If the Royal City seemed just a bit more crowded in the last five years, those suspicions were confirmed with Wednesday morning's release of Statistics Canada's 2011 census of population.
New Westminster now has 65,976 residents, an increase of more than 7,000 from the 58,549 people who lived in the city in 2006.
The 12.7 per cent increase is substan-tially higher than the 4.4 per cent increase in Vancouver, and slightly more than the 10.1 per cent increase in neighbouring Burnaby.
The increased New Westminster numbers mirror the overall increase across the country, as Canada's population increased 5.9 per cent, from 31,612,897 in 2006 to 33,476,688 in 2011. Canada's population increased 5.4 per cent between 2001 and 2006.
According to the Stats Canada report, the increase in the growth rate was attrib-utable to a slightly higher fertility rate and an increase in the number of non-permanent residents and immigrants.
Canada's population increased at a faster rate than the population of any other member of the G8 group of industrialized nations between 2006 and 2011. This was also the case between 2001 and 2006.
Net international migration accounted for two-thirds of Canada's population growth during the last 10 years, with natural increase, or the difference between births and deaths, accounting for the other one-third increase.
Stats Canada also breaks down the numbers according to federal electoral districts.
For the two New Westminster ridings, the percentage increase is roughly the same. In New Westminster-Coquitlam, population increased from 111,231 to 122,899 in the last five years, an increase of 10.5 per cent. In Burnaby-New Westminster, the numbers increased 11.1 per cent, from 118,713 to 131,917.
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