Adam Johnson
Northern News Services
Published Friday, December 28, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - New federal statistics show the NWT population dropping again this year, though Northern statisticians say the numbers don't indicate significant change.

According to Statistics Canada, the NWT was one of only two jurisdictions in Canada with negative population growth in 2007 at -0.1 per cent. Newfoundland and Labrador was the other, with -0.3 per cent.

Nunavut and the Yukon had growth of 2.2 per cent and zero per cent, respectively, according to the same data.

An estimated 576 people left the territory between Oct. 1, 2006 and Oct. 1, 2007, offset by a "natural increase" of 518 people - resulting in a net loss of 58 people.

The territory had similar losses in 2006 (-0.7 per cent) and 2005 (-0.1 per cent), according to these numbers.

However, statisticians in the North say the numbers don't show significant change.

"It's not really that significant or relevant," said Angelo Cocco, territorial statistician with the NWT Bureau of Statistics.

"It's likely just noise," he added - statistically insignificant changes in data.

He said Statistics Canada's numbers are still based on the 2001 census, creating a wider margin for error with each passing year.

He added that population statistics in the North are always in inexact science, due to a "very mobile population," and the way information is gathered.

"It's based on that Canada Child Tax Benefit," he said.

This benefit is marked to income, and with higher-than-average wages in the North, many families who move here no longer claim the benefit and are not counted, he said.

"In the NWT, we typically have an undercoverage."

Cocco said this undercoverage is worked into final population estimates, which should come along in 2008, along with 2006 census data.

He said those results could be surprising, when one considers recent trends.

"My expectation is, once we add the undercoverage, we should see a rise (in population)."

Noise or not, Premier Floyd Roland said his government takes any change in population seriously.

"That is always a concern when you look at your population base," he said from Inuvik. "Some of those figures do work into how our transfer payments from Ottawa work so it is a bit of a concern for us."

"We've been monitoring it, how the territory's population has been going up and down," he said.

- with files from Dez Loreen