The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
New quarterly population figures contain encouraging news for Saskatchewan, showing slight increases over each of the last two quarters. Statistics Canada numbers for the third quarter of 2003 indicate the province's population was estimated at 995,003 as of October 1st, 2003. That's up 160 over the population estimate on July 1st, 2003 and 226 over the figure for April 1st, 2003. "These numbers show a modest trend in the right direction," Industry and Resources Minister Eric Cline said. "We have a lot of momentum in our economy, as evidenced by strong job numbers over the last year, record oil and gas well drilling and independent forecasts that place Saskatchewan at or near the top in economic growth this year and next." "Our population numbers may finally be starting to reflect all of Saskatchewan's good economic signals." The quarterly population numbers take in the adjustments to the 2001 Census data released earlier this fall. Cline said inter-provincial migration statistics over the last 12 months (October to October) were also encouraging. Inter-provincial net out-migration is down 53 per cent over the last year. The number of people moving to the province is up 12 per cent over that time. "We've been working very hard to tell the rest of Canada that Saskatchewan is a great place in which to live, work and do business," Cline said. "People move to our province for all sorts of reasons, and more than 18,000 people from other provinces have chosen to call Saskatchewan home over the last year. I'm confident our message of growth and opportunity is resonating with them."
