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Statscan numbers

Here's some food-for-thought. I went into the CMA and CA table to tease out Alberta's trends as a whole:

Summary table:
1644686999612.png

Details of all CMAs and CAs:
1644688681230.png


A few trends I noticed:
  • I doubt most people would find this surprising on this forum, but growth is overwhelming concentrated in Calgary and Edmonton areas. 95% of total growth was near the big cities.
  • Lethbridge grew by 5.5% or about 6,500 people. Red Deer hardly grew at all (0.4%, or ~400 people)
  • Of the smaller centres (CAs), most were growing below the Alberta average or shrinking with some exceptions noted above:
    • Canmore (14.3%, ~2,000 people) - resort and retirement town
    • Sylvan Lake (7.9%, ~1,200 people) - resort and retirement town
    • High River (5.4%, ~730 people) - notably near Calgary
    • Okotoks (4.8%, ~1,200 people) - notably near Calgary
  • Overall rural Alberta's trend of bucking the rural decline that occurs every other rural area in the country is over, in a big way.
Putting some of those numbers into context:
  • The average provincial election riding has about 45,000 - 50,000 people. By this logic, Calgary and Edmonton will see 3 - 4 more seats eventually from the past 5 years of growth alone.
  • The average federal election riding has about 90,000 - 110,000 people. By this logic Calgary and Edmonton will see 1 - 2 more seats eventually.
Overall, the rural v. large urban divide is growing incredibly stark - Alberta has finally caught onto the rural decline trend of all the other provinces this census. For decades our small towns kept growing, despite most other small towns declining - in many cases this solely the result of the random oil and gas projects spread all over the place (spreading jobs and money with them). This is over, with declines beginning across the board. As growth is so concentrated, even if rural areas don't lose much people, they will fall further and further behind proportionally.

While there's exceptions (resort and retirement towns, other single industry towns etc.), I don't see an economic driver that would reverse this trend short of another oil boom of the type that spreads money and jobs everywhere again. Even if all the forecasts about trends in remote working end up coming true, this growth is overwhelmingly likely to concentrated into the suburban areas of the large cities or to a lesser absolute extent in wealthier, resort communities.
 
Last edited:
CBBarnett said:
Here's some food-for-thought. I went into the CMA and CA table to tease out Alberta's trends as a whole:

Summary table:
View attachment 379849
Details of all CMAs and CAs:
View attachment 379850

A few trends I noticed:
  • I doubt most people would find this surprising on this forum, but growth is overwhelming concentrated in Calgary and Edmonton areas. 95% of total growth was near the big cities.
  • Lethbridge grew by 5.5% or about 6,500 people. Red Deer hardly grew at all (0.4%, or ~400 people)
  • Of the smaller centres (CAs), most were growing below the Alberta average or shrinking with some exceptions noted above:
    • Canmore (14.3%, ~2,000 people) - resort and retirement town
    • Sylvan Lake (7.9%, ~1,200 people) - resort and retirement town
    • High River (5.4%, ~730 people) - notably near Calgary
    • Okotoks (4.8%, ~1,200 people) - notably near Calgary
  • Overall rural Alberta's trend of bucking the rural decline that occurs every other rural area in the country is over, in a big way.
Putting some of those numbers into context:
  • The average provincial election riding has about 45,000 - 50,000 people. By this logic, Calgary and Edmonton will see 3 - 4 more seats eventually from the past 5 years of growth alone.
  • The average federal election riding has about 90,000 - 110,000 people. By this logic Calgary and Edmonton will see 1 - 2 more seats eventually.
Overall, the rural v. large urban divide is growing incredibly stark - Alberta has finally caught onto the rural decline trend of all the other provinces this census. For decades our small towns kept growing, despite most other small towns declining - in many cases this solely the result of the random oil and gas projects spread all over the place (spreading jobs and money with them). This is over, with declines beginning across the board. As growth is so concentrated, even if rural areas don't lose much people, they will fall further and further behind proportionally.

