Good morning from Hamilton. 🍁

In March 2026, Statistics Canada confirmed something that has never happened in the recorded history of this country.

Canada's population dropped in 2025 — the first annual net decline since Confederation. The population stood at 41,472,081 on January 1, 2026, down 0.2% — just over 102,000 people — from a year earlier. Lines.com

Not during the Depression. Not during two World Wars. Not once in 159 years. Until now.

Most Canadians filed this away as a political story. An immigration debate. A number in a StatsCan press release.

It is also a housing story. And the data says it is more complicated — and more consequential — than almost anyone has reported.

Let's get into it.

171,000

The net outflow of non-permanent residents in a single quarter — October to December 2025 alone. International students, temporary foreign workers, and their families. Gone. TRADING ECONOMICS

Most of them were renting. Most of them were in Toronto, Vancouver, and Ottawa. And most of them left faster than the housing market could absorb.

The national vacancy rate for purpose-built rental apartments rose to 3.1% in late 2025 — up from 2.2% in 2024 and above the national ten-year average for the first time in recent memory. Average asking rents dropped for twelve consecutive months through 2025. Landlords in Toronto and Vancouver began offering incentives that would have seemed absurd two years ago: months of free rent, move-in bonuses, waived pet fees. Bank of Canada Odds

That is what 171,000 departures in one quarter does to a rental market.

THE POLICY THAT FIXED ONE PROBLEM AND CREATED TWO OTHERS

The immigration cuts were designed to ease rental pressure, improve affordability, and reduce strain on public services. On the first count, the data says it is working. On the second and third, the picture is far more complicated.

What worked: renters are finally getting relief

This is real and measurable. Reduced immigration has moderated demand for purpose-built rentals. TD Economics estimates rent growth will average 2 percentage points lower than if population growth had continued at its previous pace — roughly half of 2024's rate. Money.ca

Toronto saw a net departure of nearly 80,000 residents to smaller Canadian cities in 2025, while Vancouver lost nearly 21,000. For renters who stayed, this is the most favourable negotiating environment in years. Vacancies are up. Landlords are competing for tenants. The frenzy of 2022–2023 is genuinely over. Money.ca

What didn't work: home prices haven't crashed

Here is where the story gets complicated — and where many buyers have been misled by the political narrative.

Immigration cuts reduce demand. They do not increase supply. Even after accounting for reduced population growth, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates Canada still needs to build roughly 1.2 million additional units by 2030 to close the housing gap. The immigration cuts reduce that gap by about 534,000 units — 45% — but a large gap remains. Bank of Canada Odds

RBC Economics does not expect lower immigration to bring prices down. It will keep them flatter than they would otherwise be. Flat is not the same as affordable. The buyers waiting for a price crash driven by fewer immigrants are likely waiting for something that will not arrive.

The thing nobody is talking about: the workers who left too

Fewer newcomers means fewer construction workers, fewer homebuyers, and fewer consumers supporting the broader economy. The PBO projects that the immigration cuts will reduce real GDP by approximately 1.7% by 2027. Bank of Canada Odds

A significant share of departing temporary workers were employed in trades and construction — the same industries Canada needs to build its way out of a housing shortage. You cannot remove the demand side and the labour supply side simultaneously and expect a clean outcome. That is the policy trap Canada is currently inside.

In Ontario and British Columbia — the two provinces suffering the most acute housing market pain — populations actually fell outright for the first time on record. TD Economics has delivered a steep downgrade to its 2026 housing forecasts for precisely this reason, noting that softer rental demand and falling rents are discouraging investor activity in both provinces. True North Mortgage

Less investor activity means fewer rental units being maintained and fewer new builds being financed. The short-term relief and the long-term shortage are being built at the same time.

