Canada's population drops in first quarter of 2026

The bigger take home is that this is the third consecutive quarter drop, meaning this is not just a blip but a result of firm hand at the wheel, the intended effect from an intended decision.

Skuterud, a professor of economics at the University of Waterloo, says that as population has decreased in Canada, the share per person of the gross domestic product (GDP) has gone up.

"As a result of the Liberal government's U-turn on immigration policy, GDP per-capita growth rates have turned from negative ... and now it's flat or slightly positive," he said.

Two years ago, I spoke at length to a new immigrant family with two young kids. They were struggling, hard: like many Canadians, they weren't making ends meets at all, despite full time work exceeding 40 hrs a week. Their rent was more than the landlord's mortgage payments, and the young father worked construction building homes they'd never be able to purchase. Childcare would have bankrupted them and not to mention they can't afford a second car + insurance just for young mom to get to a non-living minimum wage job.

When I use rideshare in Vancouver, many drivers share similar stories.

One put it succinctly: Canada was running a scam where we lure in immigrants and their meagre initial capital, squeeze them dry to enrich the already rich, then when they can no longer survive they go back home more impoverished.

On that front, I'll also point out the especially evil foreign temporary worker scheme and the slightly less evil foreign student scheme.

Edit: in case this needs to be said, I'm not anti immigration I'm anti corporate greed and anti unsustainable housing price gains greed and anti post secondary education greed. I'm anti landlords: make money doing something else rather than passive income off of the poor. We can't keep luring people in to hurt them.

This seems like the intended result? The government is limiting further immigration and foreign students, and birth rates alone don't exceed deaths, so the population goes down. Mildly novel, but not a surprise.