Canada's population shrank for the third consecutive quarter to kick off 2026, and new data suggests Canada's birth rate is becoming an even bigger part of the conversation around the country's demographic changes.
According to Statistics Canada, the country's population was estimated at around 41.4 million as of April 1, down by 55,025 people from the start of the year.
While the majority of that decline comes from people leaving Canada — either via record-high emigration of Canadians or the departure of temporary residents — a separate trend is also taking shape, with births no longer consistently outpacing deaths.
According to preliminary data, Canada registered 90,173 births and 90,328 deaths between January and March, resulting in a natural population decline of 155 people.
While that gap is relatively small, it's part of a growing trend that's becoming harder to ignore.
This was just the fifth quarter on record in which Canada experienced a net natural population decline, with the first-ever occurrence showing up just recently in Q1 of 2022. Before that, Canada regularly posted natural increases in the tens of thousands every quarter, with births comfortably outnumbering deaths for more than 75 years.
For some perspective, Canada recorded a natural increase of 22,178 people in the first quarter of 2016, just a decade earlier.
Statistics Canada did note that natural increase is usually lower during winter because there are typically fewer births and more deaths during colder months. Even so, the latest figures mark a downward pattern from the first quarter of 2025, when Canada still recorded a natural increase of 983 people, and Q1 of 2024, when that number was 1,469.
But perhaps more interestingly, the numbers varied dramatically depending on where you live.
Quebec recorded the largest natural decline in the country, with 18,550 births and 21,350 deaths. That left the province with 2,800 more deaths than births, the largest gap in raw numbers among all provinces.
Then there's Newfoundland and Labrador, which broke a record.
The province recorded 865 births and 1,806 deaths in the first quarter of 2026. That produced a natural decline of 941 people, the largest on record for the province.
In other words, Newfoundland saw more than double the number of deaths as births during the quarter.
Meanwhile, Alberta was at the opposite end of the spectrum.
According to Statistics Canada, Alberta recorded 12,857 births and 9,289 deaths, giving it a natural increase of a whopping 3,568 people. That means the province had roughly 38% more births than deaths during the quarter.
Only three other provinces posted a positive natural increase overall: Ontario (+1,019), Manitoba (+485) and Saskatchewan (+446). All three territories also recorded more births than deaths.
The latest numbers come as Canadians continue to battle a cost-of-living crisis, and many young families are still weighing whether they can afford to have kids at all with housing, groceries and child care all costing so much.
At the same time, immigration growth has slowed dramatically. Statistics Canada reported that Canada welcomed 83,149 permanent immigrants in the first quarter of 2026, down 20.2% from the same period a year earlier.
Meanwhile, a record number of Canadians are also leaving the country, with 30,092 total emigrants in the first quarter of 2026, the highest Q1 on record, after emigration already hit a record high in 2025.
Taken together, the latest numbers show that both migration and natural population growth are slowing, creating a very different picture of Canada's shrinking population than the rapid growth seen just a few years ago.
