Winnipeg Census: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[Only The Lonely..]

Winnipeg: We're No. 9 (from 8th)

Wed Mar 14 2007 | Winnipeg Free Press Editorial

THERE were scant references to Winnipeg and Manitoba in the reams of census-related copy moving on the news wires on Tuesday.
Which was not entirely disappointing -- they are "news" wires, after all, and there was no good news or bad news of interest to the rest of Canada about the mediocre performance posted by Manitoba in the last census period, 2001 to 2006.

The big story, here, of course, is symbolic -- we have undoubtedly slipped to ninth place behind Hamilton among Canada's 33 metropolitan areas. As of census day last May, Hamilton had 1,757 fewer residents than Winnipeg, but with a growth rate of 4.6 per cent, twice the rate in Winnipeg's, Hamilton was on track to eclipse Winnipeg by now. There was a time when Winnipeg ranked fourth in Canada, a time when whatever the census found about Manitoba was news to the rest of Canada, but clearly those times are not these times.

That is not to say they never will be again. With an economic development strategy that made Winnipeg and Manitoba attractive to the rest of Canada, and not just to immigrants, that could change. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that the Doer government -- after seven years of failing to find a winning formula and instead relying ever more on transfers from Ottawa to pay our bills -- will find it any time soon.

On Tuesday, in fact, Competitiveness Minister Scott Smith was reduced to finding silver linings in the cloud cover. Manitoba's population growth of 2.2 per cent was fifth among provinces, he crowed , neglecting that fifth is less than the average of 5.4 per cent, is better only than the Maritime provinces and Saskatchewan and that Winnipeg was the 27th slowest growing of 33 metropolitan areas. More telling, however, was the thank-you he sent to Manitobans for completing the census surveys and thus ensuring the Doer government will be able to squeeze every possible penny out of the new federal transfer-payment program that is expected to be unveiled in the federal budget on Monday.

We need more than boosterism from our minister of competitiveness -- we need a strategy to compete with the rest of Canada, one that can restore Winnipeg's pride of place among cities and Manitoba's pride of place among provinces. As this newspaper has argued repeatedly, the province should act on economist John McCallum's advice and determine why it is that Manitoba is losing its market share of people to other parts of Canada. Until we know, we can't turn it around. We can only continue to make no news of interest to the rest of Canada