Canada's Population Plunge

Canada's population dropped by 76,068 between July and October - a contraction driven mainly by limits on immigration, the federal statistics agency has said.

The decrease was due mainly to a drop in non-permanent residents, Statistics Canada said on Wednesday, and comes after Ottawa set a goal to restrict temporary residents to 5% of the 41.6 million population by 2027.

It's a sharp change from 2022, when the population grew by more than a million people for the first time, fuelled in part by efforts to recruit immigrants to ease labour shortages.

"We needed to bring our immigration level to a more sustainable level," Canada's finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, told reporters.

Champagne, speaking from Berlin during a visit to Europe, said the government's goal is to "take back control over our immigration system and find a better balance between our capacity to welcome people and the number of people who want to come to the country".

- Author: Jessica Murphy, BBC