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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Canada growing, especially the West

By: Randy Boswell

Posted: 02/9/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

OTTAWA -- Canada's population of 33.5 million people is growing faster than that of any other G8 nation -- fuelled primarily by immigration -- while the booming West continues to reshape this country's demographic landscape, a new census has revealed.

The latest national head count, released Wednesday by Statistics Canada, shows strong and steady growth in nearly every corner of a country that remains firmly in the grip of a westward shift in population power -- one that will see growing political and economic influence from Western Canada, observers say.

Up from 31.6 million at the time of the previous census in 2006, the Canadian population remains the smallest among the G8 but by far the fastest-growing, with a 5.9 per cent growth rate in the past five years that not only exceeds the 4.4 per cent rise in the U.S., but also Canada's own previous increase of 5.4 per cent between 2001 and 2006.

Sustaining the growth spurt is Canada's open-arms approach to immigration, a phenomenon that has become twice as important as the natural increase -- the difference between births and deaths -- in driving the country's population upward.

Initial results of the 2011 census -- conducted last year under a cloud of controversy after the Conservative government's elimination of the mandatory long-form questionnaire -- show Alberta again leading all provinces in population growth (10.8 per cent since the last census in 2006) and its two largest cities, Calgary and Edmonton, outpacing the country's 31 other metropolitan areas with soaring increases of more than 12 per cent in the number of residents over the past five years.

The first batch of data from last year's census is peppered with indicators of the West's growing importance, a trend that was also evident in the 2006 population tally.

For the first time in Canadian history, the proportion of the population living west of Ontario (30.7 per cent) is greater than the number of people living to the east (30.6 per cent). The population shift has already had political implications; the West's growth was recognized in an electoral-reform package recently approved by Parliament that will boost the number of MPs from Alberta and B.C. by six each, along with 15 new members from Ontario and three from Quebec.

This symbolic east-to-west shift has been more a gradual one than a sea change between now and the last census, says Michael Holden, a senior economist with the Canada West Foundation. "30.7 per cent of Canadians live in Western Canada now. Fifty years ago, it was 26.4 per cent," he noted.

Nevertheless, "on the political side we've already seen for the first time ever, really, a majority government that was brought into power on the strength of its performance in Ontario and Western Canada, as opposed to the sort of traditional Ontario-Quebec political coalition," Holden said.

-- Postmedia News / with files from Sharon Kirkey

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 9, 2012 A4

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