Despite a 2% drop in population since 2011, Chatham-Kent’s CAO Don Shropshire is happy with the direction the community is heading, and is encouraged by the latest Census figures released earlier this week.
Shropshire told the Sydenham Current he was not surprised that Chatham-Kent’s population took a 2% dive, going from 103,671 to 101,647.
“The pen line has been going down on us for years,” he said.
“In fact in 2012 after the last census was reported, council received some recommendations and adopted some priorities for both economic activity or economic growth and also population growth, and that’s really the plan we have been doing. In some respects I am thankful that some of the efforts are paying off and the decline wasn’t as big as it was in 2006 and 2011.”
Shropshire said between 2006 and 2011 Chatham-Kent and Southwestern Ontario overall was in the middle of a major recession.
“We were hit harder than most of the Province and a lot of it was due to the auto sector decline and jobs being shipped over seas,” he said.
“All of the research we have done says that the biggest single factor about whether to stay in a community or move to a community, is whether they have got a good job. So when you see that big decline in the economy, that is when people left.”
Shropshire said the Municipality has been undertaken a huge amount of work and council’s top two priorities has been jobs and people.
“How do you stimulate economic investment and activity that is going to lead to good jobs,” he said.
“What can we do to make this community an attractive one to make people want to stay in or to immigrate to Chatham-Kent. Those have been the top two priorities.”
Going in the right direction
When looking at the 2016 Census results, Shropshire said he believes council has the right directions.
“What Council has been trying to focus their attention on in investments in the last five years has been jobs and people and that is exactly what this number tells us,” he said.
“We slowed the decline. In the previous Census report we lost close to 4,000 people. This time it was down to 1,600 and change. So you know I am happy that it is decreasing but lets face it, we want to try and stabilize the population or even start seeing an increases.”
He added: “I think Council has made the right decisions in terms of the investments and we just have to keep working hard at it and make sure the plans come together so that the next time we see a Census we are going to see an increase in the numbers.”
Unemployment rate dropping
Shropshire said he is happy to see many more people with jobs in the community.
“Our population has gotten back to work,” he said.
“We have decreased our unemployment stats. We’ve gone from about over 10% unemployment. We have been double digits for a number of years but now we are down to 5.8% unemployment rate. For the first time in about 20 years and in the last six months we have been below the provincial average.”
Shropshire added: “We still have some work to do. We are trying to raise the quality of the jobs to make sure that people are being paid better and enjoy a better quality of life, but that is a really good indication.”
Shropshire said the real estate market is booming in Chatham-Kent as well.
” The real estate folks will tell you that it’s the best year for the real estate market in over 20 years,” he said.
“The price of housing is going up and house sales have been brisk . So it tells me that a few things are going in the right direction. So we are happy about that, but there is still more to do.”
Chatham-Kent is a welcoming community
Back in September Chatham-Kent was approved by the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada as an official “Welcoming Community” for all newcomers and refugees.
Shropshire said this is one of the opportunities Chatham-Kent has to grow their population.
“Chatham-Kent has been working on what do we have to do to raise the profile of our community and make sure the people not living in Chatham-Kent understand what a great community this is and what we have to offer to encourage them to move here,” he said.
“Like I said in 2012 we made recommendations to council. They directed administration to start building a strategy to attract more to the community. We are actually the only community in Canada that has been recognized as a welcoming community and that is because we have done all of these steps that newcomers to Chatham-Kent have the support that they need to be successful and to do a good transition to the communities.”
Shropshire added: “That was a big step. We also have been doing that in collaboration with a lot of community partners like the Adult Language and Learning Centre, where people can learn language skills when they move here. A lot of other community groups help with that process.”
Here is more coverage about the 2016 Census:
