Canada's 2006 Census numbers released today!

[Cubby]

This is the correct forum for all Census information.

Glad to see only 2 provinces lose population (Newfoundland & Saskatchewan). According to one of the charts on Stat Can, the past 5 years saw higher growth than the '96-'01 period, which was very low by historical standards, if not the lowest.

I'm a bit disappointed with Alberta and British Columbia though. How can B.C. possibly be growing slower than the National average and Ontario? Its like Canada's California, lots of immigrants and Eastern transplants.

I thought Alberta would be closer to 3.5 Million by now with its great economic boom. Calgary did have a big increase though, its just under 1 million now. Alberta is still smaller than Connecticut.

I don't understand all the local government terminology in Canada. A lot of places are a name and a number. Fort McMurray isn't even incorporated, but "Wood Buffalo" gained 10,000 people??

Canada is too urban. It needs to increase its rural population. Immigrants should be encouraged to settle in rural areas instead of all going to the largest cities.

[Cubby]

I don't understand all the local government terminology in Canada. A lot of places are a name and a number. Fort McMurray isn't even incorporated, but "Wood Buffalo" gained 10,000 people??

Fort McMurray amalgamated with its surrounding improvement district to make Wood Buffalo.  It's certainly a boom town it the tar sands up there. That's why it's growing so fast.

It is certainly nice to see a lot of the cities that lost people in the 1996-2001 gain some back. Especially in Northern Ontario and the Atlantic provinces.

That was another thing I noticed, whats an "improvement district"?

I noticed that all the statistics were released today. Our Census Bureau staggers the information: the National and State numbers come out in late December, the county populations come out between March 10 and April 10m, (Any day now!). The City and Town populations come out in Late June/Early July and the racial statistics and other info comes out in September.

Its interesting that Canada's Parliament keeps expanding, while ours has been stuck at 435 for nearly a century. Canada and the U.K. both have about 100,000 people per seat, while we have 647,000. That is just sad.

[Cubby]

Canada doesn't have a climate (or a geography) particularly conductive to rural lifestyles.  And why do you want more people to leave in extremely distant, extremely cold areas which cannot be properly served with infrastructure, and where for well over 6 months a year there isn't really much to do?

I love wilderness areas being left alone and protected. One reason I don't hate Lieberman is that he voted to protect ANWR, which is very important to me. But it just seems wasteful to have so few people on such a large land area (Smaller population than California on 25 times the land) I know its too cold to farm, but there must be other uses. They are talking about using trees for ethanol, b/c sugarcane and corn aren't efficient. It would be great to see Canada develop more.

What is, say, economic or social rationale for such a policy?Unless, of course, you consider current rates of alcoholism in Canada to be too low and would like to have them increased. BTW, it's not as if Canadians didn't do fine in terms of agricultural production even with the few rural residents they have.

You've made some good points. Alcoholism is a big problem in Alaska and Russia, I forget how boring it gets up there. I don't know why its so important to me, it just seems like Canada is all cities with few rural areas and the ones that exist are steadily losing people. The same thing is happening in the Western Great Plains. Its not good to have so many people crowded onto the coasts.