Migration 2006 Census Release
What's happening in Canada, BC, and the Parksville Census Agglomeration

The most recent release from the 2006 Census is now available free on-line from Statistics Canada. The migration release is a very rich dataset and can be considered an early present by social scientists and all other explorers of demographic information. What does the latest release tell us about our communities?

The 2006 census found that approximately 6,200,000 people (of the over 31,000,000 people in Canada) were born outside of Canada. Between the 2001 and 2006 censuses, 1,100,000 more foreign born people contributed to this number.

During the same time period, BC gained close to 180,000 people from other countries (the number of people who moved out of BC cannot be estimated by the census). This brings the number of people born outside of the country and living in the province to approximately 1,120,000.

Also, between 2001 and 2006, BC gained 164,710 people from other provinces, but lost 142,575 people, resulting in a positive net migration of approximately 22,000 migrants. A closer look at the census data shows that more young adults, and particularly males in their twenties, leave rather than move to BC. Perhaps not surprisingly, BC lost 10,000 people to Alberta between 2001 and 2006. While more young adults left, BC and particularly the east coast of Vancouver Island, have received older migrants.

It is interesting to note that approximately 40% of Canadians moved at least once between 2001 and 2006. This number rises to 46% of British Columbians, and 50% of those enumerated in the Parksville Census Agglomeration (CA) in 2006.

Most of the movers in the Parksville CA (Parksville, Nanaimo Area F, G, ad H, and Qualicum Beach with a total population of 25,500) moved to the area from another municipality, whether in Canada or from elsewhere in BC. Only 14% of the people in the Parksville area moved within the same municipality, well below the provincial estimate of 23%. Most movers in the Parksville CA came from other parts of the province (24% of the population or 6,100 people), while approximately 10% of the population (2,460 people) came from other provinces. Two percent of the people (approximately 500) in the Parksville CA were found to be from other countries. The countries that provided the largest number of international in-migrants to the Parksville CA were Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, India, the Philippines and, Germany, and Russia.


Note to Reader: The numbers in this release are based on a 20% sample; one in five households received the long census form, wherein questions regarding migration and other socio-economic variables are found. While the number of immigrants can be estimated from the census, the number of people who moved out of Canada are not counted.

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