Projections show Quebec dipping below 20 per cent of the national population by 2050, with Alberta closing in fast

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For those Canadians who deplore Quebec’s supposed excessive influence on our country’s politics, I am the bearer of what they would consider good news: that era is slowly but surely coming to an end.

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According to Statistics Canada’s latest projections, in 2050 (a brief 24 years from now), Quebecers will count for less than 20 per cent of Canada’s population (between 18.1 per cent and 19.1 per cent, to be precise). Alberta’s population will be inexorably catching up, with between 13.5 per cent and 16.1 per cent of the total population in 2050. Although, following a constitutional amendment adopted in 2022, Quebec’s number of seats in the House of Commons cannot fall under the current 78, the provinces that enjoy stronger population growth will get additional MPs, and Quebec’s political weight will unavoidably decrease.

What is going on? In Quebec, as in other regions of the country, the birth rate has fallen to an unprecedented low level. In 2024, for the first time in the province’s history, the number of deaths surpassed the number of births. This long-term trend will continue, and therefore the only source of population growth will come........

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