While there's exceptions (resort and retirement towns, other single industry towns etc.), I don't see an economic driver that would reverse this trend short of another oil boom of the type that spreads money and jobs everywhere again. Even if all the forecasts about trends in remote working end up coming true, this growth is overwhelmingly likely to concentrated into the suburban areas of the large cities or to a lesser absolute extent in wealthier, resort communities.
Click to expand...

At the federal level all 3 of the new Alberta seats will be in Edmonton or Calgary, but the effect on national politics is going to be pretty much zero.

Provincial ridings will be likely redistributed for the 2027 election. 4 more urban seats could have a pretty big impact. Calgary+Edmonton are currently 46/87 seats so the NDP pretty much has to run the table in the big cities to get to a majority. If that goes to 50/87, the NDP can lose 8 suburban ridings in Calgary, and still win a majority assuming they sweep Edmonton and hold their current Lethbridge + St Albert seats.
 
zagox said:
At the federal level all 3 of the new Alberta seats will be in Edmonton or Calgary, but the effect on national politics is going to be pretty much zero.

Provincial ridings will be likely redistributed for the 2027 election. 4 more urban seats could have a pretty big impact. Calgary+Edmonton are currently 46/87 seats so the NDP pretty much has to run the table in the big cities to get to a majority. If that goes to 50/87, the NDP can lose 8 suburban ridings in Calgary, and still win a majority assuming they sweep Edmonton and hold their current Lethbridge + St Albert seats.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't expect that big a change provincially, to be honest.

I came up with a rough first order approximate population in each ED using the 2021 StatsCan numbers. Here's the summary - theoretical seats is assuming equal population in each riding:
1644869374558.png


Calgary actually had three seats (North, North East and South East) that were significantly underpopulated when the 2019 electoral districts were drawn (in areas of substantial greenfield development, they were expected to grow), so they're not as overpopulated as you might expect. Suburban Edmonton definitely should gain seats, but the central 6 ridings lost population, so there might not be as much a difference as you'd expect; further, two of the three suburban Edmonton ridings that are most in excess are the two with the best UCP results. In a wave election, that won't matter, but in a closer-fought one, a new suburban Edmonton seat could be competitive.

Here's the 10 seats that are currently the furthest out of parity (as well as the two 'special' ridings in the rural north that have traditionally been kept at half the acceptable population because they're large and remote:
1644870070021.png

Another Calgary area riding could as likely be located in the region around the city, which is fairly strong UCP territory.

Here's a link to all 87 ridings, if you're interested.
 
Immigration to the Calgary metro area continuing its downward trend despite a record year for immigration to Canada in 2021. Immigrants by year:

2015: 21,700
2016: 21,435
2017: 17,880
2018: 18,950
2019: 19,625
2020: 10,655
2021: 17,690

Source: Government of Canada, Open Data:
Permanent Residents – Monthly IRCC Updates - Canada - Admissions of Permanent Residents by Province/Territory and Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) of Intended Destination

Permanent Residents – Monthly IRCC Updates - Open Government Portal

People who have been granted permanent resident status in Canada. Please note that in these datasets, the figures have been suppressed or rounded to prevent the identification of individuals when...
open.canada.ca open.canada.ca
 
kora said:
Immigration to the Calgary metro area continuing its downward trend despite a record year for immigration to Canada in 2021. Immigrants by year:

2015: 21,700
2016: 21,435
2017: 17,880
2018: 18,950
2019: 19,625
2020: 10,655
2021: 17,690

Source: Government of Canada, Open Data:
Permanent Residents – Monthly IRCC Updates - Canada - Admissions of Permanent Residents by Province/Territory and Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) of Intended Destination

Permanent Residents – Monthly IRCC Updates - Open Government Portal

People who have been granted permanent resident status in Canada. Please note that in these datasets, the figures have been suppressed or rounded to prevent the identification of individuals when...
open.canada.ca open.canada.ca
Click to expand...
There are two different outlooks depending on whether you're the glass half empty or glass half full type. For the half glass empty types, it's not good to see a downward trend, pure and simple, the numbers are down. For the half glass full types, Calgary has had the highest unemployment rate of the major cities, for what 7 straight years now? Still the city continues to be a strong draw for immigrants who usually go where the jobs are. Not only that but the drop from 21K to 17K is not a huge drop all considered. With the economy turning around we could easily see the number bounce back, and most likely will.

