NHS confirms Yorkton immigration boom

According to the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS) released last week by Statistics Canada, Yorkton is following some national trends, but not others in terms of Aboriginal peoples and immigration.

The survey indicates the fastest growing segment of the population in Canada is Aboriginal people. In 2006, First Nations, Métis, Inuit and mixed identity people made up 3.7 per cent compared to 4.3 per cent in the latest survey. That translates to a growth rate of 20.1 per cent compared to an overall population growth of just 5.7 per cent.

Yorkton bucked that trend with a decrease in Indigenous population from 1,720 in 2006 to 1,695 in 2011 or 11.1 per cent of the city in 2011 versus 11.7 per cent five years earlier.

Nevertheless, Yorkton is consistent with the country at large when it comes to the age profile of the Aboriginal population. In general, indigenous peoples are younger than non-indigenous with a median age of 27.7 years as opposed to 40.1 years.

In Yorkton, First Nations kids 14 and under represent 38.3 per cent of the total Aboriginal population while only 14.9 per cent of non-Aboriginal children are part of that age group.

In terms of immigration Yorkton saw an increase of more than double the national rate. During the intercensal period, 255 new immigrants came to Yorkton representing 41.5 per cent of the total immigrant population. Across Canada new immigrants made up only 17.2 per cent.

Even though there is an immigration boom, though, the non-immigrant population of Yorkton remains much greater than the nation overall. Almost 95 per cent of Yorktonites are Canadian-born compared to only 78 per cent country-wide.

And, while the most recent wave of immigrants tend to be highly visible, the ethnic makeup of the city is still predominantly Ukrainian (36.7 per cent), English (23 per cent) and German 22.6 per cent).

Of new Yorktonites, by far the most common origin is the Philippines at 22.8 per cent.

Whether these numbers are fully accurate, however, has been the subject of controversy because the 2011 NHS was voluntary following the federal government's scrapping of the traditional long-form census in 2010.

StatsCan released the 2011 NHS with a disclaimer that reads: "The NHS estimates are derived from a voluntary survey and are therefore subject to potentially higher non-response error than those derived from the 2006 census long form."

Some municipalities are not represented at all in the 2011 NHS because not enough people filled out the survey.

The national non-response rate was 26.1 per cent. Yorkton fared significantly better at 23.5 per cent.