Boomtown: Moncton keeps growing, population soars

Massive cranes have been a part the skyline in Moncton, N.B., for the past few years and more could be coming.

The value of the city's building permits for the first quarter of 2023 came in at $22.5 million, according to a news release sent by the city this week.

Almost 60 per cent of those were for commercial and industrial projects.

Those numbers are down from this time last year, but the city is growing like it never has before.

Kevin Silliker, the director of economic development for the City of Moncton, said pressures on the building and development industry, like inflation and lending rates, have caused a slight cool down, but overall the numbers are still good.

“Five of the last six years have actually been record-building permit years for the city, so there's significant investment happening. In over really the last six years, [there’s been] about $1.9 billion in investment and building and construction and development in Moncton,” said Siliker.

Construction on apartment complexes around the city continues and the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Moncton thinks more high-profile projects are in the planning phases.

“The last two to three years have been record years in terms of building,” said John Wishart. “I really do think you're going to see a couple of 20-storey buildings announced this spring, which we've never seen. It will change the skyline in Moncton.”

The population of the region continues to rise too.

The Moncton census metropolitan area added 8,800 people last year and the Hub City leads Canada with a population growth rate of 5.4 per cent.

“I think about 4,500 of that total were permanent residents, so immigration,” said Wishart. “We've had over a 1,000 Ukrainians come since the start of the war. Now we have asylum seekers arriving so I think that trend is going to continue.”

Silliker said population growth can cause strains when it comes at such an aggressive pace.

“Things like housing. Thinks like access to health care. Even access to daycare. Those are definitely constraints that we're hearing,” said Silliker.

The pros of the population surge are newcomers buying groceries, gas and hopefully entering the workplace, Wishart said.

“The cons are, they need a place to stay and sometimes if it's immigration-related there's processing delays,” said Wishart. “We have to make sure they're integrated into the community and culturally everything is OK. So, it's mostly problems of growth, which is fairly new to our community and to this region and we're just trying to get our heads around how do we tackle those problems.”

Silliker said the attraction of coming to Moncton is the opportunity for employment and labour.

“People are looking for economic opportunities and workforce and entrepreneurial opportunities and Moncton has a very growing and dynamic workforce and labour pool here and employment base, so there's many sectors here that are helping our economy grow,” said Silliker.

Moncton, New Brunswick’s largest city, currently has a population of around 88,000.