Census information is rolling out, and there is a little something that should come as no surprise: working aged men dominate the Western provinces, particularly Alberta and Saskatchewan.
An article I read about this phenomenon encouraged young Canadian women to flock to the west, including Estevan, which it singled out by name, in order to find a man. Apparently, that is the first thing women should be looking for.
Males make up 49.03 per cent of the Canadian population, but at the start of 2012, The Mercury was reporting that in 2011 males made up 50.6 per cent of the city's demographic. There were 166 more men than women in the Energy City.
According to this new census data, Estevan is fourth in the country for highest percentage of working aged men, behind only Petawawa, Ont., because of the army base, Wood Buffalo, Alta. and Cold Lake, Alta. Statscan reports men aged 15-64 make up 53.1 per cent of the population in Estevan, not even including the men older than that.
That makes Estevan one of the worst places to pick up chicks or go trawling for tail or any other derogatory terms we use for dating. Where were these stats before I moved out here anyway?
As a still fairly recent immigrant to Saskatchewan, my first thought when learning about these numbers is that my choice of location to settle down for the time being must be seen as foolish. Why would a guy want to move to Estevan when the demographics would much more favourably support an influx of women?
The answer is clear; if Canadian women, or women from any other country, decide to take this article's advice and set up shop in Saskatchewan's southeast in order to find a man, I would no longer look so foolish for moving here.
I was just a little bit ahead of the trend. Rather than going to where the women are, I headed out to Saskatchewan's sausage fest. It might seem like a rookie move in the dating world, but now that the word is out on the west's surplus of working aged men, I am right where today's young women are being directed to go.
I was simply being too proactive in my approach, heading west more than a year before women my own age would be encouraged to do the same.
There is also a bit of a dilemma I am seeing here. The story noted that the cities with the lowest percentage of men are where there are more industries suited to females. These cities are in Ontario and B.C.
In reality, the only hope we guys have out here is that this encouragement is strong enough to send women out to the Prairies, where their job prospects aren't as shiny. This sentiment also makes the premise of the article a little anti-feminist, suggesting they should want to sacrifice a career in order to find a man who can support them and start a family.
On the flip side, guys looking for a lady friend should be encouraged to head east where the women grow on trees as long as the season isn't too rainy. Those men shouldn't expect to find a job, however. Their goal must be explicitly to find sugar mamas, but more likely they'll find post-grads with $40,000 of debt.
Now that the word is out, it's only a matter of months before Canada's young bachelorettes make their way to Estevan. I've positioned myself in the right place in the country. It's just a waiting game now.
