OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – Canada’s birth rate has plunged to an all-time low for the second year in a row and shows no signs of improving anytime soon.

According to Statistics Canada’s latest births and stillbirths’ data from 2024, the nation’s official fertility rate is 1.25 children per woman, lower than in 2023, which was 1.26 children per woman.

Overall, this is a 1.6 percent decrease from the previous year and is on par with data since 2009, which is the year the nation’s birth rate started a slow and steady decline.

As it stands now, Canada is not unlike European countries such as Italy and Switzerland, as well as Japan in that it’s considered to be an “ultra-low fertility” nation.

Nine of Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories saw record-low fertility rates in 2024. The province with the lowest rate is British Columbia at 1.02, followed by Nova Scotia at 1.08, Prince Edward Island at 1.10, and Ontario at 1.21.

Quebec stands at 1.34, the Northwest Territories at 1.39, Alberta at 1.41, Manitoba at 1.50, and Saskatchewan at 1.58. The territory of Nunavut is at 2.34.

In order for a country to maintain its population, the birth rate must be 2.0 or higher, with it needing at least 2.1 births per woman for a nation to grow, irrespective of immigration.

Not only are Canadian women having fewer babies, but the average age of childbearing has gone up. It now stands at a record high of 31.8 years. By comparison, it was 26.7 in 1976.

In total, there were 368,928 babies born in Canada from 2024 to 2025, a number that would be much greater if not for abortion. For context, in 2022, 97,211 Canadian babies were killed by abortion.      

When looking back, Canada’s fertility rate hit an all-time high of 3.94 children per woman in 1959. The birth rate then plummeted after the introduction of the birth control pill in the 1960s. The birth control pill was decriminalized in Canada in 1969.

Like abortion, contraception is condemned by the Catholic Church as gravely sinful. The Church also makes clear that abortion, contraception, and other anti-life interventions are contrary to natural law, and thus their moral impermissibility is knowable by all through reason.

Overall, Canada’s birth rate has declined for decades. Canada’s current Liberal federal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney, like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before him, has been heavily promoting contraception and abortion instead of using immigration as a means of growing the population. 

As noted by LifeSiteNews’ Jonathon Van Maren, a recent scheme by the Trudeau Liberals to offer free contraception to all Canadians will only worsen Canada’s current demographic crisis.   

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the reality is that due to abortion, birth control, and the fact that fewer people are starting families, Earth’s population will hit a “peak” before the end of the century, with most nations facing sharp population declines in the next 25 years.

Even secular Canadian academia has warned that the country is facing a population crisis, with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute saying earlier this year that the nation’s drop in fertility is “a major public policy challenge requiring immediate federal action.”