Canada’s population is about to boom. And Canada isn’t ready.

Last month, Statistics Canada released a report showing this country’s population has recently been growing at almost double the rate of the rest of the G7. The agency also expects that trend to accelerate, because of the Trudeau government’s history of, and plans for, high and rising immigration. Statscan’s medium-growth outlook sees today’s population of 38 million rising by 10 million by 2043. Its high-growth forecast is a population of more than 52 million. Both of those mean growth well above even the swift pace of recent years.

Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia are going to become home to most of these new Canadians. Statscan’s high-growth forecast sees more than two million new people in B.C., nearly three million new Albertans and more than six million more Ontarians.

And it seems inevitable that most new Canadians will live in and around the biggest cities. Statscan has not released estimates at the city level, but using the agency’s provincial high-growth forecasts, and extrapolating from recent history, suggests huge growth in metro regions. Calgary, with 1.6 million people today, could add around a million people by 2043. Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley suburbs, with three million people today, could grow to north of four million. And the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area, with 7.8 million people now, could grow to around 11 million.

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