Stats Canada has released Census numbers for Kapuskasing and, the Mayor is concerned that the figures don’t paint the community in a positive light. Dave Plourde says the Census survey was taken just before the COVID-19 pandemic and doesn’t show the real population growth in the Model Town that’s happened during the pandemic.
“They show that the population declined by about 150 people in Kapuskasing,” he said. “Their description is that the total private dwellings in our municipality is 4,134 and the private dwellings that are occupied by usual residents is 3,790. That is not what we are seeing in our municipality today.”
He adds with the lack of housing available and new people in the community that number could be much higher.
“I think it is a real difficult thing number to find out unless you actually do the tabulation,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that it was done in 2021 and wasn’t actually done this year but I would certainly think our numbers are probably more in the neighbourhood of 8,500.”
He adds that nobody could predict a pandemic and we will have to wait another five years to get a true indication of what’s happening not just in Kapuskasing but throughout the region.
