P.E.I. population growth remains strong as thousands come and go

P.E.I.'s population was 175,853 on Oct. 31, according to figures released by Statistics Canada on Tuesday, a growth of 4.0 per cent or 6,707 people compared to 12 months earlier.

It was the second highest rate of population growth in the country, behind only Alberta.

While people tend to think of population growth in terms of births and deaths, known as natural increase, P.E.I. actually saw more residents die than be born in the past year, with 1,910 deaths and just 1,722 births.

That means all of the province's growth came from more people moving in than were moving away.

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Behind that net growth number of 6,707 is a lot of coming and going, with thousands of people moving to and away from the province.

Of the 175,853 residents estimated to be on P.E.I. as of Oct. 31, almost 17,000 of them were not living there a year earlier. More than 10,000 Islanders chose to make a new home somewhere else in those 12 months.

This is how it broke down.

Interprovincial migration

Since the province embarked on a population growth strategy in 2016, P.E.I. has tended to see a net gain from interprovincial migration. In some years, growth in this area has rivaled the increase due to newcomers from outside of Canada.

Despite a net loss in the third quarter, the months of July to September, growth from interprovincial migration was still strong from October 2022 to October 2023, with an overall gain of about 1,500.

That is made up of about 6,000 people arriving, and 4,500 leaving.

Immigration changes

Since 2016, immigration has been the largest source of new residents for P.E.I. But in the last couple of years, there have been changes in how those new residents have been coming to the Island.

The Island saw more than 3,100 new immigrants in the 12 months ending Oct. 31, and only a couple of dozen leaving for other countries. That's about 50 per cent more immigrants than what was arriving annually in the years from 2016-19.

While that growth is strong, it pales in comparison to the growth in the number of non-permanent residents, mostly people with work permits, student visas, or both.

In the first couple of years of the provincial growth strategy, non-permanent residents represented fewer than 1,000 new residents a year.

In 2023, the third quarter alone saw a net gain of 1,384 non-permanent residents, with more than 2,000 in the 12 months leading up to Oct. 31.