As the Island contemplates its future economic options, Independent MP Terry Lister urged Government to get a clearer picture of the Island’s actual population.

The Sandys South representative said “flawed” official Government figures are resulting in misleading trend information.

Rising in the House of Assembly to debate the annual report of the Registry General for the year ended December 31, 2012, Mr Lister conceded he’d chosen an unusual topic.

“However, these are unusual times,” Mr Lister added, noting that this week will see MPs debate the implications of the Spending and Government Efficiency (SAGE) Commission’s recommendations.

The Island has tracked its population at ten-year intervals with a census, while the Registry General annually reports population figures — but doesn’t take into account the effects of emigration, or immigration.

“This means that the Registry General knowingly ignores the in and out movement of guest workers and their dependents, and also ignores the emigration and non-return of Bermudians,” Mr Lister told MPs.

Nevertheless, figures show a 21 percent decline in births over the last four years, from 821 in 2008 to 648 in 2012.

The drop in non-Bermudian babies born in Bermuda will have “ongoing implications for the enrolment in private schools”, he said.

Combined with the 17 percent drop since 2008 of babies born to one Bermudian parent, the two figures of decline have immediate implications for teacher hirings, and suggest “the possibility of school closures”.

Overall, he said, the population had declined 12 percent since 2008, which would have “sharply negative consequences in any economy”.

“This fact alone has serious implications for how we recover, and how we go forward.”

Between 2000 and 2010, 680 Bermudians emigrated, Mr Lister said — and has likely continued beyond 2010.

The rate of non-return of Bermuda’s students, still an unknown, “further adds to Bermuda’s declining population”.

“This supports the view that the population of Bermudians has peaked, and has since been falling,” Mr Lister said.

Over the decade preceding the last census in 2010, Mr Lister said that virtually all Bermudian population growth had been achieved through the granting of status.

He continued: “Some may not like this, but because of Bermuda’s low and rapidly declining birth rate, significant growth in Bermuda’s working population can only occur if Bermuda’s residential population is augmented by growth in the non-Bermudian component. We have to be willing to add to the number of people here from overseas.”

Mr Lister said that GDP, along with customs duties, private car registration, Belco demand, retail sales and the demand for housing, all showed growth from 2000 to 2008 — followed by a drop.

A concurrent fall in resident population from 2009 spurred “a national economic downturn”, he said, which underpins Bermuda’s four-year economic recession.

“As long as the population continues to fall, the economy will continue to decline. You can’t get around that.”

Mr Lister maintained that the “best answer” would be an increasing residential population.

However, he said that as recently as last month, Government’s official position was that there has been “no substantial decline” in the Bermudian residential population.

“This failure to speak with one voice has created confusion, and the people, as they listen to their leaders, are not able to get a clear picture of what has happened with the population issue.”

He said the Ministry of Finance put resident population at 65,002 by July of this year — and yet, as of September, the SAGE Commission reported 67,500.

“That has to be of concern to us, as we are relying on SAGE to carry us somewhere — and if SAGE is working on numbers that are 2,000-plus off, it has implications for the decision-making that has been brought to us.”

Other measures show population rose and since fell, he continued.

“This challenge of what is the correct figure carried over into the work of the SAGE Commission. From what I glean, SAGE had difficulty in getting accurate information in some areas.”

Mr Lister called on Government to “sort this matter out — to determine how residential population should be measured”.

“We must not leave it to the people to guess that things must be getting worse.”

He concluded: “Looking forward, there are four key factors I want to leave with the Government. Should Government revoke a range of work permits in order to provide jobs for Bermudians who are unemployed or under employed? Should Government encourage a general return of non-Bermudians in order to keep Bermuda’s residential population from declining further? Should Government encourage a general return of business residents in order to re-expand Bermuda’s contracting economy, and provide job opportunities for Bermudians? Should Government leave matters as they are, and let these now-known population trends, and the global free market, dictate what happens to Bermuda?”

As MPs grapple over the way forward, Mr Lister asked the House: “Is it a SAGE-style slash and burn, or is it the orderly regrowth of the economy — recognising that without controlled increases in the residential population, there can be no rebounding of the economy?”

Economic Development Minister Grant Gibbons admitted that one challenge for the new administration had been “a lack of good data”.

“We wondered what the former Government was basing a lot of its decisions on,” he said. “A lot of the data just seemed not to be there.”

Declaring himself sceptical of the census data, Dr Gibbons said jobs figures were “a more reliable indicator of what’s actually going on”.

Bermudian jobs dropped around 2,000 from 2008 to 2012, while non-Bermudian jobs declined by almost 3,000.

“The fact of the matter is, I think Government’s perspective has been pretty clear. We’ve got to replace some, if not all of those jobs,” he said.

Answering from the Opposition side was MP Walton Brown, who questioned the use of 2008 as “the reference point for determining the optimal workforce”.

“I question that because it was 2008 that was the exceptional period,” he said. “That was the height of the boom on so many levels.”

The Pembroke Central MP also disputed the notion that “you need to bring in people to sustain the economy”.

Calling for a focus on investment opportunities and tourism, Mr Brown asked: “Why don’t we focus on the economy, and see where that takes us?”