Drop in Net Migration to Ontario

When discussing Ontario's GDP and GDP per capita, population growth is an important factor. GDP can be growing, but GDP per capita can be stagnant. I've been using a 1.2% growth rate for population for Ontario that I saw on Wikipedia. However this Star article on dropping net migration to Ontario probably changes that:

As of last September, net migration in Ontario had fallen by 20 per cent year-over-year to below 60,000 new residents, says a CMHC review of GTA housing activity released Thursday.

That’s the lowest levels of net migration since the late 1990s and about 40 per cent less than the 110,000 or so people who migrated to the province annually, most of them to the Toronto region, about a decade ago, says Shaun Hildebrand, CMHC’s housing analyst for Toronto.

That people aren't migrating to Ontario as much isn't that surprising considering the province's stagnant economy during the McGuinty era (and the Eves era to be fair), especially on a per capita basis. Based on a 2011 count of 12,851,821 people in Ontario, 60,000 people migrating on a net basis increases the population by 0.467% per year. I haven't seen any stats for Ontario's birth rate, however for Canada as a whole it certainly isn't that impressive and doesn't leave a lot for population growth besides low net migration.

As the article points out, this isn't great for the Ontario housing market. Considering that housing seemed to be one of the main pillars of the Ontario economy the past decade, that can't help the economy. Also if population growth is low and GDP growth per capita is stagnant, that will mean lower overall GDP growth, which is problematic considering the deficit and debt Ontario is facing.

A housing collapse would devastate an already moribund Ontario economy. Slowing net migration means there may not be more suckers to sell condos and houses to.