Whenever I hear politicians at City Hall and other activists speak about the need to prevent urban sprawl, I have often wondered how many City of Winnipeg employees actually live outside the city's boundaries?

Well, today I got the answer.

You see, I filed an information request with the City of Winnipeg back on January 31, 2012 for the number of employees with residences listed outside the city. According to the city's response, 1,649 employees don't live in Winnipeg. As the 2010 annual report notes that city had an average of 9,942 employees,  that means about 16.5% of the city's workforce doesn't live in Winnipeg.

I don't know if the number is high or low as I don't have any benchmarks to compare it to, but I do know the crowd worried about urban sprawl at the city won't have far to look if it wants to research why people choose to live outside Winnipeg. And when councillors and other organizations come up with new ideas on how to tax those outside the city...well there are plenty of plenty of city employees they can ask for feedback.

For the record, I totally understand why many city employees choose to live outside of Winnipeg - Oakbank, East St. Paul and many of the other bedroom communities around the perimeter are great places to live. Not to mention the fact that many of them have lower taxes. ;)

By: Colin Craig
Posted: February 13, 2012
Topic: Manitoba

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