Census results outline the city's mosaic

The latest compilation of data from the May 2006 census has been released, one which examines the cultural make up of the nation and of our city.

Statistics Canada released the Ethnic origin and visible minorities segment of the most recent census, which found that over 200 different ethnic origins were reported across the nation.

The Daily News examined the numbers and provided some of the results in their Wednesday edition.

Census gives ethnic snapshot of city

Biggest ethnic groups are: North American indian, British, Canadian
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Pages one and three

New census statistics reflect what many in Prince Rupert already know, that this community includes people who value and cheerish their cultural backgrounds.

According to staistics released on Wednesday, about one quarter of the people in Prince Rupert consider their ethnic background to be at least partly "Canadian", an indication that many people feel a connection to Canada as well as their ethnic roots.

Statistics Canada has been including "Canadian" as an example in its 'ethnic origin' question in the census for 10 years now and fewer people in Prince Rupert identified their ancestry as Canadian than in the last census - 23.6 per cent in 2006 compared to 24.1 per cent in 2001.
The 'Canadian' response compares to 36.1 per cent who listed their ancestral origins as 'British' and 7.4 per cent who listed 'French' - Canada's two founding cultures.

Other popular responses (either reported alone or in combination with other origins) to the ethnic origin question in the Prince Rupert region included North American Indian (30.9 per cent), German (8.5 per cent) and Norwegian (6 per cent).

Some demographic experts have said answering 'Canadian' to the ancestry question on the census is more of a statement of patriotism than a person's true ethnic origin. Statistics Canada didn't list 'Canadian' as an example until 1996 - after a public campaign by some media organizations led to a large number of write-in 'Canadian' replies in the 1991 census.

Unlike other questions on the census forms that are based on hard facts - such as age, sex and the number of people living in one dwelling - Canadians are left to interpret their own ethnicity. The census form asked respondents about their "ethnic or cultural origins" and then offered further instructions.

"This question refers to the ethnic or cultural origin or origins of a person's ancestors. An ancestor is someone from whom a person is descended and is usually more distant than a grandparent. Other than Aboriginal persons, most people can trace their origins to their ancestors who first came to this continent. Ancestry should not be confused with citizenship or nationality," the census says.

The census has collected data on the ethnic origins of the population since 1871.

The Department of Canadian Heritage uses information on ethnic origin to administer programs under the Multiculturalism Act. Statistics Canada also says the question on ethnicity provides some of the most widely requested data from the census. Governments, community groups, ethnic and cultural organizations, school boards, hospitals and researchers all use ethnicity data to assess how people of different backgrounds have integrated into life in Canada.

The census data released Wednesday also includes information on visible minorities in Prince Rupert.

A total of 10.7 per cent of the population of Prince Rupert identified themselves as a visible minority in 2006 - a decrease from 2001 when the figure was 11.1 per cent. Across Canada, 16.2 per cent of the population identified themselves as a visible minority - that's more than five million Canadians. The national figures show the continued ethnic diversity of the Canadian population during the last 25 years. In 1981, there were just over one million Canadians said they were visible minorities, representing less than five per cent of the population.

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In Prince Rupert, 41.5 per cent of the community's visible minority population was born in Canada. The largest visible minority was South Asian (4.2 per cent), followed by Chinese (2.3 per cent) and Southeast Asian (1.6 per cent).

The Podunkian Census Compendium

With a wealth of information floating around the Internet on the recently released Census numbers, we'll catalogue those that had a Prince Rupert aspect to them below.

Think of it as a form of one stop shopping, for all your Census information needs.

March 14 The Daily News-The Mayor offers a contrarion opinion
March 14 Globe and Mail and Vancouver Sun articles on the numbers
March 13 The Daily News statistic box on population change
March 13 Canadian Press- Northern BC Leads in population declines
March 13 Confirming what we already suspected
March 13 The official Census website

Mayor Pond offers up a contrarian view to the census statistics and trends

The latest census numbers are old news, not reflective of the resurgence of the community and the positive developments to come.

That in effect was the response of Mayor Herb Pond to the census numbers released yesterday and which have led to a number of national media stories about the dire straits of the Northwest.

Pond said that the census has missed the trend, that the downward momentum is over and that the community is now on the rebound from the tough times of the last five years.

