Paradise talking City status again

By Mark Squibb/January 20, 2023

Will Paradise ever become a city?

It’s a subject that’s been broached many times over the years, and it appears that there is still appetite amongst council to seek the designation.

Councillor Elizabeth Laurie, chairperson of the Administration and Corporate Services Committee, notified council during the January 10 meeting that she would be adding the item to her committee’s next meeting.

Mayor Dan Bobbett said that funnily enough, residents had approached him at different functions over the Christmas holidays and asked him the very question.

“From the last census report, we are now the third largest municipality, and a few people asked the question — ‘What signifies city status?’ ‘What do you need to do?’ and all that,” said Bobbett.

Laurie agreed that councillors likely have several questions of their own along those lines.

“Moving forward, I would just like to get some official discussions moving on that,” said Laurie. “I know that that’s something that you’ve been interested in for some time. So, we’re just going to add that to the meeting agenda.”

For years, folks have touted Paradise as one of the province’s fastest growing municipalities, and the numbers bear that out.

As per the 2021 Statistics Canada census, the population in Paradise sits at 22,957, up about 7.3 percent from the 2016 census, which tallied 21,389 residents.

That jump is the largest recorded increase in the province from 2016 to 2021, with Clarenville coming in second place with a population increase of 6.6 percent.