Lower growth, shifting migration and big regional divides are recasting Canada’s mortgage future
Canada’s population is still projected to grow over the next 50 years, but at a slower and more uneven pace that would reframe long‑term housing and mortgage demand.
New projections from Statistics Canada showed the country rising from 41.7 million people in 2025 to between 44 million and 75.8 million by 2075, depending on growth assumptions, with a central medium path of 57.4 million.
Statistics Canada stressed that the scenarios are not firm forecasts but tools for planners, reflecting historically low fertility rates and several recent changes in immigration and temporary resident policies.
In the medium‑growth view, annual population growth was expected to slow from an average 1.23% over the past 25 years to 0.67% by 2074/2075, while the low‑growth case turned marginally negative and the high‑growth case remained above 1%.
Alberta’s rise, Quebec’s retreat
Interprovincial migration remains a key driver of regional divergences. Alberta’s population, about 5.03 million in 2025, could climb to roughly 7.22 million by 2050 in the medium scenario, with its demographic weight rising from around 12% to as much as 16%.
Ontario and Quebec are still expected to be the most populous provinces over the next 25 years. Yet Quebec’s share of the national population, 21.7% in 2025, was projected to slip below 20%, to between 18.1% and 19.1% by 2050, as more residents move to other provinces and the province maintains stricter immigration rules.
Slower population growth, slower demand
Population growth slowed sharply after record gains in 2022–23, as Ottawa cut temporary resident numbers and targeted non‑permanent residents at less than 5% of the population by 2027.
A rare population decline in 2025 reset the housing demand playbook. Weaker demographics could undercut assumptions on sales, prices and construction.
“Historically, Canadian housing demand has always been underpinned by population growth, whether through natural increase or immigration,” CPA Canada’s chief economist David‑Alexandre Brassard, said.
“Lower interest rates will still play their role, but in an expensive market, sales and construction would react more to price growth than lower rates.”
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), for its part, continues to flag a large structural housing shortfall – an estimated 3.5 million additional homes by 2030 in earlier analysis – even as federal immigration caps and the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan are expected to shrink the 2030 housing gap by roughly 534,000 units.
TD Economics highlighted how an immigration slowdown “cools Canada’s rental market” even as affordability remained strained. An RBC analysis, meanwhile, said new immigration rules were likely “to cool housing demand,” with fewer temporary residents expected to soften demand for rentals and entry-level homes, even as some were fast-tracked to permanent status.
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