As the economy continues to sputter, Alberta again saw more people leave the province than move here, a reversal of the province’s boom years.

It’s the fourth consecutive quarter that Statistics Canada’s population numbers have shown a net outflow. The population figures show that about 22,000 people left Alberta and about 18,000 people arrived in the province, for a net loss of almost 4,000 people in the last quarter. Year to date, there has been a net loss of 8,335 people in Alberta in the past four quarters.

While people may be moving to other provinces, industrious Albertans have managed to keep the population growing by posting the highest birth rate in the country.

“Births over deaths was nearly 10,000 this last quarter. So despite the fact that we’re a slightly smaller province that’s substantially higher than B.C., it’s almost triple the rate in B.C.,” said Trevor Tombe, an economist at the University of Calgary.

While the state of the economy can affect the migration rate, and historically has matched the ups and downs of the oil and gas sector, Tombe cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from Thursday’s data. He said census data to be released next year may provide clues as to why people are moving.

Alberta saw gains from just about every province except B.C. and Ontario. Almost 1,000 more people moved to Alberta from Saskatchewan last quarter, than went the other way.

Alberta also has a large numbers of people moving in and out of the province, so even though more people are leaving, it still has the second highest inflow number in Canada. Tombe said this could be due to the relatively youthful population in the province who can move more freely, and also explains the high birth rate.

“If we look at an annualized basis, our population is about 1.7 per cent above where it was at the end of 2015. That’s the second highest rate of population growth in the country, behind Manitoba. We’re still a growing population,” Tombe said.

Alberta also added about 10,000 immigrants last quarter, which runs from July to September.

In the bank’s daily newsletter on the economy, ATB Financial economists wrote that a small migration out of the province during rough economic times isn’t unusual. 

“What is perhaps a bit surprising is that despite the severity of this recession, the out-migration has remained relatively weak,” the newsletter says.

Alberta gained about 130,000 people between 2010 and 2015, when the economy was in better shape, so the current outflow is small in comparison. 

It’s also small compared to other rough patches in the province’s economic history. In 1984, Alberta had two consecutive quarters where the net migration saw more than 12,000 people leave. In fact, it’s hard to find a year in the 1980s where Alberta was attracting people from other provinces.

“It was almost for the entire decade you had negative outflows,” Tombe said.

Nationally, Canada gained 157,207 people, Statistics Canada says, mainly due to an increase of 57,362 in the number of non-permanent residents. The agency said it was the highest increase in population since the current demographics system was created in 1971.

The country also welcomed 68,241 new immigrants, about 10,000 fewer than the same period last year.

sxthomson@postmedia.com

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