B.C.'s population is dropping at the fastest rate in the country
While B.C.’s population has previously been projected to grow by 44 per cent in the next two decades, it is currently on the decline.
According to StatsCan’s population estimates for the fourth quarter of 2025, B.C.’s population dropped by 0.4 per cent in the last three months of 2025.
Over the course of the entire 2025, B.C. lost over 41,000 people (roughly the same size as the population of Mission, B.C.), a 0.7 decline in population. This is tied with Ontario.
Looking across the country: ON and BC are where the exodus is focused.
AB continued to grow, albeit at a reduced rate.
— Blake Shaffer 🇨🇦 (@blakeshaffer.bsky.social) Mar 18, 2026 at 7:44 AM
Across Canada, the population decreased by over 100,000 people from Oct. 1, 2025, to Jan. 1, 2026.
StatsCan noted that these are “preliminary demographic estimates” that will be updated in the coming months.
“It is possible that these coming updates will be of greater scope than in past years, given recent and rapidly evolving changes to government policies regarding international migration,” reads a release.
Why is this happening?
The leading factor in slowing population growth is that there are fewer non-permanent residents in Canada, decreasing in all provinces and the Yukon.
The number of non-permanent residents peaked at over 3.1 million on Oct. 1, 2024, and has since “steadily decreased” to nearly 2.7 million as of Jan. 1, 2026.
In B.C., non-permanent residents decreased by 5.7 per cent in the final quarter of 2025.
But StatsCan added that permit extensions could lead to an update of that number for 2025 and 2026.
Natural increase in population — births minus deaths — was negative (-781) in the fourth quarter of 2025, meaning that there were more deaths than births in Canada.
What about over the course of the entire year?
While the population increased in Canada in the first six months of 2025, the losses in the last six months of the year outweighed that.
StatsCan’s preliminary estimates show that the country lost over 100,000 people last year, a 0.2 per cent decrease.
“However, the overall population decrease in 2025 should be interpreted with caution; the recent increases in the number of extensions of work and study permits noted earlier could lead to larger than usual updates in the coming months,” the federal agency noted.
The population decline follows B.C.’s record population growth in recent years.