Like most owl species, Great Gray Owl is not well monitored in Canada. Its periodic irruptions in response to fluctuations in prey abundance further complicates attempts to understand population trends. Overall, the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) provides the greatest spatial and temporal coverage of the Canadian population. The national CBC trend suggests that the Great Gray Owl population in Canada has more than doubled since 1970. However, precision of the trend estimate is poor due to highly variable annual totals, and the CBC covers relatively little of the species' range. Furthermore, CBC methods are not highly standardized and targeted efforts to record owls may have increased over time, which could inflate trend estimates if data were sparse in the 1970s. The Breeding Bird Survey indicates a moderate increase over the same period, but has even more limited coverage of the range and its timing is poor for detecting the species. More recently, the Nocturnal Owl Survey has provided more targeted monitoring of Great Gray Owls, and shows a national decline of 34% between 2008 and 2021. As there is some disagreement among trends, there is only very low confidence in the large increase indicated by the CBC. Future assessments of status will hopefully benefit from regional Nocturnal Owl Surveys once they become more widespread and amass a longer time-series, and from comparison among breeding bird atlases.

The goal for Great Gray Owl is to remain at or above its recent population level, based on the Christmas Bird Count. Trend data show that Great Gray Owl is currently within its goal range.