As predicted here Nova Scotia’s population boom is continuing to lose momentum. Statistics Canada’s quarterly population estimates released this week show that for the three-month period from July 1 to Sept. 30, Nova Scotia’s population went up by only 3,302, the smallest quarterly increase since the COVID-19 population surge began in early 2021.
As has often been the case over the last three-plus years, the number of non-permanent residents on work or student visas has been a determining factor in the rate of growth. When those numbers were high – especially during the 18 months from April 2022 to October 2023 – Nova Scotia’s rate of population growth surged. When those numbers began to level off, overall population growth slowed from the pace that had Tim Houston and Zach Churchill indulging in partisan sparring over immigrants and asylum seekers during the recent election campaign.
Net non-permanent residents – that is non-permanent residents arriving minus non-permanent residents departing – grew by only 253 in the third quarter, a drop of nearly 96 percent from the 6,073 net non-permanent residents added to our population during the third quarter of 2023. Largely as a result of this decline in the growth of temporary residents, Nova Scotia’s population is on track to increase by less than 14,000 in 2024, well down from the 24,000 increase last year and circa 30,000 in 2022. And this is despite the fact that permanent immigration to Nova Scotia is on a record-setting pace.
Although more drastic, the slower growth in temporary residents in Nova Scotia mirrored the national trend following federal government moves earlier this year to reduce study permits and tighten work permit eligibility. Across the country net non-permanent residents increased by only 47,000 in the third quarter, an 85 percent reduction in the growth experienced in the third quarter of 2023.
Despite the slower growth, there remained 3,049,277 non-permanent residents in Canada on October 1, up almost 20 percent from a year earlier. The number of study permits was down slightly, but work permit holders and asylum claimants drove the overall increase.
It was pretty much the same story in Nova Scotia, although the drop in study permits was more significant. To the dismay of some of our post-secondary institutions the number of study permits and work/study permits dropped by more than 12 percent, although with an increase in work permits and asylum claimants, the number of non-permanent residents on Oct. 1 was 5.5 percent higher than a year earlier.
But as the right-hand column of the table shows, an increase of 5.5 percent represents a precipitous drop from sky high increases in temporary residents over the two years between October 2021 and October 2023.
Change in net non-permanent residents 2021-2024
| Category | Q4 2021 | Q4 2023 | Q4 2024 | Change 2021-3 | Change 2023-4 |
| Overall | 29,168 | 53,153 | 56,078 | 82.2% | 5.5% |
| Asylum Claimants | 328 | 532 | 828 | 62.2% | 55.6% |
| Permit holders | 28,840 | 52,573 | 55,250 | 82.3% | 5.1% |
| (Study Only) | 11,210 | 15,434 | 13,898 | 37.7% | -10.0% |
| (Work Only) | 12,750 | 25,021 | 28,698 | 96.6% | 14.7% |
| (Work&Study) | 3,592 | 9,231 | 9,030 | 157.0% | -2.2% |
Source: Statistic Canada
With the slowdown in the rate of growth of temporary residents, the main reason Nova Scotia’s population grew at all in the third quarter was an increase in permanent immigration of 3,586 – part of what is likely to be a record growth in 2024.
However, that population gain, along with the small increase in temporary residents and interprovincial migration was offset by continuation of a pattern stretching back many years: in the third quarter, deaths exceeded births by 896, leaving a population increase of 3,302. As noted at the beginning of the piece, that’s the smallest quarterly gain since 2021.
With more tightening-up by the federal government on the horizon, slow population growth is the likely outcome for Nova Scotia over the next couple of years. Immigration Minister Marc Miller has implemented a “pause” to growth, affecting both temporary and permanent immigration. The temporary population is to be reduced by 445,900 in 2025, while permanent immigration is to be cut from 485,000 to 395,000. Those measures are expected to result in a national population decline of 0.2 percent in both 2025 and 2026 according to the federal minister.
Given that Nova Scotia’s recent growth has been almost entirely due to immigration it is difficult to see this province’s population going up. Even if permanent immigration continues to rise in spite of federal targets, it could be offset by declines in temporary immigrants – although the most recent provincial budget forecast projects a population increase of about 10,000 for 2025, followed by even slower growth over the next 10 years. Even if that level of growth does occur, it seems Tim Houston’s plan to double the population by 2060 will remain, as he now admits, “aspirational.”
The good news is that the slowdown in growth will provide an opportunity to further absorb the 80,000-plus newcomers who have arrived here since 2021. And it may also give us the capacity to welcome more asylum claimants – whether from Trump’s USA or from among the 6,000 already in the country that Tim Houston falsely stated were going to be sent here by the federal government.
-30-
