It’s numbers season. The federal and provincial governments have introduced budgets full of them this month, while the Resort Municipality of Whistler released its proposed spending plan this week.
Finance ministers are also watching the numbers produced by pollsters. National polls show no party has enough support to form a majority government at the moment, which seems to have been the impetus for the Conservative budget.
Skier visits, hotel room nights, tax breaks and RSPs are other numbers that come to mind in the spring, but there’s another group of figures that is drawing attention this year, the 2006 census.
Last week Statistics Canada released the first numbers, the most general information, from last year’s census. And at first glance this is about as helpful as an economist telling you after two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth that you’re in a recession. The figures reaffirm what we already knew, or at least suspected.
The census tells us that Canada is growing, to more than 31 million people in 2006, but nearly half the population, 13.9 million people, live in the country’s three largest urban areas: Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto. And the growth rate of these three areas, 7.3 per cent, or 950,000 people, was above the national average. International immigration was responsible for most of that growth.
Whistler’s population, according to last year’s census, increased 4 per cent from 2001; from 8,896 souls to 9,248. That’s below the provincial increase, of 5.3 per cent, which was below the national increase of 5.4 per cent. Our population density per square kilometre is officially 57.2, which makes Whistler look positively urban compared to the provincial density of 4.4 and the national density of 3.5 people per square kilometre. Vancouver’s density is 5,039.
While British Columbia is growing faster than it was — 5.3 per cent between 2001 and 2006 compared to 4.9 per cent between 1996 and 2001 — all that growth occurred in Greater Vancouver, Greater Victoria, the Okanagan and a select few other areas. Most of the rest of the province, “the heartland”, shrunk in population. And as was the case nationally, the principal factor in B.C.’s growth, according to the census, was international immigration. B.C. has one of the lowest fertility rates in the country (1.4 children per woman since 2001).
Where those immigrants are coming from will be part of a future census release.
Inter-provincial migration also helped boost B.C.’s population, to more than 4 million for the first time.
So, B.C.’s population is growing at just slightly under the national average, with Ontario (6.6 per cent) and Alberta (10.6 per cent) primarily responsible for keeping the national average as high as it is. And most of those new people are going to the Lower Mainland, southern Vancouver Island and the Okanagan. What does that mean for B.C.’s “booming” mountain resort business?
Within the census figures is an exception to the rule that Canadians are migrating more and more to urban areas. There are some small towns that are growing. Some of these could be considered resort communities or retirement communities. Or both.
“Of the 25 fastest growing small towns and rural communities since 2001, 14 are located less than 50 kilometres from Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver,” according to a release from Statistics Canada. “No fewer than nine of the 25 fastest-growing small towns were in Quebec, most of them north of Montreal in the Laurentians, such as Prévost, Chertsey and Ste-Adele. This area boasts many resort locations and continues to be a major attraction for those who may wish to relocate to these small towns.”
The fastest growing small town in the country is Sylvan Lake, a pocket of forest with a lake, sitting in the middle of the Alberta prairie. The population there increased 36.1 per cent between 2001 and 2006.
This growth in specific small towns would appear to be good news for those encouraging resort development across B.C. — until you look at the 25 fastest declining small towns. While many of those were in the northern parts of the country, “Others were located in more mountainous areas, such as Banff and Crowsnest Pass, Alberta and Trail and Kimberley, British Columbia.”
According to the census, Banff’s population declined 6.1 per cent, from 7,135 in 2001 to 6,700 in 2006. Some of those people may have moved to Canmore, which grew 11.6 per cent and in 2006 had a population of 12,039.
But in the mountain resort towns of B.C. the news was not good. Fernie’s population declined 8.5 per cent. Kimberley dropped 5.3 per cent. Golden lost 5.2 per cent. Nelson was down 0.6 per cent. Revelstoke saw 3.6 per cent of people leave and Rossland declined 10.1 per cent. Invermere ran counter to this trend and actually grew 5 per cent.
Of course these are only snapshots of the permanent populations. The census doesn’t take into account seasonal residents, weekenders or people who own recreational real estate and might be considered part-time residents.
But the numbers for mountain towns in B.C. reinforces some of the fundamental findings of the census: that Canadians — and the immigrants who are fuelling the country’s growth — are gravitating toward urban centres, where the jobs are. And as Canada, and particularly western Canada, work through the labour shortage of the next few years, proximity to urban areas — physical proximity or virtual proximity provided by scheduled commercial airline flights — is going to be crucial for the survival of smaller towns, including resort towns.