Other cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have had much better numbers, but one still needs to look at the big picture. For example, not shown is the numbers for where the immigrants ultimately end up living. Toronto's CMA for example would actually be losing population, and a fair bit actually if not for the high immigration numbers. Montreal who had 40K arrive there in 2021 actually lost 25K in population overall.

Maybe there is a report or some numbers that show how long the arrived immigrants stay in their city, and shed some more light on what's happening?
 
Cowtown said:
There are two different outlooks depending on whether you're the glass half empty or glass half full type. For the half glass empty types, it's not good to see a downward trend, pure and simple, the numbers are down. For the half glass full types, Calgary has had the highest unemployment rate of the major cities, for what 7 straight years now? Still the city continues to be a strong draw for immigrants who usually go where the jobs are. Not only that but the drop from 21K to 17K is not a huge drop all considered. With the economy turning around we could easily see the number bounce back, and most likely will.

Other cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have had much better numbers, but one still needs to look at the big picture. For example, not shown is the numbers for where the immigrants ultimately end up living. Toronto's CMA for example would actually be losing population, and a fair bit actually if not for the high immigration numbers. Montreal who had 40K arrive there in 2021 actually lost 25K in population overall.

Maybe there is a report or some numbers that show how long the arrived immigrants stay in their city, and shed some more light on what's happening?
Click to expand...

Turns out there is: StatsCan's Longitudinal Immigration Database (catchy name: IMDB, hope nobody else uses that one.)

Here's how the major immigrant destination cities stack up for five-year retention:
1645344713361.png


Calgary is a little lower than Toronto, Vancouver and Edmonton, but we're outperforming Winnipeg and Montreal substantially. But some of that is that each city has a different mix of immigrants. There's around 170K immigrants per year, of which a little over 100K are economic immigrants, 50K are sponsored by family (eg bringing in parents from overseas -- this group has a very high retention rate), 15K are refugees and 5K are other. Of the economic immigrants, the largest category is skilled workers and skilled tradespeople, around 60K. Here's the retention rate for this subset of immigrants across the major cities (Winnipeg is dropped, because they get virtually no immigrants from this program, theirs mostly come from Manitoba's provincial nominee program).

1645345155458.png


Looking at this class of immigrants, the major cities are all in the same ballpark.
 
That makes sense. It explains one of the reasons why Montreal lost 25K in population despite getting a high number of immigrants.

In Toronto’s case I believe a main reason their CMA is losing population (minus the immigration numbers) is due to people leaving to nearby areas in southern Ontario that aren’t in the Toronto CMA.
 
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kora said:

Census Program Data Viewer dashboard

The Census Program Data Viewer (CPDV) is an advanced web-based data visualization tool that will make statistical information more interpretable by presenting key indicators in a statistical dashboard. The CPDV makes it easy to find many places in Canada, see them on a map, and get basic...
www12.statcan.gc.ca www12.statcan.gc.ca

Census Program Data Viewer​


Click on Geographic Level. Select Dissemination Area from the menu. There are a few steps to go through. It's a bit clunky to use. I recommend searching by postal code rather than city.
Click to expand...
Does anyone know if this tool (or a similar one) can be used to show employment? As in, number of jobs in a certain dissemination area? Or, does StatsCan even track employment data geographically beyond larger regions like Provincial boundaries?
 
MichaelS said:
Does anyone know if this tool (or a similar one) can be used to show employment? As in, number of jobs in a certain dissemination area? Or, does StatsCan even track employment data geographically beyond larger regions like Provincial boundaries?
Click to expand...
I suspect that data is held behind the Statscan paywall - not all of their data is free.
 
Some positive trends in the latest Stats Can estimates for Alberta.

