Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Should Canada Have A Census?

Today's poll question; do you think Canada should even have a census, be it long or short? Has your household submitted your census yet? It is the law you know. The old mandatory long census has been scrapped in favour of a voluntary survey, but the short census still remains, and as mandatory as it has always been. Personally I believe that the census provides our government with valuable information about its people, allowing for a more efficient flow of government services to the citizens of our country. Granted, in our modern era the same information can be obtained through means that do not include a mandatory census survey. The world has changed just a little bit since the first Canadian census in 1871. A number of European countries have ended their census practices, though it isn't necessarily advisable to follow Europe's lead on all policy fronts.

So what do you think? Do we need a census? By the way, does Stats Can release what it costs to actually carry out a complete national census?

10 comments:

  1. Census is a good idea. May name, date of birth and address. The rest is none of their business.

    Rob C

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  2. Lies, damn lies, and statistics...I would prefer it be a provincial responsibilty as most of the services it claims to justify its existence fall under provincial jursidicitons...

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  3. No get rid of it like most civilised countries.

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  4. Let's face it, the census is all about social engineering of the special tribes. When francos outside Quebec try and sue the Government over the census, it's pretty clear what, and who really needs it.

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  5. Re cost, see the Hill-Times:

    http://www.hilltimes.com/dailyupdate/view/183

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  6. What civilized country does not want to know how many people are living within it,s borders.Name,date of birth,Address and male or female.

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  7. folks the long form census has come back as a survey. it is still out there i have seen it. can anyone else verify this???

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  8. The long form lives, my daughter in law got one.
    As for civilised countries, most have given up the census. With all the info collected on various government computers about everyone they already have all they need to know.

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  9. I voted no due to the questions, but if it were limited to name, sex, age, residence and citizenship I could accept it. That however is not the case.

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  10. None of the questions in the census are required. This information is already available by querying each provinces' Ministry of Vital Statistics (which keeps records of births and deaths), Motor Vehicle Branches (which has records of everyone with a provincial ID, be it a driver's license or provincially issues non-driver's Id which also has age information) and Revenue Canada which has information about how much money each resident makes.

    From these, they can glean the number of people residing in a given province (driver's licenses/IDs) as well as the age breakdown, what the income breakdown is in each province (tax returns), the number of children in a given province (ministry of education). I'm sure a whole host of information can be generated based on the information already available through other government agencies. To have to have StatsCan send out a census is a waste of time, in my opinion.

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