City population sees slight growth
Statistics Canada indicates 19,569 people lived here during 2016 national count
Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Friday, February 10, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The city's population has grown 1.7 per cent since 2011, according to the first batch of 2016 census data released by Statistics Canada on Wednesday.
The city had 19,569 residents living in 7,340 dwellings when the national tally was carried out last year while Dettah had 219 people in 74 dwellings.
Mayor Mark Heyck, a self-described statistics junkie, said it was interesting to see the figures released Wednesday morning but said the city figures weren't a surprise.
"We've had over the last decade fairly modest growth on an annual basis so the numbers that came out today from Statistics Canada were not out of line with what our expectations were," he said in an interview.
The city's population increased 4.6 per cent over the 2006 census, when it stood at 18,700 people.
Besides population, the information the national statistics agency released also includes a tally of how many privately occupied dwellings a community has. Over the past 10 years, there has been a 7.8-per-cent increase in such dwellings in the city.
"Probably the most important aspect out of the census data for the city is our ability to plan future growth in the residential sector," Heyck said. "We're able to look at historical trends of growth numbers and population and determine approximately how many housing units we'll need to plan for."
Over the past five years, he said the city has tried to increase the amount of housing units and types of housing on the market.
"That's key for us in knowing what our growth is going to look like and what we can anticipate for the next few years," he said.
Demographic information like age, gender and income collected as part of the census will be released later this year. That data is used for planning other aspects of city operations like recreational programs, Heyck said.
The city's population growth over the past five years was larger than the territory's overall, which increased by just 0.8 per cent to 41,786 people.
Twenty of the territory's communities saw their populations shrink compared to the 2011 census count.
The number of people living in the territory has a direct impact on territorial finances because the federal government transfers money based on population and most of the territory's revenue comes from those transfers.
In the 2017-18 fiscal year, the GNWT will receive $28,867 per person in transfer payments, according to Finance Canada.
The previous government set a goal of increasing the population to 45,550 by March 31, 2019, though little has been said about the target since the 2015 election.
Yellowknife North MLA Cory Vanthuyne asked about the target when talking about the territory's 2017 budget in the legislative assembly on Tuesday.
"Have we deflated those efforts already? Although the government may improve their bottom line with this reorganization approach, the NWT's economic bottom line will indeed suffer, and this is not the time to impart more suffering," he said, referring to how the government plans to merge departments and cut jobs to save money.
The GNWT did not make any ministers available for an interview about the census results.