The Mayor pointed to a number of projects underway in the Prince Rupert area and the city’s own forecasts that suggest that within five years the city will have grown by at least 8,000 people.

Aware of the optics of a declining population base and the effect that it can have on government funding, Pond is busy trying to counter the impressions from both the Census statistics and the findings of BC statistics forecasts, which also have suggested that the North coast will have one of the province’s largest population slides.

The Daily News featured the story and Pond’s thoughts on the issue on the front page of Wednesday’s paper.

Falling population is now a thing of the past: Pond
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Page One

Prince Rupert may have lost more than 10 per cent of its population between the 2001 and 2006 census counts, but the population right now is on the rebound.

“The census completely misses the trend,” said Pond. “It got lower. The downward trend is already over and we are on the way up. The challenge is getting the decision-makers to see we are on the way up.”

Statistics Canada released the population counts for communities across Canada yesterday and Prince Rupert’s population, a number that has been the subject of much speculation, dropped from 14,643 in 2001 to 12,815.

The 12.5 per cent drop is in part due to the closure of the Watson Island Pulp mill in 2002, as well as a downturn in fishing and forestry.

However, in recent years, the community has made efforts to diversify its economy, opening the new Northland Cruise Terminal, a new college facility downtown and the opening of the Fairview Container Terminal in October of 2007. There are also a number of energy-related projects, such as the Mount Hays wind farm and Anyox Hydroelectric company preparing to come on line. And both the grain and coal terminals are busier than they have been in years, with good forecasts for the coming years.

And Monday night, the community saw its first major subdivision application in almost half a decade presented to council (see story on this page).

Pond said health care, seniors’ facilities and education are all areas where accurate growth forecasts are important for government.

Currently, B.C. Statistics forecasts the North Coast to have one of the province’s largest future population slides. It’s an image Pond said the city will be working hard to shed.
“Even when government views projects such as airport expansions, if they interpret that 12,000 people will be getting smaller, you are less likely to see things happen.”

Based on the city’s research, they forecast that in five years, the city will have grown by 6,000 to 8,000 people.

“Even without the pulp mill,” said Pond.

Prince Rupert was not the only community in the Northwest to experience a downturn in population between the last two census counts. In fact most communities did.
Port Edward’s population dropped by 12.4 per cent from 659 to 577.

Overall, the Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District — which includes the North Coast and Queen Charlotte Islands — dropped by 9.4 per cent, from 21,693 to 19,664.

Area A of the Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District — including Dodge Cove — dropped by 42.9 per cent, from 91 to 52.

Area C — including Oona River — dropped 26 per cent from 50 to 37.

Area D — rural Graham Island — grew by 12.8 per cent, from 538 to 607.

Area E — the rural area of Moresby Island — dropped by 12.6 per cent from 460 to 402.
The village of Masset saw its population grow marginally, from 926 to 940 while Old Massett’s population dropped by a small amount, down from 707 to 694.

The Village of Queen Charlotte, which did not exist during the last census, has a population of 948 and Port Clements dropped 14.7 per cent, from 516 to 440.

Meanwhile, Skidegate was up by 5.1 per cent, from 743 to 781. Port Simpson’s population is up marginally, from 667 to 679.

Hartley Bay’s population dropped from 162 to 157. Klemtu dropped from 295 to 282. Neither Kitkatla or Metlakatla were included in the count.

Terrace dropped by 6.5 per cent, from 12,109 to 11,320, while Kitimat dropped by 12.6 per cent, from 10,285 to 8,987 and Smithers dropped by 3.6 per cent, from 5,414 to 5,217.

The Bulkley Valley-Nechako Regional District dropped by 6.4 per cent, from 40,856 to 38,243, while the Kitimat Stikine Regional District dropped by seven per cent, from 40,876 to 37,999.

More examinations of 2006 census results

The overnight period brought a few more in depth examinations of the tsunami of census revelations from the declining population numbers of the Northwest.

Both the Vancouver Sun and the Globe and Mail had articles on the rather sharp depopulation of the Northwest outlined from the period of 2001-2006.

Both articles examine the factors that have contributed to the decline of the economic base of the northwest and the resulting out migration of residents, an out migration that many suggest threatens a good number of the communities that string across northwestern British Columbia along the highway 97 and 16 corridors

B.C. boomtowns and busts
As rural areas decline, B.C. has become the most urban province in Canada
Frances Bula, with files from Peter O'Neil
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

We think of ourselves as living in a province of forests and fish, mines and ranches, with towns and cities to match.

