Over the past year, Canada has seen record growth in population, with 82.2 per cent of the growth being attributed to mass migration according to numbers published this week by Statistics Canada.
Between 2018 and 2019 Canada received 313,580 immigrants, one of the highest levels of immigration in Canadian history, according to Statistics Canada. The number of migrants without permanent residency also rose to 171,536, French-language broadcaster Radio Canada reports.
Canada’s population in total grew by 1.4 per cent between 2018 and 2019, marking the highest population growth of any country in the G7 and the highest level in Canada since 1990. Canada added around one person per minute to the population over the course of the year.
All ten Canadian provinces saw growth, with Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, seeing the largest gain in population, increasing by 1.7 per cent, while Newfoundland and Labrador saw the least, at 0.8 per cent.
British Columbia and Saskatchewan, two of Canada’s most westerly provinces, saw their largest population growth since July of 1971.
French-speaking Quebec also saw its largest population gains for the last 30 years. Quebec has also been the site of the majority of illegal border crossings from the United States over the last few years as many Haitian migrants abandon the United States to avoid being deported to their home country.
The flood of illegal migrants surged in August of 2017, to the point that Canada was forced to send soldiers to work alongside Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to manage the national frontier.
Canada’s surge in population growth mirrors that of other Western nations such as Sweden, which has also seen growth fueled by mass migration. In 2017 it was revealed that Sweden saw a one per cent increase in population the previous year, making it the country with the second-highest population growth in the European Union.
Germany, which has a very low birthrate, has also experienced dramatic population growth due to mass migration. A report from August claimed that as many as one-quarter of the German population now come from migration backgrounds.