Canada's 2022 Metro Area Population (CMA) estimates

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Acajack, once the Tramway de Québec is completed, the city's growth might accelerate rapidly with TOD development (midrise/high rise/mixed-use) going wild.

Sure but those new people have to come from somewhere. Quebec City is a popular relocation destination within the province of Québec but that only does so much. I don't see that accelerating too much. And very few ROCers move to the city.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Sure but those new people have to come from somewhere. Quebec City is a popular relocation destination within the province of Québec but that only does so much. I don't see that accelerating too much. And very few ROCers move to the city.

perhaps if QC gets its own NHL team, might more people be willing to move there?

i mean, if winnipeg can pull it off, why not QC?

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

perhaps if QC gets its own NHL team, might more people be willing to move there?

i mean, if winnipeg can pull it off, why not QC?

Winnipeg might be the first city to lose an NHL team and get it back!

QC, Hartford deserve their teams back! Nordiques and Whalers, let's f*****g go!

I'd also put one in Halifax for the entire NS/NB/PEI maritimes region.
And Hamilton could use one too (but Toronto and Buffalo would never let it happen)

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Sure but those new people have to come from somewhere. Quebec City is a popular relocation destination within the province of Québec but that only does so much. I don't see that accelerating too much. And very few ROCers move to the city.

good points. I'm the rare Anglo that's rah rah Quebec

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Winnipeg might be the first city to lose an NHL team and get it back!

QC, Hartford deserve their teams back! Nordiques and Whalers, let's f*****g go!

I'd also put one in Halifax for the entire NS/NB/PEI maritimes region.
And Hamilton could use one too (but Toronto and Buffalo would never let it happen)

Atlanta also lost it's NHL team and got it back then lost it again

the first team lost is now the Calgary Flames, the second team lost is now the Winnipeg Jets

[Innsertnamehere]

It's the language barrier which really limits QC. Unlike Montreal, you can't really get by as easily in Quebec City without french. Many people who move to Quebec from english Canada go to Gatineau or Montreal as they can live there with english only and learn french over time, while that isn't really feasible in QC as much.

It's also cold as all hell, but that it shares with Winnipeg.

The story of the Maritimes exploding in growth is the most interesting here. The area struggled with population loss for decades and is suddenly home to the fastest growing cities in the country.

It would be like if Cleveland suddenly became the fastest growing city in the US over a period of about 2 years. It's crazy. I think it's mostly driven by the rise of remote work and the Maritimes having a reputation for affordable housing. Have a fully remote job? Move to the Maritimes and cash in on that cheap, cheap real estate and high quality of life which comes with it.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Nite

Atlanta also lost it's NHL team and got it back then lost it again

the first team lost is now the Calgary Flames, the second team lost is now the Winnipeg Jets

thanks for the info

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

The story of the Maritimes exploding in growth is the most interesting here. The area struggled with population loss for decades and is suddenly home to the fastest growing cities in the country.

It would be like if Cleveland suddenly became the fastest growing city in the US over a period of about 2 years. It's crazy. I think it's mostly driven by the rise of remote work and the Maritimes having a reputation for affordable housing. Have a fully remote job? Move to the Maritimes and cash in on that cheap, cheap real estate and high quality of life which comes with it.

I think it's also as Halifax grows and gets diverse restaurants and bars and things that feel like "bigger city" amenities the growth accelerates.
Halifax went from a "sleeper" Metro growing slowly to HOT in just a half decade it seems

even SHH from St. John's, who previously did not enjoy Halifax now thinks it's a decent city and was overall impressed.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by Nite

Strong growth all across the country in the last year.

July 1, 2022 CMA's (2021)


St. John's 219,119 (214,267)

Halifax 480,582 (459,869)

Moncton 171,608 (162,824)

Québec 848,776 (836,615)

Sherbrooke 231,055 (227,448)

Montréal 4,378,796 (4,340,642)

Ottawa 1,498,610 (1,474,077)

Kingston 180,070 (176,738)

Toronto 6,685,621 (6,547,381)

Hamilton 821,839 (811,396)

St. Catharines 450,501 (441,452)

Kitchener 622,497 (599,816)

Guelph 172,400 (169,363)

London 574,238 (557,394)

Windsor 359,672 (351,213)

Barrie 228,979 (221,954)

Winnipeg 871,778 (858,848)

Regina 268,804 (264,375)

Saskatoon 347,536 (339,870)

Lethbridge 133,064 (130,088)

Calgary 1,608,342 (1,558,588)

Edmonton 1,516,719 (1,480,159)

Kelowna 235,473 (229,003)

Abbotsford 208,961 (205,834)

Vancouver 2,842,730 (2,764,932)

Victoria 423,136 (413,859)

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1...pid=1710013501

Those numbers for Windsor don’t include the 2022 expansion of its CMA, so its population would be over 430K now easily.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

CSA definition is if the % of employees in the county which work in the core counties + the percentage of employees in the county who commute from the core counties = 15%, it gets included in the CSA.

