About 550 more people live in the Westlock region now compared to five years ago, according to the most recent census.
Statistics Canada released population figures from the 2011 census on Feb. 8, and the results show that Alberta has some of the highest population growth in the country, rising by 10.8 per cent to 3.65 million.
Although Westlock County has seen growth in line with the province, with a 10.6 per cent jump to 7,644 people, the town saw a 3.7 per cent decrease dropping to 4,823 people. Clyde saw seven per cent growth, with a current population of 503.
Town of Westlock deputy mayor David Truckey said he was not expecting the numbers to show a drop. “I would say overall as council, we were very surprised,” he said.
As far as what could have caused the decrease, he suggested it had to do with the economic downturn, although he noted there are signs of improvement.
“We were probably on the downswing through that time, and unfortunately it will be five more year before we know how we recover as the rest of the country recovers,” he said.
Truckey said one of the biggest problems facing Westlock with respect to growth, other than general economic trends, is the fact that there are relatively few new housing lots available for development.
“The town is dangerously close to not have building lots for residential construction,” he said. “If you don’t have new lots, you’re not going to see new developments.”
Fewer residential developments in turn leads to less commercial growth, he added, so it’s not likely the town’s tax base is going to substantially increase any time soon. Any increase would have to come from increased market values or a higher mill rate. “When you factor in market value and mill rate, the town’s tax dollars are not going to be going up in the next little while,” he said. “The town is going to have to live within the means it has today.”
Westlock County’s growth most likely has to do with the number of new acreages available over the past several years, reeve Charles Navratil said.
“One year, we had 230 applications alone for acreages within the county. Pretty soon that’s bound to show up in the number of people living in the county,” he said. “It’s finally started to show up and we’re pretty happy for it.”
Ultimately, having more people in the county will mean a bit more money to work with, both in terms of municipal revenue and provincial per-capita grants.
Navratil said that on the same side of the coin, however, the county will have to pay more for various regional programs it funds on a per-capita basis.
That said, it’s not likely the county will drastically alter the way it provides services.
“It’s a few more people to serve, but the roads are already there and nothing changes that much,” he said. “It will be the same service.”
Navratil said he was disappointed, however, that the county’s hamlets have in most cases not seen the same kind of growth the county as a whole has.
Population data is available for most of the individual hamlets in the region: Fawcett dropped from 79 to 73, Jarvie dropped from 114 to 113, Nestow dropped from 15 to 10, Pibroch and Tawatinaw stayed the same at 83 and 10 respectively, Busby saw growth from 90 to 98, Vimy grew from 187 to 205 and Dapp also saw growth from 26 to 34. Data was not available for Pickardville.
That growth is not in line with what the county had hoped to see, however.
“We really look for growth in our hamlets. We want to see it, which is why we’re spending money in our hamlets,” Navratil said. “We had hoped to see about a five per cent increase per year in our hamlets.”
With the regional water line expected to reach all the county’s hamlets in the foreseeable future, he said there is a good chance those communities will see some growth.
Nonetheless, one of the big problems attracting people to the hamlets is uncertainty about schools. Some of the schools in the northern part of the county are at risk of shutting down grades or closing entirely.
“People are hesitant to move into a place like Fawcett right now, because they might lose their school eventually,” he said. “Who wants to move into a place if they’re going to have to have their kindergarten kid have to get on a bus and ride to Dapp or ride to Westlock.”