But we're really city and suburban people surrounded by mostly empty mountains, according to the census snapshot from Statistics Canada.

B.C., which has broken the four-million mark in population, is the most urban province in the country, according to the 2006 census statistics released Tuesday.

Only 15 per cent of its population now lives in rural areas, and residents are draining steadily away from the former thriving resource towns of the northwestern B.C. and the central coast.
The province has grown by 5.3 per cent, thanks mainly to immigrants from outside Canada, since B.C. has the lowest birthrate in the country.

However, those immigrants, along with younger people from the declining northern towns, are going almost exclusively to B.C.'s growing urban regions, with places like Kelowna and Abbotsford among the fastest-growing cities in the country.

The result is that most of the people in this huge province are increasingly shoehorned into a few valleys along major highways: The Greater Vancouver region, which has now gone over the two-million mark, the Central Okanagan, and the Vancouver Island east coast from Victoria to Nanaimo.

The Yamashitas of Terrace see that story played out in their family.

Their ancestors came to B.C. at the turn of the century, settling in Port Essington near Prince Rupert with other Japanese immigrants to fish the Skeena River.

Tosh Yamashita, a child of the post-war generation, worked in Terrace as a planner for the past 25 years.

Now, his three boys, all in their 20s, are living in the Vancouver region: Jason is studying law; Kasel is working at a lumberyard; and Kory, the youngest, is finishing his engineering degree.
Only Kory plans to return, wanting to live where the traffic and house prices are reasonable and where he knows everyone in town.

But he's an anomaly, says his brother.

"People don't go back because there's no jobs there. The pulp mill is suffering, the sawmill is closed," says Jason, now 28. "The vast majority of my graduating class is in Prince George, Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Toronto."

That's a story being told throughout the north, with Kitimat, Prince Rupert, Quesnel, Terrace and Williams Lake showing the biggest population losses of all mid-size cities in Canada.

University of B.C. geography professor David Ley says that north-south divide in B.C. is the most striking story in the statistics.

"This is quite a novel demographic moment," said Ley, noting that cities have seen striking changes, with Prince Rupert losing 12 per cent of its population and Kelowna gaining 10 per cent.
"These are big numbers in a very short time. It does tell a tale about job loss in the resource industry. There's quite an inequality between the two regions."

One area of northern B.C. that is bucking the trend is the northeast corner, where population grew slightly because of jobs in the oil industry. That likely helped, in part, reverse the trend that showed up in the 2001 census, which saw B.C. losing population to other parts of the country.

This time, B.C. went back to its traditional pattern of attracting people from other provinces.

The trend of population movement toward cities is prevalent across Canada.

Canada's six largest cities -- Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa-Gatineau, Calgary and Edmonton -- are home to 14.1 million people, or 45 per cent of the total population.
Just over two-thirds (68 per cent) of the population lives in Canada's 33 census metropolitan areas.

But B.C. is slightly more urbanized than the national trend, with 85.4 per cent of people living in urban areas here compared to an 80-per-cent average for the country.

That's likely due to the province's geography, economic context and its immigration pattern, experts suggest.

B.C. is more dependent on overseas immigrants than any other part of the country, says Ryan Berlin, an analyst with the Urban Futures Institute.

"We're not seeing immigrant families going straight to Kitimat," said Berlin. Instead, they are clustering in particular sectors of the Lower Mainland.

Statistics Canada noted that "between 2001 and 2006, an average of 25,000 immigrants a year settled in the Vancouver area. Because of international immigration, Vancouver continued to experience a higher population growth rate than the provincial average in the 2001 to 2006 period (6.5 per cent versus 5.3 per cent)."

As well, B.C.'s mountains produce a different population distribution.

People here aren't spread out on the kind of farmland that southern Ontario or the Prairies have.

"We are seeing all the growth being concentrated along the Trans-Canada Highway corridor and the Island Highway," says Berlin.

Finally, rural cities and towns have always been more dependent on the fluctuations of the resource industry, rising and falling with the ups and downs of mining, forestry, fish and oil.
The northeast sector is booming now. "But if oil falls back down to $30 a barrel, there'll be an exodus," said Berlin.

