Population of Canada
Canada has six population centres with more than one million people: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa.
[11] Estimates of this population during the late 15th century range between 200,000[12] and two million,[13] with a figure of 500,000 currently accepted by Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.
[15] However repeated outbreaks of European infectious diseases such as influenza, measles and smallpox (to which they had no natural immunity),[16] combined with other effects of European contact, resulted in a twenty-five per cent to eighty per cent Indigenous population decrease post-contact.
[12] Roland G Robertson suggests that during the late 1630s, smallpox killed over half of the Wyandot (Huron), who controlled most of the early North American fur trade in the area of New France.
9% in 2016,[23] The European population grew slowly under French rule,[24] thus remained relatively low as growth was largely achieved through natural births, rather than by immigration.
[29] By the early 1700s the New France settlers were well established along the Saint Lawrence River and Acadian Peninsula with a population around 15,000 to 16,000.
[32] During the late 18th and early 19th century Canada under British rule experienced strong population growth.
In the wake of the 1775 invasion of Canada by the newly formed Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, approximately 60,000 of the 80,000 Americans loyal to the Crown, designated later as United Empire Loyalists fled to British North America, a large portion of whom migrated to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (separated from Nova Scotia) in 1784.
[33] Although the exact numbers cannot be certain because of unregistered migration[34] At least 20,000 went to Nova Scotia, 14,000 to New Brunswick; 1,500 to PEI and 6,000 to Ontario(13,000 including 5,000 blacks went to England and 5,500 to the Caribbean).
From 1791 An additional 30,000 Americans, called "Late Loyalists", were lured into Ontario in the 1790s by the promise of land and swearing loyalty to the Crown.
[36] The Great Famine of Ireland of the 1840s had significantly increased the pace of Irish immigration to Prince Edward Island and the Province of Canada, peaking in 1847 with 100,000 distressed individuals.
[37] By 1851, the population of the Maritime colonies also reached roughly 533,000 (277,000 in Nova Scotia, 194,000 in New Brunswick and 62,000 in Prince Edward Island).
The population growth has largely been fuelled by migrants who have been brought into the country to ease labour shortages.
[55] Prior to Canadian confederation in 1867 the population counts reflected only the former colonies and settlements and not the country to be as a whole with Indigenous nations separated.
[56] The first in date of the Colonies which became successful, and which consequently marked the starting point of European settlements on what would be Canada , was the foundation of Port Royal, Acadia.
In October 2020, the Trudeau government announced its plans to bring in more than 1.2 million immigrants over the subsequent three years, to catch up to the high-growth scenario.
Top left: The Quebec City–Windsor Corridor is the most densely inhabited and heavily industrialized region accounting for nearly 50 percent of the total population [ 1 ]
