Merits of census worth defending

“The Census isn’t Liberal or Conservative. It belongs to every community that needs to know who it serves. Refusing to be counted as a protest doesn’t hurt the government of the day — it hurts the future planners, advocates and builders who needed to know you were here.”

— Trent Bartley, 94.7 Star FM

In his Facebook post on Friday morning, local radio personality Trent Bartley took a moment to defend a long-standing federal government program that has provided valuable information to Canadians since 1871: the Canadian Census.

Over the last few decades, there has been a growing distrust of the mandatory census in certain Canadian circles, one that has taken on decidedly partisan leanings. The latest photo making the rounds on social media has one census notification marked up “Return to Sender,” with a message to the Liberal government that reads, “Hey Carney, your manufactured ‘majority’ Govt is illegitimate. You don’t deserve my information.”

And there are others out there in circulation, too. While discontent with the process of gathering data on Canadians remains relatively small, like all minority opinions that employ bullhorn tactics, the agitants and their complaints catch our attention all too easily.

What started as some minor grumbling about privacy issues suddenly became overtly political in 2010 when the government of Stephen Harper officially announced the cancellation of the mandatory long-form census and replaced it with a voluntary National Household Survey for the 2011 census cycle.

While there was still a mandatory short-form census that collected high quality data — and which had a 97.1 per cent response rate — the voluntary long-form replacement had a 68 per cent response rate and the data collected was considered flawed.

When the Trudeau Liberals came to power in 2015, the mandatory long-form census was restored. In this year’s census — the 24th national census — 75 per cent of Canadian households will have received a short-form census, and the remaining 25 per cent will have to fill out a long-form one.

In the short-form census, data collection includes the number of people in your household, the number of people speaking French, English or another language, age, and other similar questions. The long form will have more detailed questions such as household income, race and other details that help give a more complete snapshot of Canadian life at this moment in time.

And, in spite of all the sabre rattling, the Canadian Census has a high compliance rate, with the overall response historically well above 95 per cent. The 2021 Census, for example, had a response rate of 96.9 per cent.

Why is this data important? Governments use this kind of data to decide all kinds of policy and programming — from where to build a hospital, roads and other infrastructure, to calculating federal, provincial and territorial transfer payments.

It also ensures that our population numbers are as accurate as possible when it comes to determining electoral boundaries for future elections.

Bartley also made a very good point in his post — this data does not belong to only government officials or political parties. And skipping the census doesn’t actually punish Ottawa, it hurts your own community, making it “less visible” to the next government down the road.

Census data helps members of the agricultural industry understand trends in land use, technology adoption and financial health. It helps cities like Brandon implement better service delivery and infrastructure investments, and aids in managing growth and housing needs, not to mention determining the need for social services like parks and fire protection. And it gives businesses that rely on census data information to determine best business locations workforce information and upcoming economic trends.

While there’s a lot of noise emanating from the nation’s manufactured complaint department about the census, with folks grumbling that Canadians shouldn’t have to be forced to do anything in a free and equal society, it’s worth reminding Canadians that while the census may be a small irritation, it remains a public good.

Partisan rhetoric only serves to poison that well of vital statistical information from where so many policies and decisions flow in our society.

And to my mind, it’s worth defending our right as Canadians to enlist proper tools to understand who we are as Canadians in the here and now — and who we’re fast becoming.

» Matt Goerzen, editor