Editorial

Questionable census

No question the census results for Slave Lake and the surrounding municipal district are disappointing. The question is what can be done about it.
For at least the past two years, people (especially politicians) have been running out of words to describe how fast Slave Lake is growing. If the population was 6,600 in 2001, they said, it must be at least 7,500 by now. Some figured it would be 8,000, or even more.
Indeed, rumour has it that the health authority – based on whatever data it has at hand – puts the number at 8,000 or better.
There are problems, however, with every method of counting. There might well be over 8,000 health care clients, but are they all residents?
The same question can be applied to any of the statistics. Sure there are a lot more jobs, but how many of the people holding them are temporary residents?
The only way to find out for sure is to go door to door. Hence the need for a comprehensive census, which is what Statistics Canada is supposed to do every five years. Unfortunately, even that system seems flawed. According to the 2006 ‘official’ count, the M.D. of Lesser Slave River did not grow by a single person in five years.
Hard to believe? You bet.
Slave Lake’s growth was a paltry 1.6 per cent over that five-year period. That’s very difficult to believe, given the amount of economic growth around here in the past couple of years: the well-known and well-publicized shortages of housing and workers; the undeniable increase in traffic on all roads, the tripling of house construction in the past year or so and all the other signs. Any reasonable person would have concluded that Slave Lake would have at least matched the provincial growth figure of 10 per cent in the past five years.
One is left with the nagging suspicion Stats Canada got it wrong. They missed people. Or, if they didn’t, and the 1.6 per cent accurately represents the growth of permanent residents, it loudly begs a question; namely, who are all these other people who apparently aren’t permanent residents?
Municipalities have name for them: shadow populations. They live in and around communities, largely in hotels, work camps and in campgrounds. They work, they use services. But they don’t pay local taxes, by and large.
But even taking these numbers into account, it’s hard to escape the feeling that Slave Lake and the M.D. of Lesser Slave River got a bad deal in the census.
Should those municipalities conduct their own population counts? It’s a tough decision that should be based on a cost/benefit analysis.
The cost could be considerable, but so is the cost of uncounted residents. Each of them is worth over $1,000 in government grants for such things as policing, roads and sewers. If the town, say, was confident of turning up another 200 people, that’s 200 grand per annum in grants. But would a municipally-run census find the missing people? Maybe not.
Part of the solution may lie in more housing. If there’s enough of it, some of those ‘shadow’ people might choose to become permanent residents.