Canada's population has recorded consecutive quarterly declines since mid-2025, with Statistics Canada data showing drops of roughly 76,000 in Q3 2025, 103,000 in Q4 2025, and 55,000 in Q1 2026, driven primarily by net outflows of non-permanent residents including international students and temporary foreign workers. Federal policy under the Carney government has enforced lower targets for temporary resident admissions—set at 385,000 for 2026, down sharply from prior years—alongside a goal of reducing the non-permanent resident share of the total population to around 5 percent. These measures, intended to ease housing and infrastructure pressures, have produced Canada's first annual population contraction on record in 2025 and sustained negative quarterly growth into 2026. Trader consensus at 84.5 percent for the largest annual drop on record reflects this ongoing policy trajectory and demographic data trends through the first half of the year.