The Greater Vancouver region saw 6.5-per-cent growth, lower than in Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto, but higher than the national average.

Its growth was uneven, however, with suburbs like Port Moody and Surrey gaining population at Calgary-like rates, while others -- Delta, West Vancouver, Langley city, Coquitlam, and North Vancouver -- showed little or no growth.

Like the province, its growth is shaped by its geography and transportation lines.

"The urban spread in Vancouver is uniquely influenced by our terrain and the SkyTrain and West Coast Express," said Jerry Page, the director for Statistics Canada's western region.
fbula@png.canwest.com

B.C. GAINERS
Biggest gainers in actual population

2006 2001 Change % change
Surrey 394,976 347,820 47,156 13.6%
Vancouver 578,041 545,671 32,370 5.9%
Kelowna 106,707 96,288 10,419 10.8%
Richmond 174,461 164,345 10,116 6.2%
Burnaby 202,799 193,954 8,845 4.6%
Abbotsford 123,864 115,494 8,370 7.2%
Langley 93,726 86,896 6,830 7.9%
Chilliwack 69,217 62,567 6,650 10.6%
Maple Ridge 68,949 63,169 5,780 9.2%
Nanaimo 78,692 73,000 5,692 7.8%

B.C. DECLINERS
Biggest decliners in actual population

2006 2001 Change % change
Prince Rupert 12,815 14,643 -1,828 -12.5%
Prince George 70,981 72,406 -1,425 -2.0%
Kitimat 8,987 10,285 -1,298 -12.6%
Terrace 11,320 12,109 -789 -6.5%
Port Hardy 3,822 4,574 -752 -16.4%
Quesnel 9,326 10,044 -718 -7.1%
Mackenzie 4,539 5,206 -667 -12.8%
Fort St. James 1,355 1,927 -572 -29.7%
Lillooet 2,324 2,741 -417 -15.2%
Houston 3,163 3,577 -414 -11.6%

THE CENSUS: SHRINKING COMMUNITIES
Towns built by timber being cut down
B.C. home to top five fastest-declining urban centres
WENDY STUECK
The Globe and Mail
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

VANCOUVER -- Five British Columbia communities top the list of mid-size urban centres with the fastest-shrinking populations in the country, reflecting a struggling forestry sector and regional economies that rise and fall with timber prices.

"There's no surprise in the list, given the difficulties in the northwest part of the province," Jock Finlayson, executive vice-president of the Business Council of British Columbia, said yesterday.
"It's really been the last area to experience any sort of rebound since the economy of B.C. as a whole began to move into an upswing phase in 2002."

It's harder to explain population declines in the Interior cities of Quesnel and Williams Lake, Mr. Finlayson and others said, as that region is experiencing a burst of activity related to harvesting pine-beetle-killed wood before it rots and warps, losing any economic value.

In Quesnel, housing prices are healthy, retail performance is strong and "we're in the midst of a mini-boom because of the pine beetle," said Jim Savage, executive director of Quesnel Community and Economic Development Corp.

The northwest communities of Kitimat, Prince Rupert and Terrace (ranked 1, 2 and 4) are joined by the Interior towns of Quesnel and Williams Lake (ranked 3 and 5) on the list of centres with the fastest population decline since 2001.

Cities in New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Ontario round out the fastest-shrinking 10. The northern B.C. city of Prince George, with a decline of 2.1 per cent over five years, is at No. 16.
In Kitimat, the population declined by 12.6 per cent, slipping below the 10,000 mark. The city has seen several major businesses close or scale back operations in recent years.

Montreal-based Alcan Inc. is running its smelter at less than full capacity and the company's plans for a new, $2-billion smelter are in limbo.

A methanol plant closed in 2005. A pulp mill is still operating, but with fewer employees than it once had.

Prince Rupert was also clobbered by multiple economic blows during the 1990s and the early part of this decade, Mayor Herb Pond said yesterday.

The Asian economic flu of 1997 hit the city's forestry and fishing sectors, Mr. Pond said.
The Skeena-Cellulose pulp-mill complex -- which once accounted for more than 6,000 direct and indirect jobs in the region -- closed in 2001, despite the provincial government's efforts to prop it up.

But the Statistics Canada report isn't a harbinger, Mr. Pond said, citing a slew of projects and investment that he and city officials believe will push the area's population closer to 20,000 (up from about 13,400 in the 2006 census) within the next three to five years.

The biggest project is a new container terminal in Prince Rupert. The $160-million project, a joint venture of the federal and provincial governments, CN Rail and a U.S. terminal operator, is expected to appeal to international shipping lines that want to shave time from their ocean-crossing schedules and tap into a continental rail network. Prince Rupert offers a roughly two-day sailing advantage from Asia over other West Coast ports.

Prince Rupert is also the site of a new casino and a proposed big-box shopping complex, and it could benefit from regional investment in areas such as wood-pellet manufacturing, Mr. Pond said.

B.C.'s northwest is likely in for better times as projects such as the container terminal and new mines kick in, Mr. Finlayson said.

But that won't mean an end to population drops in British Columbia as a result of natural-resource trends, he added, predicting that the pine-beetle infestation will result in significant dislocation in the Interior.

"It's just a matter of how bad it will be," he said.

*****
Top 10 shrinkers

While the overall population of the country, as well as larger urban areas, showed a healthy increase during the period between 2001 and 2006, several smaller municipalities quickly thinned out. The 10 fastest-shrinking urban centres with populations of 10,000 or more (growth change in per cent):

Kitimat, B.C.: -12.6%...8,987
Prince Rupert, B.C.: -12.5%...13,392
Quesnel, B.C.: -8.1%...22,449
Terrace, B.C: -7.0%...18,581Williams Lake, B.C.: -5.1%...18,760
Campbellton, N.B.: -5.0%...17,888
North Battleford, Sask.: -4.4%...17,765
Kenora, Ont.: -4.2%...15,177Elliot Lake, Ont.: -3.4%....11,549
Bathurst, N.B.: -3.4%...31,424
Edmundston, N.B.: -3.3%...21,442

Regional numbers from census 2006

The Daily News used a CP story for its census coverage on Tuesday, material that didn't offer much of a local aspect, so we won't bother Podunkicizing the details here.

However, they did provide a breakdown of the census numbers for other towns in the region, which we will list below. Numbers which show the decline of the population across the board with the exception of Masset, which showed a slight boost in population.

PRINCE RUPERT 12,815 (06) 14,613 (01) -12.5%

PORT EDWARD 577 (06) 639 (01) -12.4%
MASSET 940 (06) 926 (01) +1.5%
PORT CLEMENTS 440 (06) 516 (01) -14.7%
KITIMAT 8,987 (06) 10,285 (01) -12.6%
TERRACE 11,320 (06) 12,109 (01) -6.5%
HAZELTON 293 (06) 345 (01) -15.1%
NEW HAZELTON 627 (06) 750 (01) -16.4%
SMITHERS 5,217 (06) 5,414 (01) -3.6%

Divining the tea leaves of census interpretation

With the census information released on Tuesday, the task now falls upon the media (and a politician or two) to interpret whether it’s yesterday’s news or a true reflection of the state of the Northwest and Prince Rupert’s situation in particular.

The Canoe news service, which for the most part is used by the tabloid sun newspapers, seems to be the first off the blocks, picking up a piece from the Canadian Press with it’s review of the numbers and some colour commentary from local luminaries.

Quoting from both Mark Twain and Herb Pond, Canadian Press reporter Steve Mertl examined the decline in numbers and then presented the case from the local political class which was pushing the optimism of the region rather than any despair.

With Mayor Herb Pond suggesting that the city is now on the rebound, and providing a hustle and bustle to the city not seen in years, the impression seems to be that the numbers released today are but a blip of ancient history, soon to be relegated to a dark period of the city’s constantly evolving times.

In fact, the mayor suggests that in light of the drum beat of optimism currently being sounded in the city, these census numbers could be more of an impediment to growth due to their negativity. Pond fears that government agencies will use these numbers to determine how to fund programs and planning initiatives, slowing down what he calls an evolving situation.

The Canadian Press article is one of the early indications as to how the census data will be presented both locally and across the country. It no doubt won’t be the last of the articles that suggests reports of the demise of Prince Rupert are greatly exaggerated.

NORTHERN B.C. TOWNS LEAD COUNTRY IN POPULATION DECLINE
By STEVE MERTL
Canadian Press
Tuesday, March 13, 2007

PRINCE RUPERT, B.C. (CP) — The renewed bustle on the streets of this North Coast port hints that there may be some truth to Mark Twain’s observation about lies, damn lies and statistics.
New census figures released Tuesday by Statistics Canada show Prince Rupert lost more than one-tenth of its population in the opening years of the 21st century.

