TORONTO -- A Statistics Canada report says that Canada鈥檚 population growth has 鈥渆ssentially stopped鈥� due to COVID-19, with our population only going up by 2,767 from July 1 to October 1 -- virtually zero per cent.

The report states that those numbers represent the 鈥渓owest quarterly growth since at least January 1, 1946,鈥� which is the point at which comparable national data become available.

鈥淚n March, Canada implemented restrictions on international travel due to COVID-19,鈥� . 

鈥淭he largest demographic impact on the total population came from losses in international migration.鈥�

Canada welcomed 40,069 immigrants in the first quarter of 2020, which is 61.4 per cent less than the same period in 2019 鈥� but reported a net loss of almost 66,000 non-permanent residents, the report says. International students were also unable to bolster population numbers like usual due to border restrictions.

The report did not come as a surprise to Toronto immigration lawyer Nastaran Roushan, who noted that 鈥淐anada has been relying on immigration to grow its population for years,鈥� in a phone interview with CTV News.ca Friday.

What did strike Roushan was how unprepared the Canadian government was to deal with the logistics of border restrictions and the impact on immigration.

鈥淭he first thing I noticed was how unprepared the government was, in particular the Immigration Department was for this sort of issue,鈥� Roushan said. 鈥淣ot that anyone could really predict a pandemic, but鈥� in terms of electronics and technology they could have had in place that would have alleviated a lot of the issues that we saw.鈥�

Roushan said the biggest culprit was visa office delays, as most locations shut down operations during lockdowns.

鈥淣one of this would have been such a big issue if everything was electronic and applications could continue to process,鈥� she said.

The ripple effect of border closures, travel restrictions and visa office delays has hit immigrants hard, Roushan said.

鈥淭he stories have been heartbreaking,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e heard of families that have been separated, people who are waiting for spousal applications to be processed鈥eople who sold their properties and were ready to immigrate here and then suddenly they weren鈥檛 allowed to come. My worry is that people won鈥檛 follow through with immigrating to Canada and that would definitely have an adverse impact on the economy.鈥�

Refugees and asylum seekers have also been left exposed by Canada鈥檚 COVID-19 response, Roushan said, which feed the country鈥檚 population levels.

鈥淩efugees are a much more vulnerable groups than the immigrant population and refugee claims have pretty much narrowed down to a trickle now. And that's a huge concern because you can only use the pandemic as a reason for not processing refugee claims and not allowing people to claim asylum for so long,鈥� she said.

鈥淭he more the pandemic goes on, the less we can make that justification.鈥