2016_Alberta_municipal_censuses
Alberta has provincial legislation allowing its municipalities to conduct municipal censuses between April 1 and June 30 inclusive.[1][2] Due to the concurrency of Statistics Canada conducting the Canada 2016 Census in May 2016, the Government of Alberta offered municipalities the option to alter their 2016 municipal census timeframes to either March 1 through May 31 or May 1 through July 31.[3] Municipalities choose to conduct their own censuses for multiple reasons such as to better inform municipal service planning and provision, to capitalize on per capita based grant funding from higher levels of government, or to simply update their populations since the last federal census.[4]
With the dissolution of the villages of Galahad and Strome on January 1, 2016, Alberta had 354 municipalities in 2016.[5] Alberta Municipal Affairs recognized those conducted by 21 (5.9%) of these municipalities.[6] By municipal status, it recognized those conducted by 11 of Alberta's 18 cities, 5 of 108 towns, 2 of 90 villages, and 3 of 64 municipal districts.[6][lower-alpha 1] In addition to those recognized by Municipal Affairs, a census was planned by the Village of Forestburg for 2016 but was subsequently deferred to 2017.[7]
Some municipalities achieved population milestones as a result of their 2016 censuses. Airdrie became the eighth city in Alberta to exceed 60,000 residents, while Leduc surpassed 30,000 people and Cochrane grew beyond the 25,000 mark. Edmonton fell short of the 900,000-mark by 553 people, while Red Deer dipped back below 100,000 residents after surpassing that milestone in 2015.