New Brunswick: Statistical Error Misplaces 4,600 People

Where did they go, no where because they never actually existed; a statistical error is corrected and New Brunswick's population decline by 4,600.

New Brunswick has just lost 4,000 people, roughly the population of the town of St. Stephen. No need to panic they have not actually vanished as the fault rests in a statistical error. The 4,600 people once thought to be living in the province were never actually in New Brunswick. The sudden reduction of this many people means the provincial government will lose out on roughly $10 million this year in federal funds that are calculated based on a per capita formula. "Would we have preferred the numbers to have gone up? Yes, but we have to deal with the numbers we've been given," Byrne said. While the news is bad for New Brunswick, Nova Scotia gained 1,600 people from the recount and will be picking up some of the money that's leaving New Brunswick New Brunswick's provincial government stet a goal of self-sufficiency when it was elected and one of the goals of that program is attracting newcomers to the province. This news may have an impact on the first milestone set by the government which is to have 6,000 more people living in the province by the end of 2009, 25,000 by 2015 and 100,000 by 2026. After the 2006 census, the population of New Brunswick stood at just under 730,000. A series of quarterly reports in recent months showed the province was gaining population,which seemed to be good news but now the latest figures from Statistics Canada represent a considerable setback to the aggressive target set by the Population Growth Secretariat.