Author: Robert Freeman
Wed Mar 21st, 2007

Chilliwack takes pride in its “country living” reputation, but the latest census figures show we’re becoming more like city slickers with one of the highest population growth rates in Canada.

The average growth in B.C. was 5.4 per cent since the last census in 2001, but Chilliwack’s rate was 10.6 per cent making it the fastest-growing mid-sized city in the province tied with Fort St. John.

Chilliwack’s population has grown by 6,650 new residents over the past five years, from 62,567 in 2001 to 69,217 in 2006, not far off the 76,236 projected by city planners, especially when the area’s aboriginal population is added to the city numbers. Just over 4,000 identified themselves in the 2001 census as belonging to an aboriginal group.

But the trend seen across the country toward increasing urbanization was taken into account by city planners in Chilliwack’s official community plan, which calls for guiding population growth toward a “compact urban core” through higher density developments.

“We’re still country living at its best,” says Coun. Chuck Stam, who sits on the city’s agricultural and rural issues committees. “We still have 80 per cent of our land in agricultural land, and it will stay that way.”

“We don’t change because of new people,” he adds. “We don’t shy away from growth.”

According to the census, B.C.’s total population passed the four-million mark between 2001 and 2006, its 5.3 per cent growth rate nearly identical to the national average.

Four out of five people in Canada, more than 80 per cent, lived in an urban centre of 10,000 people or more in 2006, similar to the U.S. but smaller than other G8 countries, with the exception of the United Kingdom, where it is close to 90 per cent.

Six census metropolitan areas in Canada had populations of more than one million: Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver and Ottawa–Gatineau, and, for the first time, Calgary and Edmonton. Combined, they were home to 14,110,317 people, or 45% of the total population.

The fastest growing census metropolitan area was Barrie, Ont., whose population grew 19.2% to 177,061 in 2006. It was followed by Calgary, Alta., whose population increased 13.4% to 1,079,310.

At the same time, Canada’s small towns and rural areas grew by a slight one per cent between 2001 and 2006, after edging down 0.4 per cent. In 2006, just under 20 per cent of Canadians, about six million, were living in small towns and rural areas.