Population of Toronto (Including Census Counts)

[Midtown Urbanist]

Cities are the drivers of global economies. Cities become more productive as they become larger. A larger population would help to populate larger cities in Canada. I think we need to place a very strong emphasis on growing efficiently and ensuring our urban form is productive. The federal government worries a lot about productivity and creating innovation funds. I think they would be much better served ensuring that our cities were well planned and had appropriate infrastructure to support that growth as a matter of national interest (efficient housing stock, efficient transportation for people and goods, high degree of intraregional connectivity to foster productivity benefits of urban agglomerations).

Agreed. It is not a matter of setting a goal of "60 million Canadians" or whatever. It is about economic growth, productivity, and resiliency (and potentially even security) which is achieved by having a collection of highly productive and connected cities. We should be setting growth targets for places like London, Hamilton, K-W, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Moncton, Halifax.

1 million residents seem to be the threshold for Canadian cities to have self-sustaining and healthy population and economic growth in a service-oriented economy while being mostly resilient to swings in the local economy or global raw materials and energy price shocks, as seen by Edmonton/Calgary/Ottawa. We should be targeting for more cities in Canada to reach that goal, while also using this as a tool to relieve housing pressure on GTA/Metro Vancouver.

 

[Northern Light]

Agreed. It is not a matter of setting a goal of "60 million Canadians" or whatever. It is about economic growth, productivity, and resiliency (and potentially even security) which is achieved by having a collection of highly productive and connected cities. We should be setting growth targets for places like London, Hamilton, K-W, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Moncton, Halifax.

1 million residents seem to be the threshold for Canadian cities to have self-sustaining and healthy population and economic growth in a service-oriented economy while being mostly resilient to swings in the local economy or global raw materials and energy price shocks, as seen by Edmonton/Calgary/Ottawa. We should be targeting for more cities in Canada to reach that goal, while also using this as a tool to relieve housing pressure on GTA/Metro Vancouver.

This is a more prudent line of thinking than we have seen policy makers evidence thus far.

We need more than a broad goal of more is better.

We need an understanding of which more (doctors, engineers, trades people etc.) and where (Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Halifax etc.).
We also need to then coordinate the requisite infrastructure investment. Not merely in terms of transportation/housing etc. either.
We need to be thinking of what centres of employment and academic excellence might be best suited to each location and funding them accordingly.
We need to be thinking of the mid/long distance transportation connections to/from these places to others.
We need to be thinking of the recreational/quality-of-life investments that attract and retain population.

A simple example of that last point, Lakehead managed to attract a considerable number of students of South Asian background.
But when last examined, a couple of years back, retention was very poor. Lack of desired employment opportunities; and nearness to family were among
the reasons; but one super low-cost, easy-to-fix thing came up a fair bit in student/graduate interviews; the absence of a cricket pitch.

FFS, if your community is losing more than a dozen high quality graduates a year (let alone more) for such a reason, then that needs addressing ASAP.

****

We also need to make clear what we are trying to obtain overall; and that we're succeeding.

So we need to link more doctors, to higher proportions of people with a family doctor, and to lower wait times.
A direct link of IT and Engineering grads to the Innovation economy, including patents issued, commercialization of research and productivity gains in the economy.

The goal shouldn't be to grow GDP; it should be to grow Real GDP (inflation-adjusted) per capita.

The above, in turn should be linked to real median wage growth.

Then the gov't needs to show some redistribution of the proceeds of same by way of clear goals on expanded healthcare, improved transportation, shorter commutes, higher quality of life etc

****

One has the impression currently of only the most general idea, that more is better w/o the coherent policy that drives net gain from that.

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

One thing that studies and especially ones commissioned by governments will always fail to capture is the fact most international students come here for a education and a degree and will leave once they receive it. You won’t ever discover this unless you are on the ground level and interacting with them. Their degrees are valued more overseas than here. Along with it better opportunities and income. A lot of them use Canada as a stomping ground en route to the USA as the final destination especially in the tech industry.

On the flip side, we also have a problem of having highly educated and degree holding professional immigrants who can’t get into their field when they settle here due to lack of recognition of their education or lack of Canadian experience.

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

This is a more prudent line of thinking than we have seen policy makers evidence thus far.

We need more than a broad goal of more is better.

