The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday, March 19, edition that Canada's population declined by more than 100,000 people in 2025, marking the first annual decline in records that date back to the 1940s as the federal government tries to rein in the number of temporary residents in the country. The Globe's Vanmala Subramania writes that as of Jan. 1, the population stood at nearly 41.5 million people, including citizens, permanent and temporary residents. At its peak, in October, 2024, there were more than three million temporary residents in Canada, or 7.6 per cent of the population. Over 2024 and 2025, Ottawa introduced a series of policy changes to reduce the share of temporary residents in Canada to 5 per cent of the total population by the end of 2026, a target that was later pushed back to Dec. 31, 2027. The population decline over the last two quarters is a direct reflection of these policy changes. BMO economist Robert Kavcic says, "We're now fully in an era of normalization, with population growth of around zero expected through 2027, before settling back to a baseline of just under 1 per cent." About 461,000 temporary residents departed Canada in 2025 on a net basis.