Bonnyville mayor says StatsCan got it wrong

Town insists its population is around 6,600, but StatsCan counted just 5,417

The mayor of Bonnyville says Statistics Canada was wrong again when it determined in the 2016 census that the town has lost more residents than anywhere else in Alberta.

The latest national head count indicates 5,417 people live in the town 240 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, down 12.9 per cent from 6,216 inhabitants five years earlier. But that calculation has Mayor Gene Sobolewski fuming.

“Statistics Canada hasn’t gotten it right for the last 10 years,” he said Thursday. “We saw a small decline … but nowhere near what they came out with. I went ballistic when I saw the (approximately) 5,000.”

He estimates 6,500 to 6,700 people actually live in the oil and gas centre, based on a 2014 civic census that found 6,970 residents and outflows due to the economic downturn.

The federal agency uses different boundaries than the town limits for its enumeration, Sobolewski said.

“You look at it and say, ‘What kind of nonsense is this?’ They’re in their own world,” he said, adding he also found discrepancies in the 2006 and 2011 counts. “We have been talking to them for 10 years to try to rectify their numbers … If it wasn’t such a joke I’d be laughing my head off, but I’m choosing instead to use the issue to point out there are a number of issues with the way Statistics Canada is collecting their data.”

Town officials are waiting to hear from the federal organization about their concerns and why the figures changed over the last five years.

Sobolewski expects Bonnyville will have to spend $20,000 to $25,000 to do its own census to have numbers it supports on funding applications for federal and provincial grants calculated using population.

But Statistics Canada demographer André Lebel said the agency adjusts the geographical boundaries it uses to reflect municipal borders, so he doubts different borders for the federal and town census caused the divergent population counts.

He thinks variation is probably the result of different approaches to determining where individuals live.

While many municipalities include transient workers and other temporary residents among their inhabitants, StatsCan counts them in the location they call their permanent residence, even if they’re employed elsewhere, he said.

“We have been (using) this concept since 1851.”

Organizations can ask for a review of the numbers until the end of the year, but need evidence to show what they think is wrong, Lebel said.

The news was better for governments in the Edmonton region, where several areas posted doubledigit population increases over the last five years.

The biggest jump occurred at the Enoch Cree Nation on Edmonton’s western boundary, which now has 1,690 people, up 71 per cent.

Membership manager Yvonne Morin said one major reason for the jump might be a 2012 legislative change that allows the grandchildren of women who regained Indian status in the 1980s to also apply for membership.

As well, Enoch has opened a 108-suite apartment building since the last census that helped deal with a backlog of people waiting for homes, she said.

The population of nearby Spruce Grove has risen 30 per cent from 2011, which Mayor Stuart Houston said is partly the result of inexpensive housing, lower taxes and good recreation facilities that are luring people from other municipalities.

“We’re actively marketing our community for businesses, and we’re also ranked as one of the top cities in Canada to raise a family,” he said. “We were always a bedroom community of Edmonton, but we’re a very self-sustained commercial centre now.”