Half a million Canadians migrated to Alberta over 30 years, making it the country's most popular province

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Alberta is the most attractive destination for Canadians who move between provinces, while Newfoundland and Labrador is the least, a new study shows.

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The Fraser Institute report measured that movement, known as interprovincial migration, over the 30 years from 1995 to 2024 using Statistics Canada data. It counted only moves within Canada, not immigration from abroad.

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Alberta was the magnet. Over the period it gained 538,824 more people from other provinces than it lost, the largest net gain in the country and more than double British Columbia's 214,883. It drew people from every other province and every age group.

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The gains came in waves. Alberta drew people heavily in the late 1990s and mid 2000s, lost some between 2015 and 2020, then surged again after 2021.

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"Alberta across multiple dimensions has been the top destination for people moving within Canada," said Grady Munro, a senior policy analyst at the Fraser Institute and a co-author of the study. The province stands out, he said, for "some of the highest levels of economic growth, a plethora of job opportunities, relatively higher wages, and for much of its time relatively lower taxes compared to the rest of the country."

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The study counts who moved, not why, and Munro said the data cannot prove a cause. Past research points to jobs, wages and taxes, he said, but "we can't say for certain why exactly we're seeing the trends that we are."

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Alberta was also the top landing spot for the young, drawing a net 192,329 people aged 18 to 24. "These are high school graduates, college students, people very early in their career who have a lot to provide in terms of economic activity for the rest of their life," Munro said.

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Quebec and Ontario lost the most people, a net 255,988 and 168,166, respectively. For a province that big, the outflow is a small share of Ontario's population, but it has been steady for most of the 30-year period. "Frankly, its economy has stagnated and fallen behind the rest of Canada," Munro said, after decades as the country's economic powerhouse.

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Quebec and Manitoba lost people every single year for 30 years.

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The bigger losses were relative to size. Over 30 years, Newfoundland and Labrador, Manitoba and Saskatchewan each lost a net outflow worth about a tenth of their current population. By comparison, Quebec's loss equalled about 2.8 per cent of its current population and Ontario's about one per cent.

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The sharpest losses were among the young. Newfoundland and Labrador saw a net 40,480 residents aged 18 to 24 move away over three decades, equal to 97.3 per cent of its current population that age. It does not mean almost all its young people are gone. It means 30 years of steady losses add up to nearly the entire young adult population living there now. No other province came close. New Brunswick, the next-hardest hit, lost a net total equal to about a third of its young.