Niverville and the RM of Ritchot are growing by leaps by bounds, according to the first wave of data released from the 2016 census. Statistics Canada shows that this region, which was the fastest growing five years ago, has retained that distinction.
Indeed, Ritchot is the eighteenth fastest growing municipality in Canada with a population over 5,000. Its population grew by 21.9 percent. Niverville’s population is slightly too low to be included in this category, but its rate of growth is even higher, at 30.2 percent.
Niverville’s population climbed from 3,540 to 4,610, whereas Ritchot increased from 5,478 residents to 6,679. They rank thirty-first and twentieth respectively in terms of their share of Manitoba’s overall population. Niverville has 1,555 dwellings and Ritchot has 2,437.
Adjacent regions in the southeast have also experienced considerable growth, well beyond the provincial average of 5.8 percent and the national average of five percent.
Steinbach added 2,305 residents, growing by 17 percent. The RM of La Broquerie grew almost as much, by 16.9 percent and 878 residents. The RM of Tache reached 11,568 residents, an increase of 12.5 percent. The RM of Hanover grew by 12.2 percent to hit 15,733. To the west, the population in the RM of Macdonald expanded by 14 percent.
The City of Winnipeg recorded its largest population bump since the 1970s, growing by 6.3 percent and more than 41,000 residents since 2011.
While Statistics Canada has released data about population and dwelling counts, a great deal more information is set to be unveiled in the coming months which will shine a light on how our country, province, and region is changing. Future releases will include age and sex, language, family information (size of households and marital status), income, immigration and ethno-
cultural diversity, housing,
and education.