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Statscan numbers

I just grabbed the numbers the numbers from Statscan's Q2 provincial population estimates (Spoiler Canada Breaks 37M population for the first time!):

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Alberta only grew 0.05% faster than BC did year over year, so I have to assume it'll be a heck of a long while before we catch them at this rate. However, we grew considerably faster than they did in Qs 1 and 2. So, if we hold tight and they continue slowing maybe we can make up some ground. And there is considerable ground to make up, the gap between the two provinces is slightly more than the population of Newfoundland and Labrador. It doesn't really help that they're still growing faster in absolute terms either. They out paced us by just over five thousand souls last quarter.

Speaking of poor old NL, there's another jurisdiction in Canada that needs to see oil bounce back harder than we do. Hopefully they can turn the corner at some point. They were the only shrinking province last quarter and last year. Mostly good news for the country as a whole though. Growth across the board, NL excepting. Alberta barely trailed Quebec in absolute growth.

Scarily though, more than half the growth last quarter was in Ontario. It can't be good for the confederation to have so much of the population in a single province. Consider this the introduction of my long held dream that it should be broken into four pieces (Southern, Central, Northern and Capital). Those are place holder names, as I'd far rather see us try something creative rather than just slap the name Ontario on a couple extra things and carry on.

There was an interesting note on the population estimates front page. It looks like this will be the last estimate based on the 2011 census. It'll be interesting to see if switching to the 2016 census will have an impact. They note that they will be correcting for under-counts.

Source: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000901
 

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I just grabbed the numbers the numbers from Statscan's Q2 provincial population estimates (Spoiler Canada Breaks 37M population for the first time!):

View attachment 147249View attachment 147250
View attachment 147251

Alberta only grew 0.05% faster than BC did year over year, so I have to assume it'll be a heck of a long while before we catch them at this rate. However, we grew considerably faster than they did in Qs 1 and 2. So, if we hold tight and they continue slowing maybe we can make up some ground. And there is considerable ground to make up, the gap between the two provinces is slightly more than the population of Newfoundland and Labrador. It doesn't really help that they're still growing faster in absolute terms either. They out paced us by just over five thousand souls last quarter.

Speaking of poor old NL, there's another jurisdiction in Canada that needs to see oil bounce back harder than we do. Hopefully they can turn the corner at some point. They were the only shrinking province last quarter and last year. Mostly good news for the country as a whole though. Growth across the board, NL excepting. Alberta barely trailed Quebec in absolute growth.

Scarily though, more than half the growth last quarter was in Ontario. It can't be good for the confederation to have so much of the population in a single province. Consider this the introduction of my long held dream that it should be broken into four pieces (Southern, Central, Northern and Capital). Those are place holder names, as I'd far rather see us try something creative rather than just slap the name Ontario on a couple extra things and carry on.

There was an interesting note on the population estimates front page. It looks like this will be the last estimate based on the 2011 census. It'll be interesting to see if switching to the 2016 census will have an impact. They note that they will be correcting for under-counts.

Source: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000901


Northern Ontario - Winnipequa - everything north of Barrie and the southern border of Algonquin Park - Major cities: Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, North Bay - Capital: Sault Ste. Marie - Largest Metropolitan Area: Sudbury/Nickel Belt (300,000) - Provincial Population: 800,000

Capital - District of Kanata (DK) - Ottawa/Gatineau, equal geographic territory from both Ontario and Quebec - Major cities: Ottawa, Gatineau, Pontiac - Capital: Ottawa (federally administered territory with senate and parliamentary voting rights) - Territorial Population: 1,600,000

Central Ontario - Ontario - everything south of DK and Winnipekwa, everything north of the Niagara Escarpment (includes City of Niagara Falls) - Major cities: Toronto, Hamilton, St. Catharines/Niagara, Oshawa, Barrie, Kingston - Capital: Toronto - Largest Metropolitan Area: Greater Toronto and Hamilton Megapolitan Region (10,000,000) - Provincial Population: 10,500,000

Southern Ontario - Tuscarora - everything south of the Niagara escarpment and north of the American border - Major cities: Grand River (KWC), London, Windsor, Guelph, Brantford - Capital: London - Largest Metropolitan Area: Grand River (700,000) - Provincial Population: 3,500,000

(loosely projected future populations around 2030)



Etymology of Winnipequa: conjunction of indigenous terms meaning Great Water/Many Lakes.

Etymology of Tuscarora: the largest First Nations reserve in the country in Brant County, the only tribal government with representatives of all six Iroquois Nations sitting on council. An apt symbol of strength through cooperation for a newly federated province.
 
Looks like we're starting to see a divergence in the economic recovery of Alberta. Calgary now has far fewer people receiving unemployment income assistance compared with Edmonton (17,690 versus 21,360) in July 2018. Compare that to a year ago when the numbers were both in the 24,500 range. The recovery isn't done yet since Vancouver has 15,460 on assistance with their much bigger population.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/180920/t003a-eng.htm
 
Alberta hitting 5,000,000 by 2025 though *droooool*

But why?

At 5m people...I'm just imagining an even more crowded Banff during summer. A busier Trans-Canada highway from Calgary to Lake Louise during ski season. More suburban greenfield growth from Edmonton to Calgary.

It's going to happen eventually. But I think Calgary is currently at the size where we can still get some good stuff:

-Art Museum
-Greenline
-Arena/
 
The highways are packed with locals to be sure, but I think the majority of the people visiting the Parks in the summer are from further afield. It's the ski hills that'll probably be worse off. But maybe at 5M we might get some new ones! :D

Population is power. Cities, countries, provinces, it doesn't matter, if you have a lower population and lower GDP than some other equivalent body you're going to be disrespected. It might just be something as simple as people scoffing at the idea of Calgary trying to count itself as a world city or it might be something very tangible like Alberta's 34 seats in Parliament getting obliterated by the whims of the 121 in Ontario. Being bigger certainly isn't always better as you say, but I think the pros of growth outweigh the cons at Calgary's size. Maybe I'll think again about that if the city is ever pushing say 3 million in the city proper in my lifetime, but right now I think a larger city is part of what's going to make us a more prosperous and interesting city with even better amenities and the same goes for the province as a whole.

Except Edmonton. There's already more than enough Edmonton.

There's also some gratification to be taken from the fact that growth means people have confidence in your city/province/country. I'm entirely biased, but Calgary and Alberta kick ass and the country and world needs more of them.

Additionally, If people are moving here or having kids here it means they see this as a great place to be. When Alberta's growth slows it's generally an indicator that things aren't going so well.
 
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Only possible new ski hill that people can day trip to is Fortress, and I'll be surprised if they can actually open the hill within 10 years. They do cat-skiing now, but that doesn't count as it's only for very small numbers of people...
 
Yearly population estimates are out for StatsCan

"Alberta's population growth rate was 1.5% in 2017/2018, compared with a growth rate of 1.1% in 2016/2017. This was Alberta's first upturn in population growth after four years of slowdown. This recent surge is mainly due to once-again positive interprovincial migratory exchanges. The province posted a gain of 1,438 people in the last year, compared with a deficit of 15,559 people in 2016/2017."

That puts us slightly ahead of the Canadian average again for yearly growth

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/180927/dq180927c-eng.htm?HPA=1
 

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