![\"Canada-housing-market-immigration\"](\"https:\/\/www.livabl.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Canada-housing-market-immigration.jpg\")
<\/a>Photo: James Bombales<\/em><\/p>\nThe pandemic has upended previously strong Canadian population growth trends thanks to its unprecedented impact on international migration.<\/p>\n
According to a recent RBC Economics report, the country\u2019s population rose by only 2,767 in 2020\u2019s third quarter. This three-month stretch marks the smallest population gain since 1946 and the first time since 1971 that international migration was negative, wrote RBC Economist Carrie Freestone.<\/p>\n\n
Because international migration is by far the largest driver of population gains for Canada, the pandemic has essentially halted growth as of the third quarter of 2020, wrote Freestone.<\/p>\n
For context, immigration accounted for about 80 percent of population growth in 2019, as Canada welcomed 370,000 new permanent residents that year.<\/p>\n
Ontario, BC, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Newfoundland saw their populations decline from July to September, with Ontario experiencing the largest drop in total migration.<\/p>\n
But help is on the way in 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile international migration will likely be soft in the first half of 2021, once the vaccine is mobilized globally and international travel resumes, we expect international migration to ramp up,\u201d wrote Freestone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the second half of 2021, we can certainly expect to see significantly higher levels of non-permanent residents,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
All this will be helped along, of course, by the federal government\u2019s more aggressive immigration targets in place from 2021 to 2023. Unveiled on October 30th to make up for the pandemic-driven 2020 shortfall, the new government targets would see 1.2 million immigrants welcomed to the country over the next three years.<\/p>\n
Rental and condo markets in major urban hubs have already been particularly hard hit by the precipitous drop in immigration and a lack of international students this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrowth in the housing market is predicated on population growth, and from Canada\u2019s perspective and certainly drilling down into the GTA, immigration is a key driver of population growth,\u201d the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board\u2019s Jason Mercer told<\/a> Livabl<\/em>, in November.<\/p>\n \u201cThe GTA, I would argue, is Canada\u2019s single greatest beneficiary of that immigration,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n