Several BC cities ranked on a list of places that saw the most significant growth in 2023, with the province ranking second among all Canadian provinces.
The data comes from the annual U-Haul Migration Trends report.
In recent years, BC has become known as a province that, due to the high cost of living, saw residents move away to cheaper spots like Alberta. According to the report, some BC cities seemed to trend in the opposite direction last year, although Vancouver was not one of them.
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Last year, BC ranked ninth on the report, and this year, it jumped to second, behind only Alberta.
U-Haul also looked at the top 25 cities for growth, and among them were Kelowna (#4), Penticton (#6), Campbell River (#8), Nanaimo (#17), Victoria (#18) and Salmon Arm (#25).
U-Haul points out that the data is not meant to reflect population or economic growth.
“The U-Haul Growth Index is an effective gauge of how well provinces and cities are attracting and maintaining residents.”
Growth is calculated by each city or province’s net gain or loss of one-way equipment from customer transactions. It’s not just a handful of transactions; the data was compiled from over 2.5 million.
“The U-Haul Growth Index found that Calgary, Edmonton, Salmon Arm and Camrose were all among Canada’s top 25 growth cities last year, helping Alberta climb from last to first in the moving company’s annual growth province rankings.”
Despite these positive indicators, Statistics Canada recently released some numbers suggesting that Alberta still sees a significant influx of residents moving away from BC.
Statistics Canada’s numbers also corroborate with what U-Haul is seeing for Alberta.
Alberta has seen five consecutive quarters of strong interprovincial net gains, and it also marks the first time the province has seen a net gain of 10,000 or more interprovincial migrants for five consecutive quarters since comparable records began in 1971. For the third quarter of 2023, it saw 17,094 net interprovincial migrants, with 29,129 moving into the province from elsewhere in the country and 12,035 leaving.
Are you surprised that any of these BC cities are popular growth destinations?
With files from Kenneth Chan
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