Statistics Canada announced that its most recent release of the Canadian Vital Statistics – Death database is now available, showing a decrease in mortality rates across all age groups in 2024 when compared to 2023 figures. The general decrease was also observed across sexes.
The number of deaths in Canada decreased 0.2 per cent during the year.
“With some exceptions, 2024 is the second straight year of improvement across age groups and sexes,” Statistics Canada’s researchers write in the most recent note, Deaths, 2024. “The impact of these decreases in mortality is seen in other indicators of population health, including life expectancy and leading causes of death.”
Mortality rates peak in 2021 and 2022, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2024, life expectancy at birth increased to age 82, up from 81.68 years in 2023. They say the increase was more pronounced among males (life expectancy rose 0.55 years to 80.03 years) than females (life expectancy increased 0.41 years to 84.29 years).
Cancer remained the leading cause of death among both males and females, in all provinces and territories. “Cancer has been the leading cause of death in Canada since the early 1990s, when it overtook diseases of the heart,” they write.
Notably, deaths attributed to influenza and pneumonia increased 20 per cent during the year, causing it to jump from the eighth leading cause of death to the sixth in 2024. (Peak influenza and pneumonia deaths occurred in 2018.)
Deaths due to COVID-19 continue to fall, decreasing 36.6 per cent during the year. Dementia, meanwhile, not on the list of measured causes of death, was responsible for 27,825 deaths in 2024, a 4.8 per cent increase. “If dementia were included in the top 10 leading causes of death, it would place third, behind cancer and diseases of the heart and ahead of accidents,” they write. “Excluding 2020, the year the pandemic began, the number of dementia deaths has grown steadily each year since 2000, largely due to Canada’s aging population.”
