Moncton area only CMA in Atlantic Canada with growth rate above national average
Times & Transcript (Moncton)
Wed 14 Mar 2007
Page: A1
Section: NEWS
Byline: By Brent Mazerolle Times & Transcript Staff
Source:
Metro Moncton may be the new kid on the block of Canada's census metropolitan areas, but it's gained itself a place near the top of the pack when it comes to population growth.
It has also now surpassed Saint John as the largest metropolitan area in New Brunswick by just over 4,000 people and is the only CMA in the Atlantic provinces with a growth rate above the national average.
Statistics Canada released the first numbers from the 2006 census yesterday, and the new Moncton CMA, with an addition of almost 8,000 people, is tied for 10th place with Vancouver for percentage of population growth since the last federal census in 2001. There are 33 census metropolitan areas in Canada.
This bit of good news comes amidst a generally poor showing for New Brunswick as a whole in Statscan's tallies of populations and dwelling numbers, the first figures of many to be released by the federal government in the coming months.
The good showing in southeastern New Brunswick is largely the result of phenomenal growth in Dieppe, which saw its population jump by 24.2 per cent in the five years since the last census. To find that kind of growth elsewhere in the 2006 census, you generally have to look to Alberta's oil and gas patch, where communities like Okotoks, Airdrie and Strathmore, all within commuting distance of Calgary, have seen growth surpassing 40 per cent.
In fact, Dieppe's growth roughly equals that of Grande Prairie in northern Alberta's resource rich Golden Triangle. For Dieppe to do that in a province with a population increase of just one tenth of a per cent (Alberta's overall growth was 10.6 per cent) is a remarkable achievement.
Dieppe Mayor Achille Maillet was pleased to have Statscan "confirm what we already knew, that we are contributing to the metropolitan area in a big way. It's absolutely good news and we are thrilled."
Asked if there was a downside, Maillet acknowledged "spectacular growth brings challenges," but that it was "much more fun to manage growth than the other way around."
Maillet said while Dieppe has indeed embarked on almost half the city's public works projects in the past three years, it was necessary to strike while the iron was hot. With the full expectation that some degree of growth will continue, Maillet said the city's recent spending on infrastructure was a necessary investment in the future.
Riverview Mayor Clarence Sweetland was pleased to hear Riverview had largely kept pace with the national growth rate. Riverview's population has jumped by 4. 8 per cent in between censuses, within a percentage point of the national rate. That addition of roughly 800 new citizens brings the town's population to 17, 832, just shy of the 18,000 the mayor had estimated.
"I get feedback all the time that Riverview is an attractive place to live," Sweetland said, adding he had anecdotal evidence the town was increasingly becoming an attractive retirement community for people from other parts of Canada.
Sweetland was also delighted by the growth of the entire urban Moncton area. "It's an indication the three communities are sharing in the prosperity."
Geographically, the Moncton census metropolitan area takes in the region typically served by Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe. It stretches from Elgin to Hillsborough and Salisbury to Dorchester and north through the tri-community area all the way to the Parish of St. Paul.
It does not, however, include the coastal area from Bouctouche to Port Elgin or the town of Sackville, even though they might seem to locals as part of the Moncton universe.
Sitting in his office at the centre of that universe yesterday was Moncton Mayor Lorne Mitton. Mitton was actually relieved to read that provincical growth flatlined at an insignificant one tenth of one per cent growth. "I had been kind of projecting in my mind that we (as a province) would drop."
The mayor said he was proud that the Moncton census area was responsible for stemming that outflow and was pleased our new CMA status, so important to marketing the region, comes at a time when the area is showing such growth.
The city of Moncton proper posted a five per cent population growth. In raw numbers, Moncton added 3,082 citizens for a new population of 64,128. Dieppe added 3,614 for a new total population of 18,565.
Mitton also picked up on a nationwide trend identified by Statistics Canada, that two-thirds of Canada's population growth was attributable to net international migration rather than increasing birth rates. He said if Metro Moncton's growth is merely a result of migration from northern New Brunswick, that wouldn't really help in the bigger picture.
He said Moncton would continue to try to lure immigrants from other parts of Canada and around the world. While he awaited the release of further population breakdowns from the federal government, Mitton said rough calculations would suggest the tri-communities' growth of almost 8,000 new citizens can't be attributed solely to migration from northern New Brunswick, which declined by about 3,000 people in the same period.
While the urban part of the Moncton census metropolitan area showed solid growth, many of the rural parts didn't fare so well. The village of Salisbury grew 4.2 per cent or by 82 people, but the village of Hillsborough grew only by six people. The parish of Hillsborough dropped by one person, as did the Fort Folly First nation. The population of the parish of Coverdale grew by 74 and the village of Memramcook dropped by 81 to a new population of 4,638. The population of the parish of St-Paul dropped by almost 10 per cent while the parish of Dorchester dropped by about two per cent.
Lastly, there is the curious case of the village of Dorchester. Statscan figures show the population, which includes inmates of the village's two correctional facilities if their sentences have them there more than six months, jumping by 17.3 per cent.
If that sounds unlikely to you, Dorchester Mayor Mel Goodland agrees. Back in 2002, Goodland opposed the official findings of the 2001 census which recorded the population at 954. Goodland told the Times & Transcript then he believed the real population should have been about 1,100. When he took it up with Statscan at the time, they stood by their number. Interestingly, the new official population figure released yesterday puts the figure at 1,119.
Goodland said yesterday he could think of less than 10 newcomers arriving in the village in the past five years, some of them his son and his family. The increase of 165 residents recorded by the 2006 census appears to be a correction rather than a sign of a population boom.