Canada’s population growth likely slowed at the end of 2024, but the government remains “far from achieving” the trimmed targets it set last year, economists at Desjardins Group say.

Government data show the pace of new non-permanent resident (NPR) arrivals slowed in the later part of 2024, Desjardins economic analyst L.J. Valencia and deputy chief economist Randall Bartlett wrote in a report last week, but the proportion of NPRs in the population is likely to “diverge significantly from the government’s optimistic projections” of five per cent by the end of 2026.

“Despite slight revisions in the short term, our long-term population projection suggests that the government will require more aggressive reductions in NPR numbers to reach its ambitious target by the end of 2026,” they wrote.

Concerns within the corporate and post-secondary education sectors could also influence Ottawa's commitment to its policies, the writers note, while the trade-war threat adds further complexity.

The pace of Canada’s recent population growth has been a key political issue, with the impact of that growth felt across various sectors, housing in particular, spurring the federal government to sharply reduce immigration targets in the years ahead.

The current state of non-permanent resident (NPR) inflows suggests that the Canadian government is far from achieving its NPR target of 5 per cent of total population.LJ Valencia and Randall Bartlett, Desjardins Group

Desjardins estimates the number of new NPRs in Canada was likely down by around 468,000 year-over-year in 2024 — 25 per cent lower than in 2023. It says this was largely due to a drop in new international students of roughly 280,000 (38 per cent).

But despite the drop in new NPR arrivals, Valencia and Bartlett write that “net NPR numbers rose by almost 40,000” by the fourth quarter of 2024 — 100,000 more than both Desjardins and the government had previously forecast, and 140,000 more than numbers modelled by the Bank of Canada.

“Our revised estimates suggest that the government’s reduced NPR targets and the associated policy changes are starting to stem new NPR arrivals,” the report said. “However, the current state of NPR inflows suggests that the Canadian government is far from achieving its NPR target of 5 per cent of total population.”

The authors say the proportion of NPRs in the population at the end of 2024 was likely around 7.5 per cent. The slowing pace of new NPR arrivals as well as limits on new permanent residents that will take effect this year “suggest that population growth should slow considerably in Canada,” they write — but Desjardins remains “skeptical that the Government of Canada will be able to reach its target for admissions of newcomers, particularly NPRs.”