We’ve had some very good news of late.
Some of this news has to do with the numbers that are us and some of it has to do with the numbers that mean the most to us.
The numbers that are us are the 2016 Census numbers.
During the Saskatchewan economy’s bad three-year run of declining resource revenue, there has been plenty of bad news.
Consider January’s employment numbers that show that there were 4,800 less people working in Saskatchewan than a year earlier — what’s clearly become an unfortunate trend for the province.
At the same time, we are seeing a newer and arguably more unfortunate trend.
While Saskatchewan’s unemployed used to simply move west to Alberta to find work, the downturn in the oilpatch means that this province has been hit equally hard. As a result, Saskatchewan unemployment keeps increasing — 6,200 more in January compared with a year early to 42,800.
Added to the bad economic news is even worse budget news — the $1.2-billion deficit for 2016-17 that Premier Brad Wall announced at the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association convention. Because of it, we are now talking about job and/or wage cuts and tax increases.
But within the flood of bad numbers, emerged some rather good ones — the 2016 Census numbers that show Saskatchewan grew by 64,971 people from 2011 to 2016.
Admittedly these numbers are better for some than others.
The majority of growth (91 per cent) occurred in the province’s 16 cities that increased by 59,189 or 9.9 per cent. The population of Regina increased by 11.8 per cent and Saskatoon’s population increased by 12.5 per cent.
The Statistics Canada numbers are less kind to Saskatchewan’s towns that grew by 3,939 people or 2.7 per cent and villages that only increased by 258 people or .05 per cent. Rural municipalities fared slightly better, increasing by by 1,934 people or 1.1 per cent.
But population growth always needs to be put in perspective.
Between 1996 and 2001 and 2001 to 2006, Saskatchewan — provincewide — lost 1.1 per cent and 1.1 per cent in of its population in each of these five-year census periods, respectively.
For whatever other criticism can now be directed at Wall, the 6.7-per-cent population increase (between 2006 and 2011) and the 6.3-per-cent growth (between 2011 and 2016) represent the biggest boom this province has seen in 90 years.
Moreover, it surpasses the Saskatchewan Party’s commitment in the 2007 campaign to grow the province by 100,000 people in a decade.
Of course, with the all the uncertainty in today’s world, celebrating such victories have been a little tough for Wall government of late.
That said, the Saskatchewan Premier and the entire province seemed to get some rather positive news out of last week’s meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump.
There were no majority announcements — only hints from Trump that his problem with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is with Mexico (although he did say the Canadian portion of the deal might require “tweaking”).
The good news is about preserving already-existing numbers.
Saskatchewan’s exports to the United States, alone, are as follows: 2012, $20 billion; 2013, $21 billion; 2014, $21 billion; 2015, $18 billion, and; 2016 (estimated) $13 billion.
Compare that with Saskatchewan’s total exports to all countries (including the U.S): 2012, $32 billion; 2013, $32 billion; 2014, $35 billion; 2015, $33 billion, and: 2016 (estimated), $26 billion.
And consider the commodities that poured out of rural Saskatchewan into the U.S. in 2016: crude oil, $5 billion; potash, $2 billion; canola oil, meal and seeds, $2 billion; wheat, $260 million, cattle, $251 million; lentils, $127 million, and; agricultural machinery, $97 million.
At least for now, it appears trade is less threatened by tariffs.
Hopefully, this good news will continue.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
