Census shows 6,635 residents in Town of Bonnyville

The population count is in. There are 6,635 residents in the Town of Bonnyville — at least that’s the official number.

The results of the Town’s initiative to get a more accurate population count was revealed at the latest regular council meeting on Tuesday night.

With 99 per cent of residents polled, the figure of 6,635 is also met with a “shadow” population of 300 more residents, which includes out of town workers.

“That’s pretty amazing that we were able to catch that many residents. I guess the only thing is this does not include the shadow population only, because in order to include it, the shadow population would have to make up minimum of 10 per cent of what our residents are, and they’re not at that threshold, so we couldn’t include them,” said Mayor Elisa Brosseau on The Morning After. 

The goal of the accurate count was to see if they can leverage themselves into more grant opportunities.

“If we’ve got more residents, that means that we’ve got more infrastructure to take care of, pipes in the ground, more of everything that we’ve got to do for more people. In the end, we need more money. So if we can prove, what our actual numbers are, then that helps us in the long run.”

The last federal count was done in 2021. The Statistics Canada Population for the Town of Bonnyville at that time was 6,359.