The Town of La Ronge is conducting a municipal census next week to get an accurate count of the number of people living in the community.
An appeal was launched with Statistics Canada after the last federal census indicated the town’s population had dropped.
Town officials disagreed with that, citing things like building records, tax rolls and health numbers.
Two returning officers were hired to oversee the census and a team has been organized to ensure it is properly documented.
Mayor Thomas Sierzycki says there were two reasons for going through the whole process:
“To appeal our results from the actual federal census of 2011 — which showed a 15% decrease in our population — as well as to provide additional numbers, so that whenever we’re making a business case for additional businesses to come into La Ronge, or for provincial grants, we can supply our municipal census to prove that our population is higher than it was actually stated in 2011.”
Sierzycki says the census forms will be delivered during the evenings of April 17th to the 19th.
He says census workers will be available to help people fill out the forms.
The census forms will then be collected from April 24th to the 26th.
The information collected will be submitted to Statistics Canada and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.