It’s among five central and northern B.C. communities that make the top-10 list of Canadian towns and cities with the highest population declines.

Kitimat, developed around Alcan’s giant aluminum-smelting operation, saw its population drop 12.6 per cent— from 10,285 in 2001 to 8,987 in 2006 — following a 7.6 per cent reduction from 1996 to 2001.

Prince Rupert, still buffeted by the closure of the Skeena Cellulose pulp mill — the top employer— and a stagnant fishery, dropped 12.5 per cent from its 2001 population of 14,643 residents, on top of a 12.4 per cent decline in the 2001 census.

Three other largely forest-dependent towns, Quesnel, Terrace and Williams Lake, shrank 7.1 per cent, 6.5 per cent and 3.7 per cent respectively between 2006 and 2001, Statistics Canada reported.

The figures came even as the resource-based economy of the region strengthened.
But the head-count done last May has caught the city on a rebound after more than a decade in the economic doldrums, says Mayor Herb Pond.

“As much as numbers are likely to show a decline between 2001 and 2006, we know that since those numbers were captured we’ve been going through pretty significant growth,” says Pond, sitting in Prince Rupert’s city hall, a 1938 ex-federal building whose Art Deco design seamlessly incorporates aboriginal motifs.

Colin Hansen, B.C.’s minister of economic development, said the northwest was economically depressed during the 1990s and the region has only recently started to show signs of an economic rebound.

“Places like Prince Rupert are genuinely optimistic about their future,” he said Tuesday following the release of the census data.

“That’s starting to translate into property values appreciating because people, I think, sense the fact that there is a pretty good future there for them.”

Prince Rupert’s container port is being expanded, a cruise ship terminal is welcoming tourists and the port’s grain terminal is busier.

Two wind-farm proposals are taking shape, a wood-pellet shipping facility is opening and a dormant sulphur-export terminal may reopen.

There’s even an outside chance Skeena’s new Chinese owners may fire up the pulp mill, adding 330 jobs.

The activity has fuelled a construction boom, both commercial and residential, as property owners renovate the city’s aging homes.

You can still buy a modest home for under $100,000 here but the price of the average family home has climbed 30 per cent in the last couple of years, says real estate agent Clayton Williams.

This week, city council will vote on the first new residential subdivision proposed in 15 years.
The census numbers are a snapshot in time that may not reflect today’s reality, says Pond, but they can have real consequences.

On the positive side, if the population dips below 15,000, the B.C. government covers a larger share of policing costs under its funding formula.

But there is a significant down side.

“The fear is now that agencies that rely on those numbers for planning and for funding will be slow to respond to what I think is going to be a very rapidly evolving situation here on the North Coast,” says Pond.

Pond, a former Canadian Airlines International manager, came here 19 years ago on a transfer from Vancouver and stayed, deciding this sleepy port city was the ideal place to raise his family.
But Prince Rupert’s cratering economy forced hundreds to abandon this verdantly beautiful place, where bald eagles seem as common as crows further south.

Pond believes the population, which in the city’s heyday was more than 20,000, actually dipped below 10,000 in the late 1990s.

Three jet flights a day once landed at its island airport but now an Air Canada Jazz turboprop thrums its way up from Vancouver twice a day.

Over in Quesnel, in north-central British Columbia, mover Bill Fowler is doing a brisk business taking people’s belongings to Alberta.

“I’m in Alberta probably three times a month with a moving truck,” says Fowler, who has run his own moving company for 34 years.

But Quesnel Mayor Nat Bello says his community is actually experiencing a mini boom.
It’s at the epicentre of the effort to log timber devastated by the massive pine beetle infestation that covers much of central B.C. forests, as well as a renewed interest in mineral exploration.

Still, the B.C. government’s latest annual projections foresee at best marginal population growth for large swaths of the north and in many cases stagnation or even decline, by 2031.

The projections are based on fertility and mortality rates and migration. It’s the latter that’s the biggest variable, driven largely by economic trends and future prospects.

Prince George, the north’s urban hub, and the northeast, afloat on a lake of oil and gas investment, seem immune from the trend.

