by Randy Boswell, Postmedia News

OTTAWA — Statistics Canada is set to reveal the initial results of the 2011 census, the first complete national head count in five years.

On Wednesday morning, the Ottawa-based federal agency will release detailed population data for all provinces, territories and municipalities across the country. The numbers are likely to show — as they did in the last census, in 2006 — the increasing people power of Western Canada and the steady population growth throughout a nation that remains one of the most favoured destinations in the world for immigrants seeking a new homeland.

At the time of the 2006 census, Canada's population was pegged at 31,612,897 people, up about 1.6 million from the previous coast-to-coast-to-coast tally in 2001.

But by late 2007, StatsCan was estimating the country's population probably already had surpassed 33 million, a rate of growth that suggests the total number of Canadians today should be close to or even beyond 35 million.

As in 2006, it's expected Canada's overall rate of population growth will be the highest among all G8 nations, another indicator to be detailed in Wednesday's initial release of the 2011 census results. Canada remains, however, by far the least populous of those eight nations, with a little more than one-tenth as many people as the G8-leading U.S. (which has more than 310 million residents) and about half as many citizens as France, Britain and Italy, each of which has between 60 million and 65 million people.

The 2006 census showed Alberta's population surging relative to the rest of the country, with the number of people in the province topping three million for the first time ever and its 10.6 per cent growth from 2001 to 2006 running about twice the national average.

British Columbia, meanwhile, had just surpassed the four-million mark at the time of the 2006 census.

The proportion of Canada's population living in major urban areas has been climbing steadily for generations, and that trend, too, is sure to be seen continuing in the latest census data.

The 2011 census was carried out under a cloud of controversy after the Conservative government scrapped the mandatory, long-form questionnaire that had been used for years to gather the most detailed information about Canada's population from a random segment of citizens. It isn't likely to be immediately clear whether the move to a voluntary questionnaire sent to 4.5 million Canadian households in 2011 will have eroded the quality of information gathered by census takers.

Nevertheless, the initial results from the 2011 population count — along with further, more detailed releases scheduled for later this year — are expected to supply important raw material for debates on impending social and political reforms in the country.

The inexorable movement of the Baby Boom bulge into older age categories — a major concern in all sectors of society, and one that recently triggered Prime Minister Stephen Harper's musings about possible delayed payouts of the Old Age Security benefit in Canada's future — is presenting policymakers with a wide range of challenges as they plan for and begin coping with an aging population.

Among the social and economic challenges Canada faces because of the "greying" of its population are rising health-care costs and ongoing — sometimes critical — labour shortages.

Meanwhile, increasing population pressures in Canadian cities have not only prompted concern about crumbling municipal infrastructure and strained public services, but also about the need for an electoral-system realignment to ensure fair representation in Parliament and provincial legislatures for the fastest-growing suburbs and satellite cities.

Wednesday's census data is expected to shine a spotlight on the specific urban areas most deserving of additional seats under a democratic reform plan recently announced by the Conservative government and designed to increase the number of MPs in Ontario by 15, in both B.C. and Alberta by six, and in Quebec by three.