The rural area in Manitoba where many services and amenities are close by: A data snapshot

For those who live in or are considering a move to the rural and small town (RST) area near Brandon, Manitoba, most parts of it have got what you need, as you can see on Statistics Canada’s Rural Data Viewer.

Recently, a new database called ProximityRST, which covers all Canadian RST areas, was added to the Rural Data Viewer. This information gives users an idea of the proximity of a particular dissemination block (DB) within a census subdivision (CSD) (equivalent to a municipality) to nine categories of services and amenities such as primary or secondary education, health care and pharmacies. RST areas are CSDs outside census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations.

Users can select the service or amenity type to view the proximity values by DB, then pan across Canada on the map and zoom into an area of interest. It is also possible to click on a specific DB to display values for all nine services and amenities for the DB.

Users can also type in the name or numeric code of a CSD and then select their choice from a drop-down list to zoom in to the area of interest.

Proximity to a particular service or amenity is presented on a scale from 0 to 1 (displayed from shades of red to green) to indicate the proximity value for the DB relative to all other RST DBs in Canada. Proximity values are calculated for services and amenities that are within a 15-kilometre driving distance from a DB.

Most Cornwallis dissemination blocks have access to employment, childcare and education

Let’s put the tool to use! For instance, the RST area near Brandon is within the Cornwallis CSD. Most of Cornwallis’ 500.5 square kilometres are to the south and southeast of Brandon. With a population of 4,568, according to the 2021 Census of Population, the community’s average population density works out to about 9.1 people per square kilometre.

We can see from the Rural Data Viewer that, in general, proximity to services is higher for DBs close to Brandon and lower for DBs farther out, particularly towards the south and southeast. Residents in most of the Cornwallis DBs near Brandon are in relatively close proximity to places of employment and childcare.

Likewise, proximity to primary or secondary education is relatively high for most residents in Cornwallis DBs bordering Brandon. Access to health care and pharmacies is similarly good for residents in these DBs; however, for those in areas farther to the south and southeast, access to these services was a bit lower. In contrast, proximity to libraries was uniformly low for most Cornwallis residents.

Exploring other areas

As users zoom in closer to a particular area of the map, the individual DBs start to appear around the urban areas, which are brown in colour. You can explore all over Canada to see which RST areas have what you might be looking for!

Availability of the complete ProximityRST database, 2023

The complete ProximityRST database, 2023, can be requested by contacting Rural Client Services at fe-ruralclientservic@statcan.gc.ca.