We need an understanding of which more (doctors, engineers, trades people etc.) and where (Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Halifax etc.).
We also need to then coordinate the requisite infrastructure investment. Not merely in terms of transportation/housing etc. either.
We need to be thinking of what centres of employment and academic excellence might be best suited to each location and funding them accordingly.
We need to be thinking of the mid/long distance transportation connections to/from these places to others.
We need to be thinking of the recreational/quality-of-life investments that attract and retain population.

A simple example of that last point, Lakehead managed to attract a considerable number of students of South Asian background.
But when last examined, a couple of years back, retention was very poor. Lack of desired employment opportunities; and nearness to family were among
the reasons; but one super low-cost, easy-to-fix thing came up a fair bit in student/graduate interviews; the absence of a cricket pitch.

FFS, if your community is losing more than a dozen high quality graduates a year (let alone more) for such a reason, then that needs addressing ASAP.

****

We also need to make clear what we are trying to obtain overall; and that we're succeeding.

So we need to link more doctors, to higher proportions of people with a family doctor, and to lower wait times.
A direct link of IT and Engineering grads to the Innovation economy, including patents issued, commercialization of research and productivity gains in the economy.

The goal shouldn't be to grow GDP; it should be to grow Real GDP (inflation-adjusted) per capita.

The above, in turn should be linked to real median wage growth.

Then the gov't needs to show some redistribution of the proceeds of same by way of clear goals on expanded healthcare, improved transportation, shorter commutes, higher quality of life etc

****

One has the impression currently of only the most general idea, that more is better w/o the coherent policy that drives net gain from that.

Regarding doctors, aren’t the number of doctors via student enrolment purposely restricted by quotas set by associations? This is something I have heard more than once and leading to extremely difficult admissions into Canadian medical schools. A lot of students end up going to the US for their medical credentials and coming back afterwards or staying in the US.

 

[rbt]

Regarding doctors, aren’t the number of doctors via student enrolment purposely restricted by quotas set by associations?

That's kinda true. The number of students is generally limited by the placement portion (in-hospital apprenticeship) of the program as there are only so many doctors with experience and willing to take on students and in some specializations practical concerns, such as space around the operating table, limit them to 1 or 2 at a time.

 

[Northern Light]

Regarding doctors, aren’t the number of doctors via student enrolment purposely restricted by quotas set by associations? This is something I have heard more than once and leading to extremely difficult admissions into Canadian medical schools. A lot of students end up going to the US for their medical credentials and coming back afterwards or staying in the US.

That's kinda true. The number of students is generally limited by the placement portion (in-hospital apprenticeship) of the program as there are only so many doctors able and willing to take on students, and to do a good job they can really only take 2 or 3.

RBT is correct; however, it needs to be said that the provinces directly control the number of people in medical school; they also control the number of hospitals designated as teaching facilities.

So there is a inter-mixing of issues.

Medical school enrollment in Ontario was first limited by the Rae gov't {NDP) based on the argument that more doctors resulted in more procedures and drove-up the cost of healthcare.
An argument I find problematic to say the least; when a larger percentage of the population has no/can't find a family physician and when wait times for a variety of procedures are excessive by international norms.
Subsequent gov'ts loosened things a little. But still, except for the NOSM (Northern Ontario School of Medicine) there hasn't been a new medical school in Ontario in 3 generations, (or just the one, in the form of the NOSM); meanwhile the population of the province has almost tripled.

We're due for at least 2, if not 3 more medical schools, which would come with new teaching hospitals and new resident opportunities.

****

That said, as RBT noted, there are medical school grads and immigrant doctors who can't get licensed to practice here for lack of residency and/or some form of supervision for a period of time.

Clearly, if we recruit new doctors in the immigration stream, we have to have the proper programs in place to recognize their credentials either on arrival, or as-needed with a period of supervision/residency.

We're not doing that.

 

[allengeorge]

Requiring Canadian experience, and not recognizing international qualifications is a serious impediment to immigrants contributing fully to Canadian society. Sadly, this hasn't changed much in the last 30 years. Now, of course, not all qualifications are created equal - but, I've first-hand experience at seeing how they can disadvantage newcomers to Canada.