Niagara would qualify in a Toronto-Hamilton CSA. 13.5% commute to GTHA + 4.9% of workers from GTHA

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Wigs

yeah GTHA should be standard usage in 2023.

Yes, it's been one metropolitan area for a long time already. Going from Oakville (Toronto) to Burlington (Hamilton) literally just means crossing the street (Burloak Drive). On the east end, Lake Ridge Road is the boundary between Toronto and Oshawa. It's a little less seamless but the argument that Greater Toronto - Hamilton doesn't represent 1 metropolitan area is absurd to anyone that actually lives here.

Hamilton on one side of the road, Toronto on the other

https://view.tours4listings.com/185-...burlington/nb/

[Docere]

And Burlington is part of the GTA as well as the Hamilton CMA.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

The story of the Maritimes exploding in growth is the most interesting here. The area struggled with population loss for decades and is suddenly home to the fastest growing cities in the country.

It would be like if Cleveland suddenly became the fastest growing city in the US over a period of about 2 years. It's crazy. I think it's mostly driven by the rise of remote work and the Maritimes having a reputation for affordable housing. Have a fully remote job? Move to the Maritimes and cash in on that cheap, cheap real estate and high quality of life which comes with it.

I agree but to be clear the region wasn't declining in population for decades, it just had net negative outmigration for many years (with that being driven usually by more rural areas). Higher population growth and net migration in dates back to 2015 or so. Halifax grew by over 2% in 2018-2019, before covid or the current real estate stuff. Real estate there has gone up a lot too. It's not really that cheap. It is a medium affordability city while Moncton is probably still cheap.

Aside from population numbers it's interesting to see the attitudes about the region rebalance a bit and see where that goes. A lot of people used to think of the Maritimes are extremely remote (comparable to northern ON or northern BC for example), cold/rugged (often not understanding the difference between say NS or NL or Labrador), uniformly markedly poorer than elsewhere in the country, and having no real or major cities at all. And on SSP where people have a bit more knowledge of demographics you'd still see people arguing that Halifax is a small town and shouldn't have this or that. Sometimes with the examples of what the city can't support being stuff it already has. There isn't really much of a qualitative gap between Halifax and the "smaller major" cities (smaller than Vancouver, bigger than Halifax). The fact that it is older and the primate city in a region with 2.5 million makes up for the population gap somewhat. The urban core is already much more vibrant than many larger Canadian and American cities.

I expect this high growth rate to go down but I think a lot of people will be surprised by how much of a city feel Halifax ends up with and by some of the things that get built there. Potentially some medium sized city things in the next decade like LRT or pro sports which have been "beyond the pale" to imagine in the past, and it might show up more and more in shortlists of Canadian cities.

[Nite]

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Not a metro, notwithstanding the claims. Canada's Census has it right.

Toronto-Hamilton-Oshawa could plausibly be a U.S. CSA, however.

As mentioned, Hamilton and Oshawa would meet the criteria for inclusion within an MSA by US standards (7.95 million); and Barrie, Guelph, and Niagara would meet the criteria for CSA (~8.8 million).

Statscan also has the weird thing whereby CMAs can't be combined even where they meet the criteria. So Oshawa (and possibly now Hamilton as well?) would be included within Toronto's if they weren't already their own CMAs. Which is why for planning purposes at the provincial level, the province uses the GTA (Toronto + Oshawa CMA), and increasingly GTHA (GTA + Hamilton CMA), instead of the federally-designated CMAs.

[Docere]

Toronto-Mississauga-Hamilton "MSA"

Central counties (census divisions)

Durham 696,992
Halton 596,637
Hamilton 569,353
Peel 1,451,022
Toronto 2,794,355
York 1,170,334

Outlying counties

Dufferin 66,225
Kawartha Lakes 79,247

Total 7,424,165

[Docere]

A Toronto-Hamilton CSA would also include the following:


Haldimand-Norfolk 116,872
Niagara 477,941
Northumberland County 89,365
Simcoe County 533,169

Total: 8,641,512

(Wellington meets interchange criteria, but has tighter connections with Waterloo).

[Innsertnamehere]

The Oshawa CMA is fully, 100% a part of the Toronto commuter belt now, but Hamilton is still more on the line. Burlington definitely fits the GTA pattern, Hamilton is a little bit more removed. Overall it would probably still meet the requirement though.

Haldimand-Norfolk are actually two seperate counties. I doubt Norfolk would qualify.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

The Oshawa CMA is fully, 100% a part of the Toronto commuter belt now, but Hamilton is still more on the line. Burlington definitely fits the GTA pattern, Hamilton is a little bit more removed. Overall it would probably still meet the requirement though.

Haldimand-Norfolk are actually two seperate counties. I doubt Norfolk would qualify.

Oshawa CMA is basically the eastern equivalent to Mississauga and Brampton on the west side, both of which are fully Toronto CMA.

[Crawford]

What's going on in Moncton? Very robust growth for a pretty under-the-radar town.