Winnipeg's population growth remains strong, but projected to slow next year

Winnipeg experienced another year of relatively strong population growth but city economists expect the influx of new residents to start to slow next year.

In its annual publication of population estimates, published late last week, the city's economic development and policy office estimated the city's population stood at approximately 836,250 as of July 1.

That means about 20,650 people moved to Winnipeg for a population increase of 2.5 per cent over July 1, 2023, when the city's population was estimated at 815,599, according to Statistics Canada. 

The Winnipeg Census Metropolitan Area, a broader economic region which encompasses the city as well as neighbouring jurisdictions where more than half the adult population works or goes to school in Winnipeg, also experienced strong growth over the past year.

City economists estimated the population of the Winnipeg CMA — the city plus Rosser, West St. Paul, East St. Paul, St. Clements, Brokenhead First Nation, Springfield, Tache, Niverville, Ritchot, Macdonald, Headingley and St. Francois-Xavier — at about 936,500 on July 1, 2024.

That represents population growth of about 26,250 people over July 1, 2023 and a growth rate of about 2.9 per cent for the Winnipeg CMA.

These  increases follow even stronger growth in 2023 for both Winnipeg and the broader metropolitan area. Statistics Canada, the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics and the city's economic development office attribute this growth to several factors.

One is the clearing of post-pandemic immigration backlog that built up from 2020 to 2022, when COVID-19 measures effectively closed Canada's borders. Another is a surge in non-permanent residents and in particular temporary workers.

"Looking forward, we anticipate population growth will be strong, but not as significant as it was for 2023. As we get beyond 2024, we expect population growth will moderate to more typical levels in the years leading up to 2020," the city's economic development office said in its population estimates report.

The report also projected population growth in the Winnipeg Census Metropolitan Area to continue to outpace that of the city itself. The Winnipeg CMA is anticipated to reach one million people by 2031 — two years ahead of the previous projection, the report notes.

Winnipeg itself is not expected have one million residents until 2046, which is in line with the previous projection.

Tyler Kroeker, senior economist for the city, cautions that both these projections depend on a number of existing conditions to continue, including federal immigration policies that enable high immigration numbers.

"In most Canadian areas, including Winnipeg and Manitoba, a very significant share of our population growth is driven by immigration, which is going to be highly dependent on federal policy in terms of how many immigrants to be let into the country each year," Kroeker said Tuesday in an interview.

"And then what category are they coming in? Are they coming in as a permanent resident or are they coming in as a non-permanent resident? And within that, are they coming here to study or are they coming here as a temporary worker?"

While neither the federal Liberal government nor the Conservative opposition have promised to scale back the number of people entering Canada, both of Canada's two largest political parties have linked high immigration numbers to the housing crisis in Canada.

Lori Wilkinson, a University of Manitoba sociologist who holds a Canada Research Chair in migration futures, described this as concerning, as Canada in general relies on immigration to make up for low fertility rates.

"I'm half a century old and I've never seen so much anti-immigrant rhetoric and scapegoating of immigrants and international students with regards to housing," she said Wednesday in an interview.

Wilkinson said the housing crisis in Winnipeg as nowhere near as dire as it is in southern Ontario cities and also noted the Manitoba capital relies more heavily on immigration to grow its population than some other Canadian cities. 

Figures from the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics support Wilkinson's opinion that Winnipeg is unusually dependent on immigration.

During a 12-month period ending on March 31, 2024, immigration and other international migration boosted Manitoba's population by 25,562 people, according to a statistics bureau population bulletin published in June.

During the same 12-month period, Manitoba lost 7,253 people to other provinces, the report stated. Two thirds of that outmigration went to Alberta alone.

Wilkinson said if immigration is curtailed in a significant manner, labour shortages in Winnipeg will get worse.

"As the numbers decline, our economy in particular is going to start feeling it," she said.

Regardless of potential changes to federal policy, the population growth Winnipeg anticipates in the short term still requires this city to develop more housing, said Matt Dryburgh, the city's economic development manager.

"I think that puts a greater emphasis on the need to make more investments," he said in an interview. "We know that as we're growing to the population of a million people, they have to live somewhere."