Friday, October 06, 2006

Movin' on up...

I had planned on doing something on the Newfoundland census figures, but a bit of time has past on that and Ed did a better job on it than I really could. But no one up north has done anything on the Nunavut census figures, which show a few interesting things.

On July 1, 2004 there were approximately 29,633 people. A mere two years later there was 30,782. More than a thousand people were added to the population of Nunavut in a very short period of time. Unfortunately, StatsCanada in this report didn't break down how individual communities did. We'll have to wait for the 2006 census report for that, something I don't think we'll until early in the new year. I'm dying to know the population of Iqaluit and the breakdown.

I'm also curious as to where that population growth came from. I just assumed that most of it was an increase in the birth rate. Nunavut has double the national birth rates in Canada and is second only to Alberta. But there's also a decent amount of immigration by the sounds of it. CBC North did a story about it (not up on their website, of course) talking about it.

While they didn't say how many immigrated (again, annoying) 29 per cent of them came from Ontario and 18 per cent from NewfoundlandLabrador (It's now a government mandate to spell it this way). Not really a big surprise for anyone living here. A lot of Ontarians come here via federal government jobs. A lot of people from NewfoundlandLabrador come here just looking for jobs. It pretty much confirms the feeling that nearly every Southerner in Iqaluit is from Newfoundland. Hell, I'm willing to bet more than a few of those immigrating from Ontario were originally from Newfoundland.

The other thing that caught my eye was this - While Nunavut is still the smallest territory by population in Canada, it is quickly gaining on the Yukon. That territory had 31,229, less than 500 people more than what's in Nunavut. And considering Nunavut picked up about 700 people in the last year, it's entirely possibly by this time next year than it will no longer be the smallest territory. By population, that is. The place is still friggin' huge.

Anyway, there is your statistics lecture for today...

1 comment:

Simon Lono said...

I remember waking up one morning in my little hovel in Iqaluit and finding a census pachage slipped under the door.

I didn't fill it out but waited until I got home to count myself in.

I hope I didn't deny the territory one more official soul.