| Feb 23, 2012


Editorial by Jeff Green

The recently released census results that show a population decline in Frontenac County is bad news for the region, particularly because permanent residents are the mainstay of the local economy.

Most of our businesses are devoted to building and fixing houses, delivering services to the people in those houses, and where possible, feeding and selling products to the 26,375 people who live in Frontenac County.

With the exception of some farmland in the south end of the county, and a few logging operations in the north end, catering to the seasonal and permanent populations is all there is to Frontenac County economy.

Fortunately, the permanent population is augmented by at least as many seasonal residents, but as local retailers in particular know full well, ten months of shoulder seasons between a July 1 to August 31 high season is a very, very long time.

The latest census is only one piece of information, and other factors suggest the situation is better, particularly construction activity, which has been steady since 2006, and in 2011 was very strong in South Frontenac ($30 million) and Central Frontenac ($8 million).

Information about poverty rates and aging, and unemployment are not so positive, particularly in the north end of the county.

Another way of putting the latest census into context is to look at previous census data. All of the Frontenac townships saw an increase in permanent population between 2001 and 2006, with South Frontenac gaining over 1,750 residents, an increase of over 11%. In all, the Frontenac County population jumped by over 2,200 people between 2001 and 2006, an increase of 9%, and in comparison the drop between 2006 and 2011 was minimal, only 283 people, or 1.1%

The re-assuring aspect to all this is that more people live in Frontenac County in 2011 than did in 2001, by a fair bit. The disheartening thing is that the healthy growth between 2001 and 2006 has dissipated.

It is also disheartening that among neighbouring counties, Frontenac is the only one that actually lost people.

Lanark County saw an increase of 3%, and Lennox and Addington had 3.2% growth, while Leeds and Grenville was basically stagnant with 0.1% growth.

A week after the census data came out, Frontenac County Council met last week to discuss their budget. At that meeting there was a real sense that a number of councilors are uncomfortable with the way the entire Integrated Sustainability program that the county undertook several years ago has been playing out.

At one point, Warden Janet Gutowski expressed her exasperation with what some of the councilors were saying.

“It seems clear that members of council would like to revisit the county's Strategic Plan,” she said.

Rather than re-jigging something as nebulous as their strategic plan, county council might consider something else, giving their entire sustainability department the task of bringing more people into the county.

Over the past five years, the county has accumulated a number of employees to deal with sustainability.

Under this catch-all category, there are now two planners, a manager of economic development, a GIS department, and an assistant/communications person.

That department is ideally placed to spearhead efforts at selling the county as a place to live, and in fact it is already engaged in a number of initiatives in the areas of seniors housing and land use planning that are based on keeping people here and bringing new ones in. Council needs only to nudge those efforts forward, and push other initiatives aside for now.

The 150th anniversary of Frontenac County is coming up, and the county is planning to celebrate its history. That look back could be tied right in with a recruitment drive.

The census figures might be the kind of thing that should set off alarm bells, but it is a fact that Frontenac County cannot afford to lose more people, and with a population that is aging faster than the provincial average, it will take a lot of work to stem the tide of population decline.

The first thing that needs to happen is for Frontenac County Council to muster up some leadership.

The goal of creating a sustainable population base would be something that the council could lay out for itself and its employees.

That goal can be put in concrete terms. What about striving for a population of 29,000 in the 2016 census and measuring all ‘sustainability’ efforts against that outcome?

 

 

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