People who moved within Canada over the summer overwhelming chose Alberta — again — as their destination, according to new estimates released by Statistics Canada Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the provincial government says it has stopped running its “Alberta is Calling” advertisements, which had encouraged Canadians to consider the province as a new home.
Alberta gained another 17,094 people, on net, from other provinces and territories from July through September.
That continues a trend that started more than a year ago for Alberta: the province has now registered interprovincial migration gains of at least 10,000 people for five consecutive quarters.
That’s the first time that’s happened since Statistics Canada started tracking this data in 1971.
New Brunswick was the only other province with positive interprovincial migration numbers for the most recent quarter, with a “very small gain” of 21 people.
Every other province saw more people leaving than arriving from other parts of the country.
“Most of Alberta’s population gains through interprovincial migration were due to its exchanges with Ontario and British Columbia,” Statistics Canada said in a release.
Alberta’s continued gains stands in contrast to its neighbour to the west, the federal agency noted.
“British Columbia experienced five consecutive quarters of interprovincial migration losses for the first time since the first quarter of 2013,” it said in the release.
Ontario saw the largest out-migration in terms of absolute numbers, with 5,952 more people leaving than arriving, continuing a trend that began in the first quarter of 2020. Statistics Canada noted the out-migration from Ontario did slow, however, in the third quarter of 2023.
“Meanwhile, the Atlantic provinces observed a negligible or negative net interprovincial migration, which is a contrast to the trends seen from 2020 to 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when they recorded strong growth from population exchanges with other provinces and territories,” the agency said.
“This can be largely attributable to the recent decrease in the number of migrants moving from Ontario to the Atlantic provinces.”
In March 2023, it rolled out a second round of the ad campaign.
“We have the most affordable housing in all of Canada, pretty much, of any city,” Brian Jean, Alberta’s minister of jobs and economic development at the time, said during the March rollout.
“So people now can, for instance, sell their house in Toronto or in Vancouver and buy four houses here in Alberta: live in one and rent three.”
In addition to interprovincial migration, Alberta’s population has also increased due to international migration and natural growth (more births than deaths).
All told there are now 4,756,408 people living in the province, according to Statistics Canada’s latest estimates, which marks a 4.3-per-cent increase in the past year.
As Alberta’s population has surged, so too has the cost of housing, particularly in Calgary.
During a telephone town hall last week about the upcoming provincial budget, many Albertans asked questions about inflation and the rapidly rising cost of housing.
Finance Minister Nate Horner said the “Alberta is Calling” campaign had been successful in its goals but it was time to bring it to an end.
“We’ve since quit that campaign,” Horner said during town hall.
“We think Alberta called and many, many answered but it has taken up a lot of the vacancies. The housing market’s very tight.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