Declines elsewhere have potentially troubling ramifications.

They weaken the municipalities’ tax base and make it harder for businesses to stay. Public services, from hospitals to local schools, become harder to justify.

“It’s very costly to service some of these smaller communities that are isolated,” says Ryan Berlin of Vancouver’s Urban Development Institute.

The demographic makeup also changes, Berlin adds, as young people look for opportunities elsewhere, boosting the average age of a community’s remaining residents.

The impact will vary from town to town, he says, and will depend on how well they manage the change.

“Some of these towns and regions in the province are really going to struggle to survive,” says Berlin.

The impact of northern population shifts on British Columbia as a whole is harder to gauge.
Urbanization is a national trend as Canadians abandon rural living in favour of bigger cities. In British Columbia the favoured destinations are Vancouver, Victoria and the Okanagan Valley, especially Kelowna.

Vancouver and its suburbs account for more than half of the province’s 4.1 million residents, not including the mushrooming Fraser Valley cities such as Abbotsford and Mission.

Studies by the Urban Development Institute show Vancouver’s prosperity depends largely on the resources extracted from the B.C. hinterland.

But long-term population decline there won’t necessarily hurt, says Helmut Pastrick, chief economist for B.C. Credit Union Central.

“Another way to look at it is production in northern B.C. could well be increasing due to greater efficiencies,” he says.

For instance, the forest industry, the major source of high-paying jobs, has undergone profound technological change in the last three decades.

A wave of mechanisation in logging and automation in the mills slashed thousands of unionized jobs in the 1980s and 1990s.

Now so-called mega-mills are replacing local sawmills and computerization means they need only a fraction of the workers to operate.

Fewer workers translates into improved productivity, says Hansen, but it doesn’t have to threaten communities.

“I think the message is that communities have to change and adapt as we go forward,” he says.
Pond believes Prince Rupert is also on the cusp of prosperity.

But this is a city with a history of dashed hopes.

Founder Charles Melville Hays envisioned Prince Rupert as a northern port to rival Vancouver. But his dreams went down with him on the Titanic in 1912.

Pond says residents have been beaten down by hard times so long that it’s taken outsiders to recognize the city’s potential.

“It’s natural that people, while they want to hope and believe that tomorrow could be better than today, there is a reluctance to kind of invest yourself emotionally there,” he says.

The danger, says Pond, is that they will miss the boat.

“Now’s the time for our local people to be upgrading their skills. There are jobs that are coming and they’re real jobs.”

The Census confirms what we already knew…

It was a race to the bottom that Prince Rupert lost out on by only .1 percent. In the national snapshot taken in June of 2006, Rupert and Kitimat were neck and neck when it came to the dubious title of kings of population decline.

The recent Canadian census has highlighted the dramatic downward turn in the economy of the northwest. As three of the five cities listed in decline in the census all came from the northwest and in fact all of the five cities leading population decline came from northern BC.

Kitimat is the city with largest population decline at 12.6 per cent, followed by Rupert at 12.5 per cent; Quesnel lost 8.1 per cent of its population base, while Terrace saw a decline of 7.0 per cent. Williams Lake rounded out the top or is that the bottom five, with a 5.1 per cent loss of population.

It’s a stark difference from the province to our immediate east which saw seven of the ten fastest growing cities come from Alberta.

On Census Day there were 31,612,897 Canadians counted. Overall we are a very urban nation with 85% of British Columbians living in an urban area. The Census information provides a wealth of information about Canadians and their chosen hometowns.

BC provided an overall jump in population growth of 5.3%, most of which is based in the south with over 4 million Canadians or 13%, now calling BC home and Kelowna and Abbotsford joining those cities with the fastest growing Census Metropolitan Areas.

The Census statistics indicate the trends of rural and urban Canada from 2001 and 2006, with the Fairview Container Port and other projects in the works, no doubt Rupert Civic officials will be hoping for a different result in 2011, but with a 12.5 per cent drop there’s going to be a bit of ground to make up before we return to the traditional base and the levels we once knew.


For the record, Prince Rupert's population dropped to 12,128, down from the 13,799 counted back in 2001. Hopefully, we’ve reached the bottom of the declining years and we will see a reversal in the near future, the competition in the Northwest is always intense, but this is one competition we all probably would have preferred to miss out on.