{"id":552269,"date":"2026-03-20T06:53:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T06:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/552269\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T06:53:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T06:53:21","slug":"canadian-population-decline-solves-rental-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/552269\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian population decline solves rental crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In early 2024, Canada was experiencing its worst-ever rental crisis, driven by record immigration-driven population growth.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Canada-population-growth-and-rents-2.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"460\" alt=\"Canada population growth and rents\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">In early 2024, Canada\u2019s rental and population growth were extreme<\/p>\n<p>The electorate was angry, and the incumbent centre-left Liberal government implemented sweeping immigration cuts to stabilise the population and ease pressures on housing and infrastructure, alongside rebalancing the economy towards sustainable growth.<\/p>\n<p>The immigration reforms included reducing annual permanent-resident targets, restricting international-student and temporary-worker admissions, and tightening asylum and border rules.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Canada\u2019s permanent residence targets have been cut from 500,000 to 365,000 by 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Canada has also set specific targets for non-permanent residents (NPRs), including international students (the most substantial reductions) and temporary foreign workers.<\/p>\n<p>By the end of 2027, NPRs are projected to comprise 5% of Canada\u2019s population, down from 7.6% at its peak.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Canada\u2019s immigration reforms have proven extremely effective.<\/p>\n<p>According to the latest data from StatsCan, published in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/business\/article-canada-reports-first-annual-population-decline-on-record\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Globe &amp; Mail<\/a>, Canada recorded its first annual decline in population in records dating back to the 1940s:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Canada-population-decline.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"548\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Canada population decline\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Canada\u2019s population declined by 102,000 people in 2025, or 0.25%, to 41,472,081.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The population decline was driven by an exodus of NPRs, which fell by 171,300 last year.<\/p>\n<p>This brought the total population of NPRs to 2.67 million, or 6.4% of the total population, down from a peak of 7.6% of the population in 2024:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Canada-NPRs.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"380\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Canadian NPRs\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>StatsCan also reported a sharp year-over-year decline of nearly 20% in the number of permanent resident admissions to Canada, in line with the targets established by the federal government.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re now fully in an era of normalization, with population growth of around zero expected through 2027, before settling back to a baseline of just under one per cent\u201d, said Robert Kavcic, senior economist at Bank of Montreal.<\/p>\n<p>Canadian rental affordability rapidly improves:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The impact of the immigration cuts on Canada\u2019s rental market has been stunning.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rentals.ca\/national-rent-report\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rentals.ca<\/a> this month reported that the average asking rent in Canada has fallen for 17 consecutive months to a 33-month low, down 7.8% from its May 2024 peak:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Canada-monthly-rents.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"357\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Canada monthly rents\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The average Canadian tenant household is now paying $172 less each month on rent, saving them $2,064 per year:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Canada-average-asking-rent.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"398\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Canada average asking rent\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Unlike in Australia, rental affordability in Canada is rapidly improving. The average rent in February accounted for 29% of average renter household income, down from 31% a year ago and 34% two years ago, and below the standard 30% affordability benchmark, according to Rentals.ca:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Canada-rental-affordability-index.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"353\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Canada rental affordability index\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Canada\u2019s Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afr.com\/policy\/economy\/what-albanese-can-learn-from-carney-about-immigration-20260309-p5o8q9\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">put it bluntly<\/a> during his visit to Australia this month, stating the following to The AFR Business Summit about the nation\u2019s immigration cuts:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a fundamental principle that if you accept people in the country, they need to be able to find a place to live, they need to be able to send their kids to school, and they need to be able to go to hospital if they need medical services\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had reached a point of imbalances. We needed to bring that back to a sustainable level\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>There are clear lessons for Australia, which continues to suffer from its worst rental crisis in modern history amid historically high net overseas migration.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Advertised-rents.png\" width=\"578\" height=\"420\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Australian advertised rents\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Lower immigration is the solution, as Canada shows unequivocally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In early 2024, Canada was experiencing its worst-ever rental crisis, driven by record immigration-driven population growth. In early&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-552269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}