

Steve McKinley is a Halifax-based reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @smckinley1