FWIW, the US is generally more permissive and more open on this front. This is an area that Canada can learn from. (Obviously, it's tough to speak of the US as a singular entity)

 

[allengeorge]

I made a comment a couple of days ago about the disadvantages of our small size in comparison to the US.

New prototype designs unveiled for Project Arrow — the first all-Canadian electric vehicle

The prototype will be unveiled to investors around the world in 2023 but mass production faces many obstacles in an already crowded EV market.

www.thestar.com

Some key quotes:

Over the last decade, major investment has gone to facilities in the United States that have bigger manufacturers and more companies, making it difficult to compete, said McCabe

Another obstacle is the Canadian market. It is too small for Project Arrow to scale up successfully.

Sadly, "Buy America" strategies have hit the Canadian manufacturing sector hard, and I suspect it's simply going to accelerate over the coming decade. (This is somewhat personal for me, unfortunately.)

 

[Northern Light]

I made a comment a couple of days ago about the disadvantages of our small size in comparison to the US.

New prototype designs unveiled for Project Arrow — the first all-Canadian electric vehicle

The prototype will be unveiled to investors around the world in 2023 but mass production faces many obstacles in an already crowded EV market.

www.thestar.com

Some key quotes:





Sadly, "Buy America" strategies have hit the Canadian manufacturing sector hard, and I suspect it's simply going to accelerate over the coming decade. (This is somewhat personal for me, unfortunately.)

With great respect, I remain unpersuaded that this is a useful endeavour.

I don't see a path where Canada ends up more than 25% the size of the U.S in the next 100 years.
I don't see us being vaguely comparable in population within the next 200 years.
To me this focusing on domestic market size is not the path the success for Canada.
We're never going to be the #1 nation for population, and we're unlikely to be Top 5 in the world in anyone's lifetime whose alive today, and probably not in their great grandchildren's either.

When I look at Canada, the first thing I see a nation that is broadly successful in the world today; with flaws, with lots of areas of potential improvement, but not a laggard performer overall.

When I look at nations which out perform Canada in Real GDP per capita, and/or on standard of living for the majority of their Citizens, I look at Norway (dominant due to oil); Sweden (state-led capitalism, nurturing and protecting
empires like SAAB, and strong social progressivism); Luxembourg/Switzerland (its all about the money $$); New Zealand (competent leadership, similar'ish to Canada, but arguably benefiting from being 'under the radar'. )

Emulating the U.S., writ large, to me, is not a good plan, with great deference to our cousins to the south, I don't frankly want to live in their country; nor change mine to be more like theirs. I would argue where we are most similar
it rarely serves us well.

****

If I were to look at the domestic market size of Canada, and if I were to target growth, I'd look at the two things.

1) Fully realizing the value of the current market size, by creating a unified capital markets structure for the country; by better connecting primary population corridor (Windsor-Quebec City); and by creating a common labour
market.

2) In the medium to long-term, I'd consider joining the European Union, in one fashion or another (associate membership might be the more likely course for access to the common market). In exchange, we'd likely have to agree to some addtional E.U. designations/protection on food names; but gain a few ourselves; we'd likely have to agree to higher labour standards, notably 4 weeks paid vacation; and some additional moves around harmonized regulation. In addition, I imagine they'd lke enhanced access to Canadian waters for fishing. (subject to environmental limits/sustainability, a fair trade).

We could gain substantially from a such a move. That said, the E-U is unlikely to give away free lunches; and the Americans might not be overjoyed, so such things should be approached with some caution.

 

[MisterF]

I'm curious how you came up with the claim that they're "among the most dense in the world"? First off, we aren't even in the top 50 most dense cities. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population_density). Heck - we're (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/170208/t001a-eng.htm) basically around or below middle of the pack for Europe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_cities_proper_by_population_density), which I think is a more like-to-like comparison.

The US, absolutely: if there's one nation that knows how to sprawl more than we do - it's the US.

Those lists measure municipalities. Municipal boundaries vary widely and have little to no relationship with built form. They're not useful to measure population density. Urban areas, OTOH, ignore arbitrary municipal boundaries and give a much better sense of how dense a city actually is. Canada's biggest urban areas hold their own with Europe quite well. The urban area of Toronto has over 3000 people/sq km. That's higher than Milan, Rotterdam, and every urban area in Germany. Even Paris only has 3800.

