Today is the last day for the municipality to finish up the census.
It needs 99 percent of people in Wood Buffalo counted in order to get the results accepted by the province.
Municipal spokesperson Brendan Proce says the data is invaluable to planners.
“If we know exactly how many people are living here, that puts us in a better position to provide the services and the infrastructure that the community needs to grow,” he said.
“It’s primarily a planning piece,” he added. “If you’re going to have people over to your house for an event, you want to know how many people are coming, and it works the same for us, but on a much larger scale.”
If the city can’t get 99 percent of people counted, the province will use the federal estimate of fewer than 70 thousand people to decide on funding.
That could mean more than 3 million dollars lost for the city.
Proce says there’s no reason not to get counted.
“We’re not going in to see if your basement suite is up to code, or how many people are allowed to be living in your house,” he said. “We just want to get a count so we can provide the services and infrastructure people need. It’s not shared with Revenue Canada, and it’s not shared with our bylaw.”
Two years ago, the province rejected the RMWB’s census.
You can fill out a census form by clicking here.
Published July 30, 2012
