Statistics Canada Reports II

[ssiguy]

I noticed that before the Pop Clock stall, Alberta was at about 4,811,000 and is now 70K less which would result in Alberta being one of the slowest growing provinces. The chances of that are zero so something is REALLY wrong with these new Alberta numbers.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I noticed that before the Pop Clock stall, Alberta was at about 4,811,000 and is now 70K less which would result in Alberta being one of the slowest growing provinces. The chances of that are zero so something is REALLY wrong with these new Alberta numbers.

Maybe it's the Libs tampering with the system, that will reverse when the Conservatives take over.

[jamincan]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I noticed that before the Pop Clock stall, Alberta was at about 4,811,000 and is now 70K less which would result in Alberta being one of the slowest growing provinces. The chances of that are zero so something is REALLY wrong with these new Alberta numbers.

Architype's screenshot is from before it stalled, and it was at 4.7 million then.

In any case, the population clock is just a data visualization tool that uses information from the most recent population estimates to show the current population. It is updated quarterly as new quarterly population estimates are released. You can review the data and see that at no point since the 1980s has Alberta been losing population.

[Centerprovince]

I’m thinking a lot of the discrepancies are possibly because the population clock was adjusted using the 2021 census. The latest quarterly population estimates released in September were the first estimate using the 2021 census.

[MonctonRad]

There are now five more people in the YT than the NT. This horserace is over!!!

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

NS may pass SK in population sometime by the end of the decade. I am making no firm predictions just because we are dealing with revised estimates.

Possible, but I probably wouldn't bet on it. (Even though as an east coaster I'd love to see our largest province bigger than the prairies' smallest!)

Saskatchewan had 195,000 more people than NS five years ago. Now, according to both the Q3 estimates and this new population clock data, it has about 150,000 more. But it in the past year SK's formerly sluggish growth has picked up again. NS is still growing faster, but the discrepancy would have to grow much more (i.e., NS pick up even further, and SK slow down again) for them to swap places anytime soon.

I think probably NS will continue to gain, but how fast is up in the air.

[MolsonExport]

For years we've been hearing about the boom in Saskatchewan, and how Moe is some economic sage, but the population has barely budged.

[LuluBobo]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

For years we've been hearing about the boom in Saskatchewan, and how Moe is some economic sage, but the population has barely budged.

Your graph ends in 2005, when the boom started.

Saskatchewan hit 920,000 in 1931, fell down to 830,000 in 1951, and has shuffled between 925,000 and 1,000,000 between 1961 and 2006.

If the graph extends

2001 - 978,000
2006 - 985,000
2011 - 1,053,000
2016 - 1,098,000
2021 - 1,132,000
2023 (Jul 1 Estimate) - 1,209,000


Now, I'm the last one to say anything nice about Moe.

But Saskatchewan was basically stuck at the same population for 75 years. We hit our all time high in 2011, and have grown by 175,000 since then.

[phone]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

For years we've been hearing about the boom in Saskatchewan, and how Moe is some economic sage, but the population has barely budged.

Who is saying that Moe is an economic sage? He is a glassy-eyed buffoon content to leave things on autopilot (stop signs be damned) -- except, of course, when it comes to recalling the legislature to invoke the notwithstanding clause. Him and the rest of his clown car cabinet.

Frankly, I don't blame anyone for leaving. Our government is an utter embarrassment that deserves to witness sustained outmigration as a testament to its dereliction of duty to its citizens.

[1overcosc]

SK has transformed quite substantially in the last 20 years, from a perennial basketcase to a prosperous place. Maritimes are in the middle of that switch now. It's a good thing - makes for a much healthier federation when there isn't just a handful of provinces carrying all the weight.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by phone

Who is saying that Moe is an economic sage? He is a glassy-eyed buffoon content to leave things on autopilot (stop signs be damned) -- except, of course, when it comes to recalling the legislature to invoke the notwithstanding clause. Him and the rest of his clown car cabinet.

Frankly, I don't blame anyone for leaving. Our government is an utter embarrassment that deserves to witness sustained outmigration as a testament to its dereliction of duty to its citizens.

Your government and ours!!! At least Manitobans were smart enough to ditch theirs.

[LuluBobo]

Ultimately, the country as a whole benefits when economic/population growth happens outside Ontario/Quebec/BC/Alberta.

We can generate a more diverse economy that is better able to weather economic storms. And we can reduce housing/infrastructure pressure away from lower mainland/southern Ontario.

We know all this growth is happening in CMAs.

The growth and vitality of Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Regina, Halifax, Moncton, St. John's will only make the country as a whole healthier.

Not that the big cities shouldn't grow too, but everyone wins when everyone grows.

The States having growth hotspots around the country has been a big part of their economic success over the last 200 years.

[someone123]

Canada doesn't really have a lot of habitable regions and options to move to so failing to develop a region comes at a big cost. The Maritimes were the worst example of this, and didn't just fail to develop but fell apart for a while as part of Canada. I would argue that all of Western Canada is probably underdeveloped as well.

