Alberta population nearly hit 5 million in April, as people continue to flock to the province

Robson Fletcher · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 18, 2025 3:37 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

Alberta's complaint of colonisation maturation slowed but the state inactive grew by 20,562 radical successful the archetypal 3 months of the year, according to caller information released Wednesday by Statistics Canada, chiefly owed to imperishable migration and radical moving from different provinces.

The fig of impermanent overseas residents successful Alberta, meanwhile, declined for the archetypal clip successful years.

All told, the maturation edged the colonisation ever person to the five-million mark.

As of April 1, Alberta was location to 4,980,659 people, according to these latest estimates from StatsCan.

Meanwhile, Canada's colonisation grew by conscionable 20,107 implicit the aforesaid period.

"This was the smallest quarterly maturation since the 3rd 4th of 2020, erstwhile the colonisation decreased by 1,232 people  successful the aftermath of borderline restrictions to dilatory the dispersed of the COVID-19 pandemic," Statistics Canada said successful a release.

The full nationalist colonisation maturation was really smaller than Alberta's colonisation growth, arsenic the remainder of the state mislaid radical during the archetypal 3 months of the year.

Alberta continued to beryllium the apical destination for radical moving wrong Canada, arsenic the state gained 7,176 radical owed to interprovincial migration successful the archetypal 4th of 2025.

Continuing an ongoing trend, most of the interprovincial migrants came from Ontario and British Columbia.

Statistics Canada estimates that 7,342 Ontarians moved to Alberta successful the archetypal 3 months of the year, versus 3,768 Albertans who moved to Ontario, for a nett summation of 3,574 people.

An estimated 7,217 British Columbians moved to Alberta, meanwhile, compared to 5,334 Albertans who moved to B.C., for a nett summation of 1,883.

According to an investigation from ATB Financial, radical are moving to Alberta for antithetic reasons than successful the past.

"It's not driven by the emblematic vigor boom, but based connected a wider scope of opportunities and, successful particular, comparative lodging affordability," the fiscal instauration said successful a merchandise connected Wednesday.

International migration — connected a imperishable basis — accounted for an adjacent larger stock of Alberta's colonisation maturation astatine the opening of 2025, with the state gaining 11,630 residents from different countries from January done March.

The colonisation people accrued (that is, done much births than deaths) by 3,118 people.

For the archetypal clip successful 3 years, meanwhile, the fig of impermanent planetary residents successful the state declined, shrinking by 1,362 implicit the archetypal 3 months of 2025.

This inclination was seen crossed the country, aft caller national rules for impermanent residents person taken effect, successful peculiar erstwhile it comes to survey permits for planetary students attending post-secondary institutions.

"The largest alteration successful non-permanent residents successful the archetypal 4th of 2025 came from radical holding lone a survey licence (-53,669)," Statistics Canada said successful its release.

"Most of this diminution occurred successful Ontario (-30,160) and British Columbia (-11,742), which are the provinces with the highest numbers of survey licence holders."

Every state saw declines successful the fig of impermanent overseas residents during the archetypal 3 months of 2025, according to Statistics Canada.