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Report suggests NWT grew by 4,000

Jake Kennedy
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 07/02) - A new report by Statistics Canada suggests its count of the NWT's population for the 2001 census may have been wrong.

The new population estimate pegs the NWT's population at 41,226 -- almost 4,000 people more than were counted in the census, which tallied the population at 37,360.

When the census numbers were released in March, they showed that the NWT's population had dropped more than 2,000 people from the 1996 census.

"It's certainly positive," Finance Minister Joseph Handley said about revised numbers.

"This one's a fairly good estimate."

At the time, many GNWT officials disagreed with Statistic Canada's numbers, saying the numbers may have been skewed if it missed people who were working on-site at mines when the census was conducted.

"One of our concerns with the census is if had someone been up at a mine site, you may consider a single guy living alone, for two weeks when the census was taking place, they could've called that vacant when someone was actually living there," David Stewart, of the GNWT Bureau of Statistics, said at the time.

The census numbers were also of concern to government officials as the numbers are used to calculate transfer payments to provinces and territories from the federal government.

As a result of the concerns expressed by the GNWT, Statistics Canada agreed to review its numbers.

Although the results of that review won't be out until next fall, Stewart said the population estimate is promising.

"I think when they (Statistics Canada) do their studies to find out how many people they missed, they'll find they missed quite a few people in the NWT," Stewart said.

Daniel Larrivee, a population analyst with Statistics Canada, said the population estimate is the most correct information currently available as to how many people live in the NWT, and expects the final census numbers to be close to it.

Stewart said an even more accurate number will be available in March 2003 when the GNWT releases the results of its study on how many households the census may have missed, but that the whole picture won't develop until the full review is complete in September 2003.