P.E.I. population passes 160,000

P.E.I. remains the fastest growing province in Canada, but growth has slowed down a lot during the pandemic.

The Island population reached 160,536 on April 1, according to a release from Statistics Canada Friday morning, passing 160,000 for the first time.

That's a 0.81 per cent increase over April 1, 2020. Canada as a whole grew just 0.40 per cent. P.E.I. was well out ahead of other provinces, with B.C having the second fastest growth rate at 0.63 per cent.

That growth is only about a third of what it was in recent years. Calendar-year growth was 2.46 per cent in 2018 and 2.18 per cent in 2019.

The main difference is immigration.

Immigration fell across the country as Canada closed its borders in the pandemic. On P.E.I., immigration was cut in half in the first 12 months of the pandemic. It averaged 2,310 annually from 2017-19, but from Q2 of 2020 to Q1 2021 P.E.I. saw just 1,167.

While there has been a lot of talk about Canadians moving to P.E.I. for its relative safety during the pandemic, this is not borne out in the Statistics Canada report.

It shows, not surprisingly, there has been quite a bit less interprovincial migration, both in and out of P.E.I., during the pandemic.

But overall, more people are still moving away from P.E.I. than moving to the Island, a trend that actually accelerated during the pandemic.

In the 12 months before the pandemic, the province pretty much broke even on interprovincial migration, losing a net of 43 residents. But in the 12 months of the pandemic the province had a net loss of 318 residents.

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