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Stats show greying trend
Delta’s senior population has increased almost 22 per cent in the last five years BY
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YOUR SOURCE FOR LOCAL SPORTS, NEWS, WEATHER AND ENTERTAINMENT! WWW.DELTA-OPTIMIST.COM The Voice of Delta since 1922 FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2012
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Huntington votes against Family Day BY
SANDOR GYARMATI
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JESSICA KERR
jkerr@delta-optimist.com
sgyarmati@delta-optimist.com
The latest census figures show Delta continues to grey faster than the rest of Canada. Stats Canada this week released population numbers broken down by age group and gender. While Delta’s senior contingent isn’t anywhere near as high as Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island, where a whopping 47.2 per cent of the population is 65 and over, it’s still above the national average, and getting older. According to Stats Canada, the percentage of Delta’s population 65 and over stood at 15.5 per cent in 2011, compared to the national average of 14.8 per cent. The 65 and over category in Delta increased by 21.9 per cent from the census five years earlier, well above the 14.1 per cent rise nationally. Meanwhile, the 0 to 14 age group in Delta saw a 5.9 per cent drop from the previous census, while the 15 to 64 group saw a modest increase of 2.3 per cent. Delta’s overall population stood at 99,865 in 2011, a 3,235 increase from 2006. The median age in Delta in 2011 was 42.8, almost two years older than the last census. In comparison, the median age in B.C. in 2011 was 41.9, while Canada was 40.6. Earlier this year Delta council approved the creation of a seniors advisory committee aimed at providing seniors with input into municipal services, to identify shortfalls and to respond to development applications that might have a benefit to an aging population. It’s chair is Mayor Lois Jackson, first elected to council in See GREYING page 3
PHOTO BY
SANDOR GYARMATI
The 65 and over age group in Delta increased to 15.5 per cent of the population. That age group will almost double in less than 20 years.
Delta South MLA Vicki Huntington voted against the implementation of a new statutory holiday in the province this week. On Tuesday, B.C. MLAs threw their support behind Family Day, which will fall on the second Monday of February starting next year. While the legislation passed by a large margin, Huntington and two other MLAs, fellow independents Bob Simpson and John van Dongen, voted against it. Huntington said while she found to difficult to vote against giving people a mid-winter statutory holiday, she feels it will put even more pressure on the province’s small and mediumsized businesses. “These holidays can also cause hardship, especially in our present economic climate,” she said, adding Family Day will cost the average small business more than $1,135 in wages alone. That extra cost, on top of three minimum wage increases in a year and the transition back to the GST/PST system, makes for a difficult situation for many small business owners, she said. “All of this is at a time when margins are already slim, if not downright thin,” she said in the legislature on Tuesday. Huntington said she would support establishing a new holiday in B.C. if the economy was stronger and more stable. “But this is not the case at this point in history,” she said. “Right now my support must necessarily lean to the small and medium-sized businesses of my community.”
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