Niverville now Manitoba's fastest-growing municipality, 2021 census says

After living in Winnipeg for nearly 20 years, Kevin Yakabowski moved to the commuter town of Niverville to get more bang for his housing buck and reap the benefits of a more cohesive community.

"I know all my neighbours. Everybody around here has got my garage door code. We're all really close and I'm going to say sometimes in the city, I didn't even know half my neighbours when I lived there," said Yakabowski, who moved 25 kilometres south of Winnipeg after weighing the pros and cons of life in a bedroom community.

The 2021 census reveals he's not alone. Since 2016, Niverville's population grew from 4,610 people to 5,947, a population gain of 29 per cent, Statistics Canada says.

That makes Niverville the fastest-growing municipality in Manitoba.

Mayor Myron Dyck said this is a blessing and a challenge.

"On the one hand, you're very excited to see that people are interested in being in a community," he said. "On the other hand, growth comes with its challenges, such as infrastructure."

The population and dwelling data from the 2021 census, announced Wednesday morning, help determine how much money governments allocate to communities based on needs for everything from housing to policing.

The population counts will be followed later this year by Statistics Canada releases on demographic breakdowns, income, languages and citizenship.

After Niverville, the fastest-growing municipalities in Manitoba are West St. Paul (25 per cent), Neepawa (23 per cent), Morden (15 per cent) and Macdonald (13 per cent).

Of those communities, only Neepawa and Morden are outside the Winnipeg census metropolitan area, which includes the provincial capital and nearby municipalities where at least half the working-age population commutes to the city to work and go to school.

The Winnipeg CMA grew almost seven per cent from 2016 to 2021, from 783,099 to 834,678 people.

Winnipeg itself, without its neighbours, grew six per cent over five years, from 705,244 people to 749,607. 

Growth in the city and other communities could have been even higher, but the pandemic severely restricted international travel and curtailed immigration to Manitoba by roughly 50 per cent in 2020 alone.

Some communities shrank outright from 2016 to 2021.