Alberta gains another 17,000 people from other provinces in 3 months, ends 'Alberta is Calling' ad campaign

People who moved within Canada over the summer overwhelming chose Alberta — again — as their destination, according to new estimates released by Statistics Canada Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the provincial government says it has stopped running its "Alberta is Calling" advertisements, which had encouraged Canadians to consider the province as a new home.

Alberta gained another 17,094 people, on net, from other provinces and territories from July through September.

That continues a trend that started more than a year ago for Alberta: the province has now registered interprovincial migration gains of at least 10,000 people for five consecutive quarters.

That's the first time that's happened since Statistics Canada started tracking this data in 1971.

New Brunswick was the only other province with positive interprovincial migration numbers for the most recent quarter, with a "very small gain" of 21 people.

Every other province saw more people leaving than arriving from other parts of the country.

"Most of Alberta's population gains through interprovincial migration were due to its exchanges with Ontario and British Columbia," Statistics Canada said in a release.

Alberta's continued gains stands in contrast to its neighbour to the west, the federal agency noted.

"British Columbia experienced five consecutive quarters of interprovincial migration losses for the first time since the first quarter of 2013," it said in the release.

Ontario saw the largest out-migration in terms of absolute numbers, with 5,952 more people leaving than arriving, continuing a trend that began in the first quarter of 2020. Statistics Canada noted the out-migration from Ontario did slow, however, in the third quarter of 2023.

"Meanwhile, the Atlantic provinces observed a negligible or negative net interprovincial migration, which is a contrast to the trends seen from 2020 to 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when they recorded strong growth from population exchanges with other provinces and territories," the agency said.

"This can be largely attributable to the recent decrease in the number of migrants moving from Ontario to the Atlantic provinces."

Alberta no longer calling

The province launched its "Alberta is Calling" campaign in August 2022 boasting of "bigger paycheques" and "smaller rent cheques."

In March 2023, it rolled out a second round of the ad campaign.

"We have the most affordable housing in all of Canada, pretty much, of any city," Brian Jean, Alberta's minister of jobs and economic development at the time, said during the March rollout.

"So people now can, for instance, sell their house in Toronto or in Vancouver and buy four houses here in Alberta: live in one and rent three."

In addition to interprovincial migration, Alberta's population has also increased due to international migration and natural growth (more births than deaths).

All told there are now 4,756,408 people living in the province, according to Statistics Canada's latest estimates, which marks a 4.3-per-cent increase in the past year.

As Alberta's population has surged, so too has the cost of housing, particularly in Calgary.

• From September — the CBC's Robson Fletcher and Andrew Brown discuss the cost of housing in Calgary on TikTok:

During a telephone town hall last week about the upcoming provincial budget, many Albertans asked questions about inflation and the rapidly rising cost of housing.

Finance Minister Nate Horner said the "Alberta is Calling" campaign had been successful in its goals but it was time to bring it to an end.

"We've since quit that campaign," Horner said during town hall.

"We think Alberta called and many, many answered but it has taken up a lot of the vacancies. The housing market's very tight."