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Population & Migration

How many Canadians, where they live, and where new arrivals come from. Demographics, immigration, births and deaths.

A cook works at the flaming range of a commercial restaurant kitchen in Canada.
Population & Migration · 6 min · Investigation

Canada TFW: How a Low-Wage Hiring Ban Pushed Restaurant Managers Into the High-Wage Stream

When Ottawa banned low-wage foreign-worker hiring in struggling cities in September 2024, approvals for low-wage restaurant managers collapsed. The same job reappeared in the high-wage stream, which the ban does not cover.

June 2026 · ESDC Labour Market Impact Assessment data
Line chart showing non-permanent resident departures far exceeding emigrants, 2024-2025
Population · 6 min · Follow-up

Canadians aren't leaving in record numbers

A viral headline says 120,640 people emigrated in 2025, a record. They did. But as a share of the population the rate barely moved — and the real exodus is nearly a million temporary residents leaving as their permits expire.

June 2026 · Statistics Canada
A Tim Hortons storefront in Tottenham, Ontario, with the chain's iconic red signage on the corner of a small brick building and a Ford pickup truck parked at the curb.
Featured · Labour · 6 min

Canada blamed Tim Hortons. McDonald's hired more foreign workers — and stayed quiet.

Tim Hortons said this morning it will cut Temporary Foreign Workers and hire 10,000 Canadians instead. The chain's full franchise network — every "12345 Ontario Inc o/a Tim Hortons" plus the two big franchisee groups whose corporate names don't carry the brand — has 747 LMIA-approved positions for 2024-2025. Roll up McDonald's the same way and you get 907. The chain making headlines about foreign-worker cuts isn't even Canada's biggest fast-food user of the program.

May 2026 · ESDC LMIA Positive Employer data
A row of Victorian-era Toronto row houses on a residential street — typical of the housing stock that has become unaffordable for millennials and Generation X buyers
Population · 6 min

Canadian millennials are twice as likely to live with their parents as boomers were

16.3 percent of millennials aged 25 to 39 lived with at least one parent in 2021. Boomers at the same age in 1991 — 8.2 percent. The rate has roughly doubled, and the figure is from the last census, before mortgage rates and rents climbed further.

May 2026 · StatCan 46-28-0001
Aerial view of the Toronto skyline over Lake Ontario — the largest of the metropolitan areas the 2026 Census will recount
Population · 7 min

Canada's 2026 Census is being collected now — here's when each result lands, and what's worth watching

The fieldwork started in May. Statistics Canada hasn't published its 2026 release calendar yet, but the 2021 cycle gives a tight template — first headline counts about nine months after census day, full picture about eighteen. Ten things the new data is set up to settle.

May 2026 · Statistics Canada release notes
Scatter plot of Canadian Express Entry draws 2024-2026 showing French-speaker draws cluster around CRS 422 and Canadian Experience Class draws cluster around CRS 529
Population · 8 min

Canada will pay 107 CRS points for a French speaker

A French-speaking Express Entry candidate gets accepted at a score 107 points lower than an otherwise-equivalent candidate. The gap is the policy, and almost nobody is talking about it.

May 2026 · IRCC Express Entry rounds
Heatmap of Express Entry draws by category and month from January 2024 through April 2026 — top six rows show data, bottom five rows are mostly empty
Population · 7 min

Three categories did 86% of Express Entry's 2025 invitations. Three more were dormant. One has never drawn.

Canada lists seven federal "priority" categories on its Express Entry page. In 2025, French, CEC, and Healthcare did 86,350 of the 113,998 invitations issued. STEM hasn't drawn since April 2024. Agriculture has never drawn at all.

May 2026 · IRCC Express Entry rounds
Bar chart showing new international college entries collapsing from 136,148 to 33,960 between 2023/24 and 2025/26
Population · 9 min

When Canada closed the side door to permanent residency, 100,000 'students' vanished

New first-time international college entries fell 75 percent in two years. Universities fell 46 percent. The gap is the story.

May 2026 · Statistics Canada 81-595-M2026001
Bar chart of Canadian permanent resident admissions by stream — 2025 plan, 2025 actual, 2026 plan — showing PNP exceeded its 2025 cap by 30,000 and 2026 cuts further into Family and Refugee streams
Population · 6 min

How Canadian provinces took control of immigration policy — and what got cut along the way

Ottawa called the 2026 Provincial Nominee expansion "historic." Provinces had already overshot their 2025 cap by 30,000 admissions. The 2026 plan formalizes it — and cuts family reunification, refugees, and federal merit selection to keep the total flat.

May 2026 · IRCC Levels Plans + IRCC Open Data
India's share of Canadian PR admissions 1985-2025
Population · 10 min

1 in 4 — how India became Canada's dominant immigration source

From 5 % of PR admissions in 1990 to a 31.5 % peak in 2021. Holding at 25 % even as the total falls. Four mechanisms explain the shift, including Express Entry's 2015 launch.

May 2026 · StatCan + IRCC
Three Canadian immigration streams declining 2024-2026
Population · 11 min

The boom is over — every immigration stream is now declining

Study permits −47 %. PR admissions −24 %. TFW work permits −9 %. The October 2024 cap is hitting its target faster than the announced trajectory required.

May 2026 · IRCC Open Data