 

[allengeorge]

@MisterF I'm not sure why these are irrelevant, and it's unclear why urban areas give a "better sense of how dense a city is". First off - what is an "urban area"? Is it a CMA in Canada? What about in the Netherlands? What defines an urban area there?

 

[Northern Light]

@allengeorge

For the sake of comparison; for the moment, lets not nitpick how different geographies are defined or their topography etc.

Lets just look at Wikipedia's list of the densest cities in the world; but then apply two very simple fairness criteria I hope we can all agree on.

1) Lets use only examples from the developed world. Accounting for places with vast slums and a low standard of living is not reasonable.
2) Lets set some type of minimum population, how about 1,000,000?

The first qualifying city in the list is #30 in the world and is Paris, France, at ~20,000 per km2

The second qualifying city is Seoul, South Korea, at ~16000

Using the criteria I indicated, those are the only 2 cities in the 'top 68' that can be reasonable compared with Toronto at all.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population_density

***

Now, you weren't keen on comparing to the U.S. as I recall, so let's go Europe only thereafter, based on a Wikipedia's densest cities in Europe list.

Again, to qualify, minimum population of 1,000,00 to compare.

After Paris, would be:

Barcelona, Spain - ~16000 per/km2
Bucharest, Romania ~ 8,400/km2
Milan, Italy ~7,500/km2

*****

Now, lets state that the accepted density of Toronto in 2016 (last census) was ~4,300; but that will increase to ~ 4,800 or so when the next census is published (3M people)

*****

So what major European Cities have lower densities than Toronto?

Nice and Dublin would be statistically tied with Toronto (4,800)
Vienna, Austria is lower at 4,600
Berlin, Germany, would be lower at 4,100
Rome, Italy would be lower at 3,400
Warsaw in Poland, is also 3,400
Budapest, Romania is 3,300

*****

Now for a couple of key notes:

The first is to project population growth, since most European cities have stable or even slightly declining populations.

If Toronto continues to grow at its current pace, it will 4,000,000 within 10 years.

That would place its density at ~6,300 which would be higher than Stockholm, Madrid and Amsterdam

 

[MisterF]

@MisterF I'm not sure why these are irrelevant, and it's unclear why urban areas give a "better sense of how dense a city is". First off - what is an "urban area"? Is it a CMA in Canada? What about in the Netherlands? What defines an urban area there?

What I'm saying is that municipal boundaries are arbitrary - some cities spill over their political boundaries while others don't. The City of Vancouver for example is just the core of its urban area. Calgary's municipality is basically the entire urban area, and most of the City of Hamilton is farmland. Comparing the density of the three using municipal boundaries doesn't give any useful information.

An urban area (StatsCan calls them population centres) is basically the contiguous built up area of a city (small c), even if it includes more than one municipality. Metropolitan areas (CMAs) are similar but they're based on commuting data and typically include satellite cities, and there tends to be more variation on how they're defined between countries. You can find information on municipalities, urban areas/population centres, and CMAs on the StatsCan website including maps.

The urban area of Vancouver includes a bunch of municipalities, while Hamilton's is a fraction of one or two. The overall concept of an urban area is similar in different countries. So while comparing urban areas between countries isn't perfect, it's a lot more useful than using local government boundaries.

 

[Northern Light]

Stats. Can's 2021 Census results for City population are being released tomorrow, at 2:30pm Eastern.

 

[Northern Light]

Figures are out early.

Here's the Top 10 Canadian Cities:

I personally find every number here to be too low to be credible.

Population Estimates for the Country as a whole were riding in the 38M range at the beginning of 2020.

We apparently misplaced well over a million people nation-wide and had no growth at all over 2020/early '21.

Not buying.

They have Toronto growing by only 63,000 in 5 years, when the single-year growth number quoted a couple of years back was 77,000.

If these numbers are accurate, then virtually ever published estimate the last few years was wrong by a substantial margin........

Edit to add link to Stats. Can for the above:

Canada’s fastest growing and decreasing municipalities from 2016 to 2021

This Census in Brief examines municipalities (census subdivisions) in Canada that were the largest in 2021, and fastest growing and decreasing in population from 2016 to 2021. It also presents some trends on urban spread in Canada.

www12.statcan.gc.ca