St. Vital, Winnipeg

St. Vital is a district of the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Located in the south-central part of the city, it is bounded on the north by Carrière Avenue, on the south by the northern limit of the Rural Municipality of Ritchot, on the west by the Red River and on the east by the Seine River, with the exception of the part lying south of the Perimeter Highway, which extends east across the Seine to the boundary of the Rural Municipality of Springfield. The population as of the 2006 census was 161,605. It had increased to 166,149 by the 2011 census.St. Vital is a city ward, represented by a member of Winnipeg City Council. With slightly different boundaries, it also comprises the Winnipeg neighbourhood clusters of St. Vital North and St. Vital South.HistoryThe community was established by francophone settlers in 1822, and is the second-oldest permanent settlement in Manitoba after Kildonan. It was named St. Vital by Archbishop Taché in 1860, in honour of his colleague, Father Vital-Justin Grandin.The original Parish of St. Vital consisted in present-day St. Vital in addition to much of Fort Garry, another present-day suburb on the west side of the Red River. The parish was home to many French-speaking settlers, particularly Métis, a heritage that continues to be reflected in the names of many of its institutions and streetsSt. Vital remained a strongly francophone community in the early decades after Manitoba's incorporation as a Canadian province in 1870. Until 1910, every reeve and every councillor was of a francophone background. The anglophone population grew throughout this period, however, and Richard Wilson was elected as St. Vital's first anglophone reeve in 1912. Council business was conducted in English after 1913. The municipal government became more pro-business after this period, and supported municipal expansion: St. Vital's population increased from only 1,800 at the end of World War I to 11,000 in 1933. By 1951, 63% of St. Vital's population was of British background, and the francophone population had fallen to under 13%. As of 2006, 17.4% of residents of St. Vital speak either both English and French or French only, while 82% speak English only and 0.6% speak neither English nor French.