Scratching the surface

Back in September, Jerome Kennedy, Minister of Whatever He Was Then, touted the latest Statscan quarterly population estimates:

“Continued population growth is a very important and positive measure of confidence in our province and its strong economic performance,” said Minister Kennedy. “After recording several years of strong economic growth, our province has recorded positive net in-migration in six of the last eight quarters. This success is due in part to major tax cuts and enhanced public services as a result of investments by our government, along with significant personal income gains and a continued positive economic outlook.”

Then in December, Tom Marshall, Minister of Whatever He Was Then, touted them again:

“It is wonderful to see more people coming back to our great province,” said the Honourable Tom Marshall, Minister of Finance. “The population increased as a result of both positive net in-migration and a small natural increase. This is the fifth consecutive quarter we have seen positive net in-migration.”

Statscan’s quarterly figures take into account the various components of population change: births, deaths, in-migration, out-migration (yes, John Gushue, those are real words), and international immigration and emigration. However, they are geographically blunt instruments, aggregated only at the provincial and territorial level of detail.

Not so the annual population estimates, which the good folks at Tunney’s Pasture released earlier this month, to noticeably less provincial fanfare.

The detailed stats by Census Division (and the St. John’s CMA) have been helpfully abstracted by the Newfoundland and Labrador Statistics Agency.

With the caveat that the recent data is only preliminary, you could reach the same rosy conclusions that Messrs. Kennedy and Marshall made. Or you could scratch the surface.

The province overall had an uptick in population, per the estimates, in 2009, driven largely by net interprovincial in-migration, which is in turn driven largely by the downturn in the economy across Canada. A slight improvement in natural change (births vs. deaths) also seems to have contributed to the overall demographic picture.

However, there are several different regional trends which sum up to that provincial statistic. After several years of population stagnation, the population of the metropolitan St. John’s area is up by about 4,000 over the past two years. (In this and subsequent graphs, the scale is not uniform, and the axes do not cross at zero, in order to emphasise recent trends.)

The rural Avalon is also experiencing a boomlet – perhaps reflecting exurbanization of areas near St. John’s, particularly around Conception Bay, although that won’t be clear until the 2011 census tallies are published in 2012. The Avalon outside the St. John’s CMA has increased in population by about 1200 since 2007.

Interestingly, in both cases, the recent run-up in population comes after a mid-decade pause in a trend which actually began around 2000. And, in both cases, both metro St. John’s and the rural Avalon are only re-attaining the populations which they had in 1996; both had experienced declines:



In population demographics, as with many other things statistical, most of the Williams era so far has been a story of decline, or, at best, stagnation.

Labrador also saw an uptick in population in 2009 after some steady decline:

However, the rest of the province – namely, Newfoundland to the west of the isthmus of Avalon, has seen only a slight abatement in a very steady downward trend: