Lethbridge City Hall

By Lara Fominoff

City Council cancels 2020 Municipal census

Feb 1, 2020 | 7:00 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – In an effort to save more than $150,000 this year, City Council voted unanimously on Monday, Jan. 27, not to conduct a Municipal Census in Lethbridge for 2020.

According to City administration, a municipal census has been held nearly every single year, since 1954. However, the province has informed cities that it will transition from using the yearly census number to a system of provincially developed population estimates to allocate municipal grants.

Lethbridge Census results 2019. ~Photo Courtesy: City of Lethbridge

It will come into effect in 2021 and be based on the same accepted methodology used in other provinces. In the meantime, the 2019 Municipal Census will be used as the basis for 2020 provincial and federal grants.

Mayor Chris Spearman says it’s important that both the Federal and Provincial governments use good census information so that taxpayers aren’t unfairly burdened with expenses. The last Federal Census took place in 2016, when Lethbridge had 8,000 fewer residents.

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“We’ve always done our census during the school year because we know we have thousands of university and college students. So, we tend to do our census locally in the month of April and therefore capture the student populations. The Federal census generally is done in the month of June. So, we’re providing services for people who live here eight months of the year and that census data may not include students when it’s done in the future.”

The advantage of foregoing the census this year he says, is that in the past there was a net benefit to the city- and it’s not clear if that will be the case this year. Provincial and Federal grants totalled just shy of $424,000. The cost of the census was around $152,000, giving Lethbridge a net gain of more than $271,000. It’s not clear what may happen this year.

“We’re waiting to hear what the formula is going to be this year. But certainly, we’re going to be advocating for growth patters similar to the past,” Spearman explained.

That means that if the city grows by close to two per cent per year, the hope is that the city continues to be compensated at that rate.

Council voted to re-establish the municipal census in 2021 in order to compare it to the 2021 Federal Census data.