The regional split — again. Alberta still posted modest population growth and continues to lead interprovincial inflows, even as Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia recorded net declines. Nine issues of data. Same fault line every time. TRADING ECONOMICS

The future shortage is still coming. CMHC's Housing Market Outlook expects housing starts to slow in 2026, with a more significant decline in 2027 and 2028. When fewer units get built now, the supply problem reasserts itself later. The immigration cuts bought Canada time. Whether Canada used that time to build is the question that will define housing in 2029 and beyond. Bank of Canada Odds

Per-capita income is actually improving. In a twist, real per-capita spending is rising after two years of decline — on pace to surpass its mid-2022 peak next year. Consumer demand has not collapsed despite the population decline. Stronger per-capita income eventually supports buyer confidence and mortgage qualification. This is the quiet bright spot in an otherwise complicated picture. Money.ca

Rents are falling — but not for everyone. Limited supply will likely keep conditions tighter for larger units, preventing vacancy rates from rising as quickly as for studio and one-bedroom apartments. Below-market units face a similar constraint, keeping conditions tight for the most vulnerable renters. The relief is concentrated in the units that were already least affordable. Money.ca

→ If you are renting in Toronto or Vancouver: this is the best negotiating position you have had since 2019. Vacancies are up, landlords are flexible, and asking rents are declining. If your lease renews in the next six months, use the market data when you negotiate.

→ If you were waiting for immigration cuts to crash home prices: the data says that is unlikely. The affordability improvement you are looking for will come from income growth and rate stability over time — not from a demand-driven price collapse.

→ If you own an investment condo in Toronto or BC: the tenant base has materially shrunk. The investor math that worked in 2022 — fill a unit, cover the mortgage, wait for appreciation — no longer holds. Model your carrying costs against a longer vacancy assumption than you would have used two years ago.

→ If you are watching Alberta: insulated from temporary resident outflows, leading interprovincial inflows, and building from a lower price base. The relative advantage keeps widening.

Canada told itself a story for fifty years.

More people. More demand. More building. More wealth. Immigration was the engine. Housing was the asset that captured the gains.

That story is now paused. For the first time since Confederation, the population shrank. The engine was throttled deliberately — not by crisis, but by policy — with real justification and real tradeoffs.

Rents are softer. Prices are flat. The supply gap is smaller but still enormous. The construction workforce is thinner. And the demographic bill that was always coming — an aging population, low birth rates, decades of underbuilding — hasn't disappeared. It has just been temporarily obscured by the departure of temporary residents.

Canada has spent several years making it extremely difficult for its own people to build a life here. And some of them, quite reasonably, have decided to go and build it somewhere else instead. True North Mortgage

The immigration story and the housing story are the same story. They always were. The question is whether Canada uses this pause to build — or just waits for demand to return and pushes the problem forward another decade.

Nine issues in. The data keeps pointing at the same place.

See you next Tuesday. 🍁

Five datasets powered this week's analysis. All public. All free.

Statistics Canada — Quarterly Demographic Estimates Q4 2025. → www150.statcan.gc.ca

Parliamentary Budget Officer — Impact of the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan on Canada's Housing Gap. → www.pbo-dpb.ca

RBC Economics — Canada's Population Downturn: Rising Supply to Keep Apartment Rents in Check, April 2026. → www.rbc.com/economics

TD Economics — Is the Dial-Back of Immigration Having the Intended Impact in Canada? → www.economics.td.com

CMHC — Housing Market Outlook Spring 2026. → www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca

This analysis examines the impact of Canada's 2025–2027 immigration policy shift on housing demand, rental markets, and the long-term supply gap. Population and temporary resident data from Statistics Canada Q4 2025 quarterly demographic estimates (March 18, 2026). Housing gap projections from the Parliamentary Budget Officer (November 2025). Rental market and vacancy data from CMHC 2025 Rental Market Report and RBC Economics April 2026 rental outlook. Regional population flow data from TD Economics and BMO Economics 2026 analyses. All figures in CAD unless otherwise noted.

The Maple Metric publishes data analysis for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this newsletter constitutes financial, mortgage, or real estate advice. All data is sourced from Statistics Canada, Parliamentary Budget Officer, CMHC, RBC Economics, and TD Economics — publicly available datasets.

Always consult a licensed financial advisor before making housing or financial decisions. This newsletter is independently operated and not affiliated with any financial institution.

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Published every Tuesday | Issue 9 | May 2026 Written and analyzed by Ish Sharma Ontario, Canada

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