Immigration fuels Atlantic Canadian ‘economic renaissance,’ authors argue

Of note. In talking to friends who know Atlantic Canada, reasonably accurate picture although much of the growth is in the urban centres, not rural Atlantic Canada, who also note that governments and others have made considerable efforts to prepare the host population to understand the value of immigration:

Canada is struggling with the effects of an unprecedented immigration boom: Housing shortages, youth unemployment, overtaxed social programs and more.

But in Atlantic Canada, those irritants are largely overshadowed by a much different story: the transformation of moribund and stagnant economies that made the region Canada’s poor cousin.

The authors of a new book detail the dramatic improvements newcomers are bringing to the East Coast — and argue this is no time to swerve. They argue only for a more strategic immigration policy, one that reflects the region’s economic needs.

In Toward Prosperity, The Transformation of Atlantic Canada’s Economy, former pollster Don Mills and economist David Campbell highlight how increasing immigration in the past five years has boosted the economy of a stagnant region with the oldest population in the country.

“Provincial governments across Atlantic Canada have finally understood the implications for an aging population and the need for population growth: all four provinces in the region now have population growth strategies, with immigration as a core focus of those strategies,” they write.

Nova Scotia seeks to double its population to two million by 2060, and New Brunswick, where the population was pegged at 854,355 last year, is aiming for one million people within the decade, according to their 2025 book published by Halifax-based Nimbus.

“Most of the region’s largest municipalities now have their own population growth strategies as well,” Mills and Campbell write. “All these population strategies acknowledge the critical role of immigration to drive labour force and population growth.”

Last year, after three years of especially rapid growth in Canada’s immigration population, the Liberals under Justin Trudeau announced they were reducing the number of permanent residents admitted to the country by 21 per cent. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged to cap the total number of temporary workers and international students to less than five per cent of Canada’s population within two years.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre this month called for “very hard caps” on the number of newcomers allowed into the country. He told reporters the country has struggled to integrate newcomers and he wants to see more people leaving than coming in “while we catch up.”

“We have millions of people whose permits will expire over the next couple of years, and many of them will leave,” Poilievre said. “We need more people leaving than coming for the next couple years.”

In 2022, the Canadian population rose by over a million people for the first time in history — and then kept growing faster. According to Statistics Canada, the population reached 40,769,890 on Jan. 1, 2024. That was an increase of 1,271,872 people in a single year — a 3.2 per cent jump, marking the highest annual population growth rate in Canada since 1957.

In an interview, Mills said Atlantic Canada needs smarter and targeted immigration.

“I believe in growth under control,” Mills said. “It got a little out of hand under the Trudeau Liberals. They opened the gates too quickly and it really hurt the housing market and put strains on our health-care and education systems for sure.”…

Source: Immigration fuels Atlantic Canadian ‘economic renaissance,’ authors argue