Michelle DaCruz
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 10/02) - Faced with pressure from the territorial government, Statistics Canada is taking another look at 2001 census results for the NWT.

"Right now we are looking at (the numbers) community by community," said Jerry Page, director of the Prairie region and NWT for Statistics Canada.

The review is in response to the territorial government's outcry over an alleged 5.8 per cent, or over 2,000 person drop in population since 1996.

"The census numbers are dead wrong," Finance Minister Joe Handley told Yellowknifer days after the census went public.

The review is in response to the territorial government's outcry that the population totals show the NWT has lost more than 2,000 people. According to the 2001 census, the territories population dropped to 37,360 from 39,672. The census showed Yellowknife's population fell to 16,541 from 17,275.

Following the paper trail

The current review is concerned solely with analyzing the paper trail, for instance checking last year's dwelling counts with the previous census in 1996.

Page said if they uncover substantial inaccuracies, he does not rule out sending census representatives back to the territory. Although he could not specify what magnitude of error would lead to such a tactic, he did say redoing the whole territory is not an option.

"We are not saying that there weren't mistakes made, but I am still confident in the techniques that we used to deal with a type of area like the territory," said Page.

In the Prairie region there were a half-dozen informal requests for a review, but the only formal request came from the GNWT.

Results of the review are not expected until the end of April at the earliest.