North Bay mayor Al McDonald says he's disappointed that the latest census from Statistics Canada show the city's population dropped almost four per cent in the last five years.
In 2016 it was 51,553, down from 53,651 in 2011, a drop of 3.9 per cent.
"I'm disappointed," McDonald told BayToday. "We were hoping that the trend was going to go up because we've been working flat out to grow the city. There seems to be some confusion too, in the sense that we had record building numbers in 2016, the highest in five years, yet we saw a decrease in population."
See the comparison Population and Dwelling counts
But McDonald says it's a northern Ontario issue.
"I think Sudbury went up a little bit but everybody else basically went down a bit, so we're disappointed for sure."
The Mayor believes the city needs to engage the province and federal government to come up with a pan-northern Ontario strategy.
"We can't do it by ourselves with limited resources, but there's no question in my mind we need to have a marketing campaign in the 416 and 905 area to really put North Bay on the map and the radar."
McDonald doesn't think the city is losing residents to communities just south of here because of high taxes.
South River is up 6.2 per cent, while Powassan jumped 2.3 per cent and Burk’s Falls up 1.4 per cent.
"No, I think it's a lifestyle change. Some people choose to live in the country but if you look at South river and Powassan, they're up 77 and 65 people, but we're talking 2,000 people. Callander and East Ferris are down as well. It's a declining birthrate and we need to do a better job of economic development."
Callander lost one resident and sits at 3,863, while East Ferris lost 16 residents for a 2016 total of 4,750.
West Nipissing rose 1.5 per cent to 14,364.
Parry Sound rose four per cent to 6,321.
"We recognize people in the surrounding areas still shop and work in North Bay, said McDonald, but to me that's not the trend. If you look at the GTA Hamilton area it's exploding. that tells me that Canadians are moving to the big, larger urban centres and we need a strategy on immigration to draw people further north.
"People do not want to live in northern Ontario because of our climate or less people want to live in northern Ontario's climate? Absolutely that's part of it, but how do we draw people further north? They're all settling in the GTA on the immigration side so what can we do to get these people moving north?
"This is something Invest North Bay is working on. I'll be honest, I don't even have one dollar to promote the City of North Bay. I don't have a budget to even place an add in your newspaper so council is going to have to free up some resources so that we can promote the City in the 416-905 areas because there is huge growth and people are moving to surrounding municipalities because it costs so much to live there. We need to convince and attract some of those people that are leaving the GTA to travel a bit further north."
Also see: At the mid point of its four year term, are you satisfied city council has North Bay headed in the right direction?
North Bay's population over the years.
1891.......2210
1901.......2350.......+6.3%
1911.......7737.......+229.2%
1921.......10692.....+38.2%
1931.......15528.....+45.2%
1941.......15411.....-0.8%
1951.......17944......+16.4%
1961.......23781......+32.5%
1971.......49187......+106.8%
1981.......51268......+4.2%
1991.......55405......+8.1%
1996.......54332.......-1.9%
2001.......52771.......-2.9%
2006.......53966.......+2.3%
2011.......53651.......-0.6%
2016.......51553.......-3.9%
