Once shrinking Maritimes led Canada in population growth this summer
CBC
Hayley Burrell moved to southeastern New Brunswick from Ontario at the beginning of the pandemic, got a real estate licence and now sells houses to people who are a lot like her.
"I'd say 95 per cent of the buyers that I've had this year have been from Ontario," said Burrell.
"People are going on Facebook and searching 'moving to New Brunswick', or they're doing the same thing on Instagram, and asking questions about what is, you know, what's life like there if I want to move my family there?"
The sudden attraction to life in Eastern Canada has been an ongoing and potentially transformational side-effect of the COVID-19 pandemic for New Brunswick.
Fuelled by a swell in immigration and a parade of Canadians moving east, the Maritime provinces have been flooded with years' worth of newcomers in a matter of months.
Just before Christmas, Statistics Canada reported that over July, August and September the three Maritime provinces added a combined 13,470 people. That made the once shrinking region the fastest growing part of Canada during the summer, ahead of British Columbia.
Individually, Prince Edward Island was the fastest growing jurisdiction, but all three Maritime provinces were among Canada's top four growth spots, according to Statistics Canada analyst Stacey Hallman.
"P.E.I., Nova Scotia, B.C. and New Brunswick are the four," she said.
New Brunswick's share of this summer's population growth surge was 5,075. It's the largest increase in one quarter in New Brunswick since the 1970s, and in just 92 days equalled the province's entire population growth over 16 years, between 1996 and 2012.
Added to more than 8,000 people gained earlier in the pandemic, New Brunswick's population is suddenly up to 794,300.
It's a number that gloomy demographic projections just two years ago suggested the province might never reach, and even the most optimistic models did not see coming for several years.
It's a stunning development in a province that has been fretting for decades about its stagnant population growth.
In August 2019, just months before the beginning of the pandemic, the New Brunswick government announced revamped plans to try to boost the attraction of newcomers to rescue the province from pending labour shortages caused by retiring baby boomers.
"Population growth is crucial to the future success of our province," said Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour Minister Trevor Holder.
