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THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
The Town of Fort Smith will be issuing an official challenge to Statistics Canada over the population of the community listed in 2011 census figures released on Feb. 8.

According to the census stats, the population of the South Slave town fell to 2,093 last year from 2,364 in the last census six years ago.

Mayor Janie Hobart does not believe there was such a population decline - 11.4 per cent - in her community, and instead thinks the population has risen slightly.

"I'm not going to say lots, but I would say it's grown a little bit," she said.

Hobart is particularly incredulous at the census numbers showing a dramatic decline in the number of occupied private dwellings in the community to 776 last year from 868 six years ago. In fact, she noted StatsCan has told the town that it lost 115 private homes in the five-year period - to 908 last year from 1,023 in the previous census.

"For a community the size of Fort Smith to lose 115 homes would be very, very evident," she said. "That would mean blocks in our community. That is not the case and actually we are opening a new subdivision because there's a demand for more housing. Our vacancy rate is at zero."

On Feb. 9, Hobart was in the process of writing a letter to Statistics Canada.

The letter will request the federal agency redo its census in Fort Smith and also recommend that the work be done by a local person.

The mayor noted the town also sent a letter to Statistics Canada last fall after town hall received many complaints from people who said they had not received their census packages. At that time, the town was told to wait until the census results came out this month.

Hobart said Thebacha MLA and territorial Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger and Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington will also be advised that the Fort Smith census numbers are inaccurate.

"When you consider that funding from your senior levels of government comes by your population numbers, for us to lose 11 per cent of our funding from the territorial government or gas tax money or funding for health care and what have you, that's significant dollars," she said.

Hobart said a falling population would also not be good for business.

"If you see decreases in population, that's not going to bode well for you thinking of setting up a business," she said. "It all snowballs. Financially, it is not good for the community."

The NWT Bureau of Statistics, a territorial agency, also took note of the census decrease in population and dwelling numbers in Fort Smith.

"We were surprised by that," said Jeff Barichello, the acting territorial statistician. "So we contacted Statistics Canada to ask them what was going on. The response that we got from them was that they're looking into the case of Fort Smith and they're going to contact us later on. We made a formal request for the Fort Smith information to be formally reviewed."

Statistics Canada expects to have revised numbers on Fort Smith within a few weeks, he noted, explaining the census count and the revised numbers will then form the basis of a population estimate.

Barichello said he is not sure what went wrong with the census count in Fort Smith.

Margaret Michalowski, assistant director for the census with Statistics Canada, confirmed the agency is aware of the concerns in Fort Smith.

"We treat it as a formal request for review and, when we finish our investigation, we will get back to the mayor of the town," she said.

Michalowski said Statistics Canada has not received complaints about the census from other NWT communities, although she noted it is very early in the process.

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