Canadians are somewhat bad for being defeatist and regionalist and assuming other places are not fixable or don't have value, though I get the impression this has improved during the past couple decades. Again with the Maritimes you hear people saying it's turning the corner and so on but it's not really that different from 20 years ago and the gap between cities places hasn't changed that much. It's true that most Canadian cities are more interesting now in an absolute sense, but if you lived in 1992 you had 1992 options.

[svlt]

Originally Posted by someone123

Canada doesn't really have a lot of habitable regions and options to move to so failing to develop a region comes at a big cost. The Maritimes were the worst example of this, and didn't just fail to develop but fell apart for a while as part of Canada. I would argue that all of Western Canada is probably underdeveloped as well.

Canadians are somewhat bad for being defeatist and regionalist and assuming other places are not fixable or don't have value, though I get the impression this has improved during the past couple decades. Again with the Maritimes you hear people saying it's turning the corner and so on but it's not really that different from 20 years ago and the gap between cities places hasn't changed that much. It's true that most Canadian cities are more interesting now in an absolute sense, but if you lived in 1992 you had 1992 options.

The Maritimes are absolutely a lost opportunity. This is a region that should be 3x as large and economically relevant to this country than it is. Instead we have Toronto, Montreal, the Prairies and BC as essentially the four nodes that mean anything in the country. That's laughable when you look across the border and see the huge amount of iconic business and cultural centers they've developed.

[MolsonExport]

two cities and two huge regions as "nodes"?

Canadian Prairies: 1,780,650.6 km2
That is one heck of a large node.

[phone]

3 times seems like a stretch but I would definitely believe 2 times. 6 million people in NB/NS/PEI sounds unrealistic even if in an alternate reality where the National Policy wasn’t a thing. Honestly, the Maritimes best case scenario for socioeconomic heft may have been joining the Thirteen Colonies. In any event, might as well put out there that basically the whole country has a much higher “carrying capacity” than is currently being realized, the Maritimes aren’t really all that special in that regard (even if proportionately speaking they are probably the more glaring example of this phenomenon).

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

For years we've been hearing about the boom in Saskatchewan, and how Moe is some economic sage, but the population has barely budged.

If SSP had existed in the 1920s people would have been arguing when exactly Saskatchewan would be overtaking Ontario and Quebec combined

[someone123]

Originally Posted by phone

In any event, might as well put out there that basically the whole country has a much higher “carrying capacity” than is currently being realized, the Maritimes aren’t really all that special in that regard (even if proportionately speaking they are probably the more glaring example of this phenomenon).

I would look at outmigration and maybe economic activity rather than carrying capacity, which is hard to nail down in the modern world (Gaza has 2 million people for example, but fewer resources than PEI).

I doubt the West had as much outmigration as the Maritimes or Atlantic Canada. Maybe Saskatchewan did but a lot of that migration was internal to Western Canada while in the Atlantic region people left entirely. They left (and weren't replaced) because of a disparity in local opportunities and opportunities available elsewhere. The major outmigration was concentrated in a few periods, like the 1920's, and you could calculate what the demographics would have looked like without it. Neither the West nor Atlantic populations were governed by Malthusian concerns like food supply.

The Maritimes also had the harshest history in Canada. In the 1750's much of the population was deported and then in the 1910's most of the industrial base of the largest city was blown up. You could try to figure out counterfactuals for those too.

Some of these things have a "tipping point" based around qualitative factors like where there's a single diversified metropolitan economy. That did develop in Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta, and they do pretty well now even when oil and gas is in the doldrums. Places like Saint John and Sydney never hit that, and Halifax is borderline.

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Saint John was also destroyed by fire in 1877, left 20,000 people without homes.

This is from an excerpt on The Great Fire of Saint John,

"When it was over, the fire had destroyed over 80 hectares (200 hundred acres) and 1612 structures including eight churches, six banks, fourteen hotels, eleven schooners and four wood boats in just over a nine hour period. Nearly all the public buildings, the principal retail establishments, lawyers' offices and all but two printing firms were burned in the inferno. To make matters worse, less than one fourth of the $28 million in losses was covered by insurance."

[DLLB]

That was a huge and strange drop for Alberta of 55,876 between Oct 1/23 and Nov 1/23
Fault in the system, over correction?

DATE ..................... Oct 1/23 ....... Nov 1/23 .... Monthly Diff .. Yr over Yr
Ontario .............. 15,708,581 ... 15,752,905 .... 44,324 ........ 552,730
Manitoba ............. 1,458,809 .... 1,467,600 ........ 8,791 ........... 52,505
Saskatchewan .... 1,234,098 .... 1,219,709 ..... -14,389 .......... 20,689
Alberta ................ 4,802,625 .... 4,746,749 ..... -55,876 ........ 174,424
British Columbia .. 5,511,224 .... 5,571,130 ...... 59,906 ........ 217,238