Amalgamation

[ijmorlan]

For one thing, the census doesn't not count temporary residents, be it students or cottage dwellers or seasonal workers.

Doesn’t not count?

[…]
At the same time, then, should the city deduct citizens that are perhaps out of city attending schools? I guarantee that Waterloo doesn't. And likely no city does.

I’m pretty sure you’re right about that one

But one thing I do believe, if you are going to be counting temp residents, who might be there for no more than 180 days per year (as I guarantee many of the students go home for weekends, holidays, summer, etc), you then need to factor them into other numbers. For example, when Waterloo talks about their household income being higher than Cambridge or Kitchener -- it is NOT when you factor in student population. They'd be on the low end.  They can't have it both ways.

Yes, those are good points. That being said, depending on the purpose to which the numbers are being put, different numbers may be appropriate. For example, when planning transit (or roads, or any other municipal function, for that matter), it would be insane to ignore people who are only here some of the time. I understand in Ottawa there were a bunch of idiots arguing the LRT was not a good project because it’s mostly for students, and “they just leave after 4 years”, as if the students aren’t replaced by new students.

First picture, 2009, Waterloo had 119,000. 10 years later, it's at 105,000.  The sign changed downward because Waterloo had changed the sign prior to 2009 to reflect student population. When the census was done, MTO reverted to sign to provincial standards (Waterloo had zero rights in changing the provincial sign in the first place). After the MTO did this, for some unknown reason, the city of Waterloo removed the signage going into Kitchener.

That’s pretty funny. So, do you happen to know, did Waterloo just slap stickers over the MTO sign, or put up its own, or what?