Sunday, February 16th, 2025

Canadians embraced the return of the long-form census with gusto. If the recent online buzz is any indication, many of us are more than willing to participate.

Maybe its because we love to talk about ourselves or maybe its because we want to know where we fit in to the grand scheme of things but as a nation we embrace the census and look forward to having the data. For people like us, in the newspaper business, we find statistics very valuable when it comes to seeing who makes up our community. Only one of us in the office got the long-form version and the rest of us were a little jealous, to be honest. Lump us in with the rest of the nerds who got excited to see the census arrive, but were then disappointed because we had to settle for the abridged version.

The short version asks mainly about the composition of the household – who lives there, what age, their relationship to each other and what languages they speak. The longer version gets into household spending on utilities. Don’t worry about income, Statistics Canada will get the info from tax returns, they say. The data is used to make “evidence-based” decisions.

It is mandatory and people can face a fine and/or jail time for not completing the census but no one has ever been punished (with the exception of one woman who had to do community service).

There was a lot of controversy surrounding the decision to cancel the mandatory long-form census, including the resignation of Statistic Canada’s chief statistician. Even party supporters were against the Conservatives’ decision to cancel it in 2010, due to privacy concerns and enforcement. It was replaced with the voluntary National Household Survey and the response rate declined from 93.5 per cent in 2006 to 68.6 per cent in 2011. Those numbers indicate that while many Canadians support the long-form census, we need a nudge (or they were not participating as a form of protest).

The census went out with a May 10 submission date. It turned out it wasn’t so much a hard and fast deadline as a recommendation.

After the census was mailed out last week it was reported that the high volume of people attempting to fill out the census online clogged the website. It happened again this week, on May 9.

Those who haven’t filled out the census will get a reminder in the mail and by June, the government will start making phone calls.

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