Legal Research

Concerns About the 2011 Canadian Census

By Connie Crosby

I have been following a discussion about the concerns regarding the government’s cancellation of the long-form questionnaire for the 2011 Canadian Census. The following message just went out over the Canadian law libraries listserv CALL-L. I have reproduced it here with the author’s permission:

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to draw your attention to a serious issue that has arisen regarding the upcoming 2011 Canadian census.  The government has decided to cancel the census long-form questionnaire and replace it with a voluntary survey, which cannot be counted on to produce reliable information.

The decision poses a severe problem for researchers in a wide range of disciplines.  The census long form is the source for data on the Canadian population?s education level, income, ethnic and religious makeup,  occupations, and other key characteristics.  It is also used to produce the census micro-data files that allow analysis of relationships among individual and household characteristics.

If you haven?t already done so, you can find out more about the proposed changes and their impact on social statistics research here: http://www.ciqss.umontreal.ca/en/census2011.html. Please make your various networks aware of the far-reaching consequences this decision could have, and consider taking one or more of the actions suggested on the web site datalibre.ca.
Thank you.
Dan Edelstein

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Daniel M. Edelstein
Academic Director
Windsor Research Data Centre

Thanks to Annette Demers for forwarding this message and making us aware of this issue.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on July 12, 2010 (boomark / email).