The numbers are in, following the City of Grande Prairie’s 2024 Municipal Census, which shows a significant increase in population.
According to the city, Grande Prairie’s population count now sits at 70,385 people, with an average age of 35.3 years, and a strong retention rate with more than 80 per cent of residents saying they have lived in the city for two or more years.
Grande Prairie Mayor Jackie Clayton says she was pleased to see the community has grown, despite how laborious the process might have been.
“It’s great to see the growth in our community, the census was a very long process with regards to getting people to participate on their own, door-knocking individuals that didn’t fill out the information online, but at the end of the day it’s good to see growth in our community,” she says. “We’ve felt that growth in everything from new housing and recreation uptakes, but knowing for sure what that number is, is of significant importance.”
While the growth itself was nice to see, the mayor says the numbers mean so much more than just more people. She says the city can now access approximately $200K per year more in funding from the provincial and federal governments.
“Those numbers are used for funding, and support we get from the federal government so it was great to see growth, that means a little bit of an increase in our funding from the province, which every little dollar helps,” she says. “That’s why we stressed the importance of this census while we were doing it because these numbers are really to back our demands and expectations to the province when we look for funding.”
Clayton maintains that now is too early to say for sure what the funding bump will be used for, given the city’s upcoming municipal election.
“The budget is forecasted based on sum growth, but the exact number, now that it’s in, that slight increase will come back to council’s budget deliberations this fall,” she says.
Interestingly, Grande Prairie saw a slight average age increase when compared to the last census numbers; however, the city remains one of the country’s youngest communities.
“It showed that we are slightly older of a community than we were last time we did a census, which I think is great to see, but it also shows that we’re very young, with the average age of 35, we’re still one of the youngest cities and communities over 25,000 people, and it goes to show our community will continue to grow,” Clayton says.
Since 2021, the city has maintained steady growth, with an average annual population increase of 3.1 per cent, or 6,244 new people, over the past three years
