Population Tracking

This province is on its way to another population milestone.

Just before Christmas, the federal government announced the country had settled just over 400,000 new permanent residents under their immigration programs. That is the highest number since 1913 when the Prairie Provinces were opening up.

We haven’t gotten a final breakdown of how many settled in each province but Saskatchewan was on a pace for sharp gains at the conclusion of the third quarter when we saw more than 3,000 new residents arrive here from abroad, twice the number a year earlier as COVID slowed the flow of new residents looking for a fresh start in Saskatchewan.

The latest StatsCan estimate shows Saskatchewan’s population was 1.18 million at the end of the third quarter of last year. Extrapolating the latest immigration numbers suggests the 1.2 million mark may be within striking distance this year or early in 2023. But even at that pace we are tracking behind the numbers being posted in other regions – a fact that has implications for everything from market size to national political clout.