AI Analysis: Estimates of interprovincial migrants by province or territory of origin and destination, quarterly

Executive Summary

Statistics Canada's interprovincial migration dataset (Table 17100045) spans 54 years of quarterly data from 1971 to 2025, capturing 32,088 records across 178 directional migration corridors between Canada's provinces and territories. Ontario dominates as both the top origin (~4.29 million total migrants) and top destination (~4.17 million total migrants), while migration volumes peaked at 149,590 persons in Q3 1980 and hit a modern low of 40,587 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Q4 2020. The distribution of flows is heavily right-skewed, with most corridors seeing modest movement and a small number of high-volume routes — primarily between large neighboring provinces — driving the majority of interprovincial mobility.

Key Findings

• Peak interprovincial migration occurred in Q3 1980 at 149,590 persons per quarter, the highest level in over 54 years of recorded data, while the COVID-19 pandemic drove the lowest recorded quarter to just 40,587 migrants in Q4 2020.
• Ontario is the dominant hub of Canadian interprovincial migration, ranking #1 as both origin (~4.29 million total migrants) and destination (~4.17 million total migrants) over the entire study period.
• The distribution of migration flows is strongly right-skewed: the median flow is only 90 persons per quarter versus a mean of 537, and 76.3% of all flows involve fewer than 500 persons, indicating that a small number of high-volume corridors drive overall totals.
• Recent migration activity (last 2 years) averages 82,722 migrants per quarter, representing a 16.4% decline compared to the early-period average of 98,946, suggesting a long-term moderation in interprovincial mobility.
• Only 6 outlier quarters were detected using the IQR method (upper bound: 137,357; lower bound: 13,793), concentrated in the late 1970s–early 1980s boom period and the COVID-19 era, highlighting how rare truly extreme migration levels are.
• The dataset captures 178 unique directional origin-destination corridors, but routes between large neighboring provinces — such as Ontario–Quebec and Alberta–British Columbia — consistently dominate the top rankings by cumulative volume.
• Correlation analysis of the 15 highest-variance migration routes suggests that major corridors move in tandem, likely driven by shared economic cycles, while select route pairs show negative correlations indicative of destination substitution effects.