Interprovincial migration has turned positive for the last 2 quarters. There's also been a surge in immigration, but this is mirrored throughout Canada due to federal policies. Alberta's population actually grew faster than almost any other province in Q4 2021.

Stats Can, Quarterly demographic estimates, provinces and territories: Interactive dashboard​

Quarterly demographic estimates, provinces and territories: Interactive dashboard

This interactive dashboard allows the user to visualize the factors of Canada's population growth and how they have changed over time for Canada, the provinces and territories. Statistics for the most recent quarter are also presented. The dashboard shows population, population growth...
www150.statcan.gc.ca www150.statcan.gc.ca
 
Urban Outdoorsman said:
Hopefully some of the neighborhoods in the North & NW will follow suit. Banff Trail, Capitol Hill, Mount Pleasant, Tuxedo, etc., are all well positioned to add pretty significant density over the decades
Click to expand...
Yep, Marda Loop is on the border between the 1910s boom that died with WWI and the 1940s/50s boom that filled out the rest of the area. This historical transition makes it an eclectic collection of housing eras that reduces the pressure for new builds to 'conform with the character'. In the north that same transition area is the area between 16th and 32 ave N which is also a mix a 1910s, 1940s, and 1950s. In the west it's the Killarney area.
Centre St in the "north hill' and 17th Ave in the Killarney area should become the next Marda Loop-like commercial hubs.

In the east Forest Lawn is the equivalent. There's a few block sized small scale but high density of shops strips on 17 Ave SE between 34 and 43 St that should form the hub there.

Then as an outlier is Bowness which already has a 'town center' from when it was an actual town which could use some higher density housing north and south of it. imho.
 
Calgary downtown has the youngest population. From Stats Can 2021 Census data released today

A generational portrait of Canada’s aging population from the 2021 Census

This Census in Brief article examines recent trends in the age structure of the Canadian population in 2021 from the angle of generations. It provides some insights on the size and growth of the different generations. This article also provides information on the distribution of generations by...
www12.statcan.gc.ca www12.statcan.gc.ca

1651083441416.png
 
Remember: statscan has specific definitions of what are downtowns:

Map A1. Downtown St. John's (PDF) Map A2. Downtown Halifax (PDF) Map A3. Downtown Moncton (PDF) Map A4. Downtown Saint John (PDF) Map A5. Downtown Fredericton (PDF) Map A6. Downtown Saguenay (PDF) Map A7. Downtown Québec (PDF) Map A8. Downtown Sherbrooke (PDF) Map A9. Downtown Trois-Rivières (PDF) Map A10. Downtown Montréal (PDF) Map A11. Downtown Gatineau (PDF) Map A12. Downtown Ottawa (PDF) Map A13. Downtown Kingston (PDF) Map A14. Downtown Belleville (PDF) Map A15. Downtown Peterborough (PDF) Map A16. Downtown Oshawa (PDF) Map A17. Downtown Toronto (PDF) Map A18. Downtown Hamilton (PDF) Map A19. Downtown St. Catharines (PDF) Map A20. Downtown Kitchener (PDF) Map A21. Downtown Brantford (PDF) Map A22. Downtown Guelph (PDF) Map A23. Downtown London (PDF) Map A24. Downtown Windsor (PDF) Map A25. Downtown Barrie (PDF) Map A26. Downtown Sudbury (PDF) Map A27. Downtown Thunder Bay (PDF) Map A28. Downtown Winnipeg (PDF) Map A29. Downtown Regina (PDF) Map A30. Downtown Saskatoon (PDF) Map A31. Downtown Lethbridge (PDF) Map A32. Downtown Calgary (PDF) Map A33. Downtown Red Deer (PDF) Map A34. Downtown Edmonton (PDF) Map A35. Downtown Kelowna (PDF) Map A36. Downtown Kamloops (PDF) Map A37. Downtown Chilliwack (PDF) Map A38. Downtown Abbotsford (PDF) Map A39. Downtown Vancouver (PDF) Map A40. Downtown Victoria (PDF) Map A41. Downtown Nanaimo (PDF)
 
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