Thunder Bay is pitching itself as Canada's most affordable city. Will that draw in new workers?

As Canadian urbanites look for more affordable housing, officials in Thunder Bay are pitching the northwestern Ontario community as one of the last cities in Canada with cheap homes for sale. 

The Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission (CEDC) has resurrected an ad campaign aimed at remote workers in urban centers looking for a lower cost of living. 

Jamie Taylor, CEO of CEDC, said they revived the campaign after a Royal LePage study crowned Thunder Bay the most affordable city in Canada based on aggregate home price data and median household incomes from the 2022 Census report. 

"We thought it was a great opportunity for us to revive that campaign and kind of capitalize on the good press that we're getting in the community to be able to hopefully attract a few more people here," said Taylor. 

CEDC is targeting major metropolitan areas like Toronto, Vancouver and Edmonton, she said.

"It's really about individuals that are kind of more mobile and unattached that can just pick up their job and do it from wherever," Taylor said.

While single people without significant ties to large cities are the main target, they are also hoping to attract young families or people interested in working in Thunder Bay itself. 

Canada's most affordable city?  

Thunder Bay's aggregate home price was just under $300,000 as of the first quarter of this year, said the Royal LePage report. 

While purchasing a home may be significantly cheaper in Thunder Bay, the savings on rent are less drastic. The median rent in Thunder Bay is $1,200, according to 2023 Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) rent price data. This ranks it 27th out of 58 census metropolitan areas in Ontario CMHC had data on. It's still less than the provincial median or median rent in Toronto, which were $1,500 and $1,750 respectively. 

As Canada experiences a surge in population, even areas that have been historically more sparsely populated are seeing growth. Northwestern Ontario isn't experiencing as high a growth rate as Northeastern Ontario or nationwide, but it is still increasing, said Lakehead economist Livio Di Matteo

"If you look at the northwest – Kenora, for example, isn't growing very quickly, and Thunder Bay is growing faster than Kenora, but not as fast as say, the South, or North Bay or Greater Sudbury," he said. 

Thunder Bay's population grew by just over 2,400 since 2019, with the majority of the growth happening last year. The population surpassed 130,000 in 2023. 

Infrastructure growth needs to follow population growth, economist says

Di Matteo said this population growth is good news –  as long as infrastructure grows with it to meet demands.

This could be a challenge for rural and northern cities like Thunder Bay, he said. 

"They're usually accustomed to worrying about job losses and the economy shrinking," he said. "But if migration flows continue at this level, they're going to basically have to become somewhat more growth-oriented," Di Matteo said.

"Part of the issue with migration in Canada over the last few years is that it was a situation where it was just assumed everything would fall into place," he said. 

Like many places in Canada, northern Ontario is facing a well-documented shortage of housing and staff in multiple industries, including healthcare, education, aviation and skilled trades. 

Thunder Bay's distance from other cities may also be a hard sell to urbanites looking for greener pastures. The closest large city is Minneapolis, which is 552 kilometres away, and in the United States. Winnipeg is the nearest Canadian urban centre at 700 kilometres away. 

Toronto is 1,400 kilometres away, meaning it takes either a flight or a sixteen-hour drive to get there. 

Taylor said that while the drive to Thunder Bay is long, the airport access makes up the difference, and hopes that the positives the city has to offer can bring new workers in. 

"We do have great connectivity," she said. "Yes, it is far by car to get to Toronto, but it's a two hour flight, right? And there's several flights each day. You can get in and out of Thunder Bay very easily."