“Demographic turnaround”, “record interregional assessment” and “positive migratory flow”. For the past few years, each update of the migration balance sheet has been an opportunity to rejoice in Gaspésie. Having become a true symbol of a successful demographic turnaround, the peninsula did not however obtain such results by chance. So, what is Gaspésie’s secret?
Posted at 10:14 a.m.
“Consistency,” frankly replies the director of the Vivre en Gaspésie strategy, Danik O’Connor. Since 2003, the man from Gaspé has been working in the bosom of regional development. In 1998, barely out of his studies at Laval University, he returned to his native Gaspésie. “I was really marginal to come back,” he agrees. “At that time, everyone was leaving.”
According to the Statistical Institute of Quebec, at the turn of the 2000s, Gaspésie was losing approximately 1,200 inhabitants per year to the benefit of other regions. “It was almost a village that was leaving”, illustrates the Gaspésien. “And a youth village. »