Statistics Canada issued a population forecast recently. The numbers in it tell us in Saskatchewan it is time to urgently focus on attracting more people.
That’s because more people translate into more economic, social and political clout.
The Statistics Canada forecast is only that a guess or projection of what Canada’s population will be in the next thirty or forty years.
It sees Canada adding 12 million people in 30 years but Saskatchewan adding only 400,000 in that period. Alberta added more than that in the last five years and that is in the best-case scenario for this province.
The implications of this are clear. Simply put, Saskatchewan becomes less important on the national stage.
We are already seeing the effects of that. New constituency boundaries are under consideration for Parliament. We are not getting any new ones. Alberta is getting three additional seats so their influence grows while ours declines.
Saskatchewan is seeing hospitals in this province facing closures. That will not get any better without more people living in the affected communities.
