Why it's so important to project P.E.I.'s future population — and so hard

Projecting population growth isn't an exact science — it involves gathering all kinds of data including past trends and assumptions around fertility, mortality and migration — but it's a key piece of how provinces like P.E.I. plan for things like housing, transportation, health care, schooling, and more.

"Sometimes you're going to be high, sometimes you're going to be low. In both instances people say it's wrong," said Nigel Burns, director of economics and statistics for the Department of Finance.

"We're never going to get these projections perfect."

And it's even harder at a time of rapid change like P.E.I. has seen in recent years.

Growth on the Island was virtually flat from 2012 to 2015, ranging from 0.4 per cent to -0.3 per cent.

But in 2015, Premier Wade MacLauchlan — concerned about an aging population and the resulting labour shortage — announced a new population strategy that would increase immigration and encourage former Islanders to return home. And it seems to have been successful.

In 2016, the population grew 1.9 per cent. Rapid growth continued even through the worst of the pandemic, and hit 3.6 per cent last year.

"That is a phenomenal growth rate. The province is growing faster than any other province in Canada," said Prof. Don Kerr, a demographer at Western University.

"That's what you'd associate with places like Calgary during the boom years, that's what you're currently seeing. Now is that going to continue? That could change very quickly."

And that growth rate has already pushed the province's most recent projections — based on July 1, 2021 numbers — out of whack. P.E.I. had a projected population of 167,036 on July 1, 2022, but Statistics Canada's estimate came in at 170,688.

Since the strategy's launch, the population has grown at double the planned rate, contributing to the housing crisis as the construction industry failed to keep up with demand for new homes.

But that growth still hasn't prevented a labour shortage, so the province continues to pursue a high-growth strategy. The most recent projections forecast a growth rate of 1.5 to two per cent in the coming decade — it's historically high, but still lower than the 2.4 per cent average over the last seven years.

It may not sound like a lot, but that could mean an additional 15,000 Islanders looking for homes, and as many as 1,800 more children than expected needing schools and child care. Not to mention more traffic, higher demand for water, language services for new immigrants, and a host of other services.

When making projections, provincial demographers consider three ways the population can shrink or grow: births, deaths, and migration, which includes internatonal migration and interprovincial migration.