Newfoundland and Labrador Opinion

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COMMENTARY: Atlantic Canada once again losing young working-age people

The aging and depopulation of Atlantic Canada is a quietly ticking regional timebomb. So quiet, regional governments appear oblivious.

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Perhaps this deafness is due to recent good news, which depended on two disappearing factors — COVID, which led thousands of young Canadians to relocate to Atlantic Canada, and a massive increase in international migration to the region, skewed to younger working-age people. COVID, as a crisis, is over and Ottawa is reducing international migration, from a target of 500,000 annually to 370,000 by 2027. Correspondingly, Atlantic depopulation and aging are returning to their historically-disastrous paths.

Indeed, Atlantic Canada experienced a COVID-migration surge. From 1980-81 to 2017-18, the region annually lost an average of 5,500 young working-age people (ages 15 to 39) while gaining 600 older Canadians (55-plus). Population numbers fell and the region got older. Then, from 2019/2020 to........

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