Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (July 22/02) - Nunavut is the youngest territory in more ways than one. It's also growing much faster than any other region in Canada, according to Statistics Canada's latest report.

The median age of Nunavummiut is just 22.1, compared with 37.6 for the entire country.

The median is the age at which half the population is older and half is younger.

It is the first time the census has broken down numbers for Nunavut, and the difference between this territory and the rest of the country is striking.

"Boy, are we different," said Jack Hicks, Nunavut's director of statistics. "It's quite fascinating.... It's one of the interesting side effects of the creation of Nunavut. We get all our own statistics up there with P.E.I. and Ontario."

The numbers are proof Nunavut is no longer a survival-style society with high birth and death rates, said Hicks.

Increased attention to hygiene and the fight against tuberculosis have led to a dramatic drop in the death rate. That hasn't yet been counterbalanced by a drop in the birth rate, although family sizes have begun to drop.

As the number of women in the workforce surges, families often opt for fewer children.

That doesn't mean Nunavut will stop growing, though.

"We still have an enormous cohort of our population that are women of childbearing age," Hicks said.

Statistics Canada estimates that the Nunavut's population will grow by 17 per cent over the next decade, moving from 26,745 to 31,300.

Some groups will experience dramatic changes. For example, the number of children between the ages of 5 and 12 is expected to drop 22 per cent by 2011, reducing demands on schools.

At the same time, the working-age population will get older. In a decade, the number of people aged 45 to 64 is expected to grow by two-thirds. The population of seniors will double.

"If anything, this provides ammunition to go to Ottawa with," said Hicks.

"There will be a surge of young people entering the labour market in the next couple of years. At the same time, we probably don't have to build any more schools because the youth population is leveling off."

The numbers also show that soaring demands for housing are just over the horizon.

"We already have the most crowded housing in the country. When those kids get old enough to want to have families of their own, there's going to be that much more demand for housing," Hicks said.

But the projections are fallible, cautioned Hicks.

"If we see five mines open in the next few years, we're not going to see more Inuit. But the white population could change by a couple of thousand people," he said.

Numbers that compare the population of Inuit and non-Inuit should be available next January.