During the last Thunder Bay City Council Meeting, the discussion over the city’s new Smart Growth Plan included a few remarks by the mayor that the city was growing and that according to conversations that he has had, it is probably around 150,000. Of course, while it cannot be denied that Thunder Bay has seen its population grow over the last few years based on even anecdotal observation, the 150,000 number is vastly at odds with any estimate provided by Statistics Canada or even the City itself in its annual submissions of municipal data to the Ontario Government via the Financial Information Return (FIR). This type of mixed messaging and confusion on what Thunder Bay’s population is, including the usual casting of doubt on Statistics Canada, does not do anyone any favours. This becomes even more problematic given that Thunder Bay is engaged in long-range financial planning that also presents population and household numbers.
Thunder Bay will soon be dealing with a Long-Range Financial Plan for the 2026 to 2035 period, and the current draft presents population estimates (Plan starts at page 32 of December 9th Agenda for Finance and Administration Standing Committee) taking the city from 112,330 in 2020 to 117,003 in 2025. Over the same period, the same draft has the number of households in Thunder Bay growing from 47,180 to 48,405. In other words, the City of Thunder Bay says it has added 1,225 households since 2020 and 4,673 people. However, it should be noted that average household size in Thunder Bay is approximately 2.2 people so the additional households should probably only be associated with only an additional 2,695 people. Or perhaps it could be that our current population increase is also being accompanied by an increase in household size. In addition, the household number in the draft plan is also out of whack with the household number and population in the finally submitted Thunder Bay FIR report to the provincial government for 2024 which says Thunder Bay has 50,995 households and a population of 108,843.
This range of estimates – none of which incidentally approach 150,000 - begs the question as to what then the population of Thunder Bay is? Part of the issue is that there is a distinction between the population of Thunder Bay as contained within the city limits – the City of Thunder Bay – and the population of the immediate surrounding area as defined by Statistics Canada as the Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). The accompanying map shows that the city itself is contained with a much larger CMA which in turn is within an even larger District which according to Statistics Canada in 2024 had a population estimated at 157,293. Perhaps this the source of so much confusion among our elected officials in that they conflate the population of the district (which essentially stretches from Fort Frances to Wawa) with the population of the city itself which is anywhere from 108,843 to 117,003 or perhaps even the CMA at 133,063. That Thunder Bay is a service centre for a regional population of 157,293 that accesses its government, health, retail and education services is a reasonable statement but saying that our city itself is swarming with 150,000 people is not.
The accompanying figure plots three population series: the CMA and City populations from Statistics Canada and the City population according to the annual FIR reports - which I again must note, are filed by the City of Thunder with the provincial government. For the CMA, the StatsCan numbers show a decline from 2001 to 2011 from 126,696 to 124,926 followed by a flat population that starts to increase after 2016 and in 2024 is estimated at 133,063. For the city itself, the Statistics Canada numbers show a pattern like the CMA but the numbers are larger than the numbers the city itself seems to be using in its annual FIR reports. The City of Thunder Bay’s population according to this series declines from, 113,298 in 2001 to 110,861 in 2016 and then starts to grow and in 2024 was estimated at 117,100. According to the StatsCan estimates, between 2016 and 2024, the Thunder Bay CMA grew 6.6 percent and the city itself 5.6 percent. However, the FIR numbers say the Thunder Bay had a population of 115,419 in 2001 which shrank to 107,909 in 2016 and has since grown an anemic 0.9 percent to 108,843.
If the city is making the case that its population numbers are underestimates that affect the grants it receives from the federal and provincial governments, a key part of the problem is that the city itself seems to be submitting numbers in reports that are much lower than the StatsCan estimates. On the other hand, the provincial government probably has a good handle on how many people live in the city of Thunder Bay versus the surrounding area based on Driver’s License and OHIP usuage data and does believe the population of the city itself is closer to 108,000 with a large percentage of the CMA population outside the city. Indeed, based on the FIR estimate, 20 percent of the CMA population lives outside the city limits and is probably a factor in all the traffic being generated as they come in and out of town accessing city services.
Of course, rather than blame someone else, the solution here in part is that the city of Thunder Bay needs to get its act together in terms of getting a handle on its own numbers. For a city with 3,207 employees (2,165 full time, 995 part time and 47 seasonal), Thunder Bay seems unwilling or unable to hire a couple of graduate school level trained economists and statisticians who could provide a more disciplined and consistent approach to compiling and analyzing its economic and population data to make its case with both higher tiers of government and its own municipal ratepayers. Instead, we are left with plans, pronouncements and submissions that have conflicting data and population estimates that seem to emerge out of thin air.
