Opinion: Want to help solve Canada's housing crisis? Move
By Wendell Cox
Canadians may be solving the housing crisis on their own by moving away from more expensive areas to places where housing is much more affordable. This trend is clear in the latest internal migration data from Statistics Canada.
“Net internal migration” refers to people who live in Canada moving to other parts of Canada. Along with natural increase (births minus deaths) and international migration, it determines local population changes.
The StatCan data divide the nation into 167 areas and three groupings: census metropolitan areas (CMAs), with populations of 100,000 and up; census agglomerations (CAs), with a core population of at least 10,000; and “largely rural areas.” Between 2019 and 2023, Canada’s CMAs lost 273,800 net internal migrants (compared to just 1,000 in 2014-18). In a reversal of the historical pattern, people are starting to leave the country’s largest cities.
Where did they go? Thirty-nine per cent — 108,100 — moved to CAs. The rest went to largely rural areas, which gained 165,700 net internal migrants, representing 61 per cent of CMA losses. In the previous five years these areas had themselves lost 33,700 people.
The “largely rural” areas of Ontario saw the biggest gain, with a net increase of 78,300 — nearly 40 times their inflow in the previous five years. Largely rural areas of Quebec placed second, with a net gain of 76,200, a 10-fold increase in their inflow in the prior half decade. Calgary ranked first among CMAs as a destination at 42,600, followed by Ottawa-Gatineau (36,700) and Oshawa (34,900).
The largest CMA, Toronto, had by far the biggest net loss to internal migration: 402,600 emigrants. Montreal lost 162,700, Vancouver 49,700. Outside these three CMAs, nearly
Read more on financialpost.com
