Impact on population counts

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The Demography Division of Statistics Canada has revised the population counts in 2011. The SLID target population counts¹ for the years 2006 to 2009 were revised using the 2006 Census base. Little change was seen for each of the four years (Table 1).  For years 2006, 2007 and 2009 there was a slight decrease in population estimates of 0.06% or lower, while 2008 saw a slight increase of 0.03%.

Alberta and British Columbia were the two provinces that saw the biggest changes in counts, both seeing changes of greater than 1% from the unrevised estimates. Population estimates in Alberta increased for all four years, with changes ranging from 1.23% to 1.90%, while British Columbia saw decreases in its estimates for all four years varying from 1.01% to 1.33%.

Table 1
Percentage change between revised and unrevised population estimates by province and year

Despite little change in the population counts, the distribution of households by size changed substantially (Table 2). The largest change was seen with one person households where counts for 2006 to 2009 were revised downward (between 2.91% and 5.01%). The provinces with the greatest decreases were Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and British Columbia, with decreases ranging from 5.29% to 8.50%.

Two person households also saw a decrease in estimates ranging from 0.62% to 1.56%.  In contrast, there was an increase of between 0.78% and 1.99% in the number of households with more than two persons between 2006 and 2009.

Table 2
Percentage change between revised and unrevised estimates of household size estimates by year

The distribution of the economic entities by size was also affected in a similar fashion as household size, but to a lesser degree.  The magnitude of the changes was less than 2% in absolute value, as seen in Table 3.

Table 3
Percentage change between revised and unrevised estimates of economic entity size estimates by year

Note

1. SLID covers all individuals in Canada, excluding residents of the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, residents of institutions and persons living on Indian reserves or in military barracks.