The population of Ottawa-Gatineau grew from 1,371,576 in 2016 to 1,488,307 last year, leap-frogging Calgary into fourth place among urban Canadian centres.
The new census figures, released Wednesday by Statistics Canada, show an 8.5 per cent population growth in the National Capital Region over the last five years, significantly higher than both the national rate of 5.2 per cent the 6.1 per cent growth among Canada’s 41 census metropolitan areas, or CMAs — those urban areas with populations of 100,000 or more.
Calgary, which in the 2016 census supplanted Ottawa-Gatineau as Canada’s fourth-largest metropolitan area, behind Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, fell back to fifth, with 1,481,806 residents.
“To me, this is an endorsement of what we’ve built in this city,” says David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data. “It’s the ultimate endorsement that people want to move here.
To read the full article by Bruce Deachman, visit the Ottawa Citizen Web site.