I came across these numbers in a recent study by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards in Ottawa. It’s an interesting way to present the population challenge.
Essentially, back in the 1960s when there were all those attempts at regional development and specifically attempts to make Atl. Canada attractive for foreign investment, this region’s population growth underperformed but not extremely the national average.
Even in the 1980s, we still were registering 0.5% per year annual populatoin growth. But from 1996 on, population growth turned into decline across the board while population growth Canada wide remained roughly at its historical levels.
So, in a nutshell, when the national government was aggressively promoting this region for foreign investment, we weren’t doing to bad (at least based on one statistic called population growth) and now the Feds are all but out of the game of promoting foreign investment in Atl. Canada – and we are in population decline*.
Note: These #s are the average annual growth rate.
*PS – ACOA does have an Investment group – headed up by a very capably guy – Kevin Bulmer but the bulk of investment attraction work is handled at the provincial level.