Saskatchewan was one of only two provinces that lost population between the 2001 and 2006 census, a fact that has become political fodder in the lead-up to what many feel will be a fall provincial election.
The province’s 1.1 percentage decline compares to increases of 2.6 percent and 10.6 percent respectively for Manitoba and Alberta.
The numbers were particularly stark in rural areas where the population fell by 6.8 percent to 175,659 people, or 18 percent of the province’s total.
“The first thing comes to your mind is your concern on what would the government perceive as your voice in rural Saskatchewan,” said Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities president David Marit shortly after hearing the numbers.
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But if the government starts ignoring rural Saskatchewan, that would be a mistake.
“The resource wealth of this province is not located in Regina and Saskatoon. It’s all out in rural and we have to have an infrastructure to get that resource wealth to market,” he said.
Marit sees the declining population as a reflection of a shaky agricultural economy.
He suspects much of the decline is due to an exodus of 18 to 30-year-old farmers who found better paying jobs in Alberta’s oil patch.
“Significant losses in migration exchanges with other provinces, especially neighbouring Alberta, accounted for much of the decline,” said Statistics Canada in its analysis of the numbers.
The official opposition used the census numbers to attack premier Lorne Calvert’s NDP government.
“We have lost people under Mr. Calvert, at least in the order of the city of Weyburn,” said Saskatchewan Party leader Brad Wall, citing a population reduction of 10,776 people.
He said that is a shocking indictment of the ruling party given the province’s booming oil and gas sector. Wall said Manitoba managed to expand by 28,818 people despite having fewer natural resources.
“We should have been growing for years but for a lack of economic leadership from the NDP,” said Wall.
In his speech to the 1,700 delegates attending the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities 102nd annual convention, Calvert said the census numbers are outdated.
The census shows the province’s population fell by 10,776 people between May 2001 and May 2006. But the latest quarterly numbers from Statistics Canada show the province’s population at 985,859 people by October 2006, up 17,702 from the census number.
Calvert said the province’s recent strong economic performance and its low cost of living in relation to Alberta is bringing the U-hauls back east.
“Our province has gone from being one of the economic basket cases of Canada to the second strongest economy in the country,” he told SARM delegates.
But statisticians have a problem with Calvert’s number crunching. Census results should not be compared with quarterly population estimates because they are two different sets of data, said Ray Bollman, research economist with Statistics Canada.
