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by tossstone 707 days ago
Alberta’s population growth trend in the last 5 years is anything but linear. It has accelerated significantly driven in large part by new to Canada immigrants and those escaping higher cost of living provinces like BC and ON.

Source: https://www.alberta.ca/population-statistics
1 comments
TheRealPomax 707 days ago
That page shows population change measured in several tens of thousands, not several hundreds of thousands, so as a year over year increase that's basically still linear, just with a slightly higher coefficient, but nowhere near enough to scream population boom. Just an above average increase.

If we look at the population numbers for the last 24 years there's nothing particularly out of the ordinary going on [1].

Sure, the last two years could be the start of an explosive increase, but the drop in year-over-year increase as indicated by the charts from your own link suggests it's far more likely to return to the overall trend.

But of course: even if the population doubled over the next 5 years, Alberta is still the size of Texas, and has plenty of room to address those energy needs using renewables.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/569880/population-estima...

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tossstone 707 days ago
I'm not debating the merits of renewables, I'm just stating that the population growth in Alberta is not linear. And the population IS growing by hundreds of thousands annually. To quote directly from Alberta population statistics:

"Alberta’s population growth continues to accelerate. In the 12 months preceding April 1, 2024, the province’s population expanded by 204,677 people, or 4.41%." [1]

"This represents a significant increase from the previous year (3.67% between 2022-23) and the highest April 1 year-over-year growth rate since 1981. Alberta’s population expanded by 49,138 residents over the first quarter of 2024, or 1.02%." [1]

The vast majority (over 160,000) of those new residents of Alberta were immigrants to Canada, driven by the federal government's massive immigration ramp-up. The immigration levels plan targets a continued increase in immigration through 2026 [2] and with Alberta having a comparatively low cost of living and very high quality of life, it's hard to believe that trend in population growth will not continue.

[1] https://www.alberta.ca/population-statistics

[2] https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/co...

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