A tale of two territories
The NWT looks for ways to increase population while Nunavut's head count rises each year
Miranda Scotland
Northern News Services
Monday, April 20, 2015
NWT/NUNAVUT
The NWT population is decreasing despite an effort to up the head count by 2,000 people in five years. Meanwhile, Nunauvt's population just keeps growing.
The young territory has grown by nearly 10,000 people since 1999 when it split from the NWT. The NWT's population, on the other hand, has increased by fewer than 2,500 people since then and after cracking 43,000 in 2004, has never reached 44,000. So what's driving Nunavut's substantial growth in population?
"It's primarily a question of birthrate versus net negative migration," says Peter Tumilty, assistant deputy minister for the Government of Nunavut's Department of Finance.
"Between 1999 and 2013, the net negative migration in Nunavut has been about 50 people each year. This means that the number of people moving into Nunavut is very close to the number of people moving out. Add to that a high birthrate in Nunavut, and you have population growth."
In 2011, Nunavut was the only province or territory with a birth rate above the replacement fertility rate of 2.1. The NWT's birth rate was 1.97.
Nunavut also has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the country and in 2004, 24 per cent of live births in the territory were to mothers under 19-years old.
The NWT has the second highest teen pregnancy rate in Canada but the 2011 Health Status Report showed numbers are declining. There were 39 births per 1,000 women in 2005-2007 compared to 78 births per 1,000 women in 1990-1992.
"(In Nunavut) children are seen as a huge blessing. There isn't the stigma that's associated with certain types of pregnancies as there are in the south or at least it isn't as prominent here," says Natan Obed, director of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.'s department of social and cultural development. "Families are supportive and also sometimes (the children) are adopted out or there's arrangements that are comforting to the woman who is pregnant."
The Nunavut government, however, is concerned with the issue because young mothers have an increased risk of delivering early and are more likely to drink and smoke while pregnant.
In Nunavut 43 per cent of residents 15 and over have at least a high school diploma, while in the NWT it's 67 per cent. But those who make it to the end of Grade 12 often don't graduate with the same skillset as students in southern schools, meaning they are required to take an academic bridging course if they intend to apply to a southern university. Even with this barrier to post-secondary education both territories see many of their best and brightest head south for school and never return.
Mike Bradshaw, executive director for the NWT Chamber of Commerce, told News/North he believes the best way to lure students back to the territory is to reach them on a personal level.
"To me this is an exercise in full body contact," he said.
"You have to get out there and come in contact with people and convince them it's a good thing to come back and take up the opportunities in the North and make a contribution to the place that helped them succeed in life."
Obed agrees. He thinks more can be done to entice students from post secondary school back to Nunavut. He said he'd like to see more employers reaching out to students before they graduate and developing a relationship with them.
"So that over time there's ... an expectation both ways that there will be opportunities for that particular student after they graduate," he said.
The NWT, added Bradshaw, also needs to worry about retaining retirement-age residents because every time someone leaves, the territory loses approximately $30,000 in federal transfer payments.
Considering nearly seven per cent of residents are more than 65-years old, their mere presence in the NWT brings in millions of dollars a year.
"Last year, when the City of Yellowknife did its annual citizens survey, they asked what I think was probably the most meaningful question in the whole survey ... was about retirement intentions. Forty-seven per cent of respondents between the ages of 55 and 65 said that they were going to move some place else and the primary reason was the cost of living," said Bradshaw.
"Who are we going to replace these people with? Because we can't get people to move to the North now. So unless we figure out an answer to that question we're going to have a lot of vacant jobs up here."
Helen Balanoff, who is retired after working 40 years as an educator in the North, has watched many people leave either because it wasn't for them or they wanted to be closer to family. She said she stayed because the North became home.
"For us to uproot and move somewhere else we'd have to make new friends," she said.
However, Balanoff warns there is a need across the territory for more senior's housing.
Mike Aumond, deputy minister of finance for the GNWT, sits on the employment and economic development committee. Part of his focus is looking at ways to attract people to the territory. Aumond says the government has streamlined its recruitment process. At job fairs people used to have to apply after the fact but now applicants interested in hard-to-fill positions can be recruited on the spot, said Aumond. The committee has also discussed ways to entice post-secondary students back to the NWT.
"We're looking at various options right now so I can't say anything official at this time but you can probably look forward to that in the next couple of months."
