News Analysis
Surprising as it may seem, immigration is one of the major issues in the ongoing Nova Scotia provincial election, with Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Houston, the incumbent premier, being targeted by the Nova Scotia Liberals for his past comments about doubling the province’s population from one to two million by 2060.
Houston described the plan during a
podcast interview in 2022 as a way to revitalize his province’s economy: “People drive economies, so we need people. ... We know what happens when communities lose people. Schools close, stores close, and then you get caught in that negative vortex because oftentimes those that remain are aging.”
Referencing the province’s population of around one million, he noted that he wanted to reach a population of two million.
Amid recent sentiments regarding immigration, however, Houston has stressed that his party only supports immigration in order to fill required skilled labour shortages in the province.
Clash
Nova Scotia’s population “grew faster from July 1, 2022 to July 1, 2023 than in any comparable period in the modern data series,” according to
government data. This was largely driven by international migration rather than interprovincial movement.
The Houston government’s
2021–22 Business Plan for the Nova Scotia Office of Immigration and Population Growth promised to “market the Province as an attractive immigration and newcomer destination and promote all immigration pathways to Nova Scotia.”
The Nova Scotia Liberals are directing the focus of voters toward Houston’s past population growth goals,
releasing a video portraying the idea as reckless, and even turning it into a nickname: “Unlike Tim ‘Double the Population’ Houston, the Nova Scotia Liberals are in it for you.”
This isn’t just a one-off sideswipe, either. The official Nova Scotia Liberal website
identifies four main priorities. Three are classic Canadian bread-and-butter issues: making housing more affordable, improving access to health care, and lowering the cost of living. These pocketbook issues would be unsurprising to see in the platform of any Canadian political party in a time of public concern over inflation and affordability.
The fourth priority stands out: a promise to “stop Houston’s efforts to double the population” by “limiting population growth to in-demand workers and their families until we have enough housing, healthcare, and schools to support more growth.” This section goes on to
outline a plan to manage population growth “to ensure we’re maintaining sustainable levels.”
For his part, Houston said recently that the province has in the past faced challenges of “de-population” as schools and businesses closed, and that it is now again facing challenges as the population grows.
He said he stood up for the province by rejecting the federal government’s plans to send asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, and that he only supports immigration to fill skilled labour needs.
“The only immigration that can come into the province at this time is if they are a skilled trades worker or a health care worker,” he said earlier this month.
Population Challenge
Population growth is a new problem for Atlantic Canada. For decades, the region had to deal with the inverse challenge of depopulation, as poor economic conditions led residents to up stakes and head for greener pastures, particularly in the Alberta oilfields. This interprovincial migration has been immortalized in songs like “
Saltwater Cowboys“ by the Newfoundland musical duet Simani: “Now over the years when things aren’t the best, a lot of our fellers head out for the west.”
Atlantic Canada is now
experiencing a population boom, according to a federal government report. The region recorded a growth rate of +3.1 percent in 2022, higher than the national growth rate of +2.7 percent, and “due largely to international immigration to the region.” Population growth in Atlantic Canada has actually surpassed the Prairie provinces for the first time since the 1940s, the report said.
The focus on population growth in a provincial election campaign speaks to how salient immigration is in the Canadian public’s consciousness—a level without precedent in recent history.
The federal government has backtracked on several of its immigration policies amid polls showing concerns about health care and housing infrastructure due to rapid population growth.
An
Abacus poll released on Nov. 7 found that a substantial percentage of Canadians think their local community is growing “too quickly.” This feeling is highest in Nova Scotia (57 percent), B.C. (47 percent), Alberta (47 percent), Ontario (45 percent), P.E.I. (42 percent), and New Brunswick (38 percent).
It remains to be seen whether the Nova Scotia election campaign’s focus on population growth will be replicated in other quickly growing provinces.
