A total of 20,452 people were added to the province’s population as a result of net inter-provincial migration and international immigration in the first quarter of 2010. As has been the case in every quarter since the beginning of 2003, positive international immigration once again more than offset a net loss of people to other provinces.

Some 2,069 more people moved away from Ontario than moved to the province in the first quarter. Even so, this was a considerable improvement from the loss of more 5,000 people in the same period last year.

International immigration added 22,521 people to the province’s population in the first quarter of 2010, up 15 per cent from the same period in 2009.

Some 16,761 people moved to Ontario from elsewhere in Canada in the first quarter of 2010, edging down three-tenths of one per cent from the previous first quarter. Small increases in migration from British Columbia, Alberta, and Nova Scotia helped offset a decline in people coming from Quebec.

The number of people leaving for other provinces dropped 14 per cent from the first quarter of 2009 to 18,830. There was a significant decrease in the number of people leaving for Alberta, with over 2,500 fewer people moving to that province from Ontario.

The result was a net loss of 2,069 people from net inter-provincial migration. This is less than half the loss reported in the first quarter last year.