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9th July 2010
Dear Minister Clement
We write on behalf of the Canadian Research Data Centre Network to express our concern about the
recent decision to cancel the mandatory long-form questionnaire as part of the 2011 Census of
Population. Our Network gives researchers access to detailed national and provincial data – including
census data – in secure laboratories on 24 university campuses across Canada. We were surprised,
therefore, by media reports that this decision was made without consulting Census data users – not
only the university researchers we represent, but also municipalities, provincial and territorial
governments, NGOs, social and cultural associations, as well as private sector marketing and
business firms and organizations. We urge you to seek such consultation and reconsider this
decision.
Data from the Census long form are uniquely important. They function as the basic source of
information about the population of Canada and the benchmark against which all other data are
measured and evaluated. The long-form questionnaire is a primary source of knowledge about such
matters as language, education, income, housing, geographic mobility, and ethnicity. It is widely
used by researchers to enhance our understanding of Canadian society; by city planners to make
policy decisions on a neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood basis; by private industry to decide about
business location and marketing, and by federal and provincial government departments to assess
which policies to pursue and how to allocate budgets.
Not only is the combination of questions on the long form Census unique, it is the only large-scale
survey to gather detailed information on all household members. The questions asked in other
Statistics Canada surveys overlap parts of the Census content, but the sample sizes in these surveys
are not nearly large enough to provide the level of detailed information that census users require
about the characteristics of people living in each province and in municipalities both large and small
within those provinces.
As reported in the Canadian Press of July 1st, the (only) justification for doing away with the longform
census questionnaire is that “many Canadians had complained of [its] coercive and intrusive
nature.” It is true that some people have made such complaints. It is also true that, as with tax
forms which are also mandatory, the Census asks something of Canadians in order to achieve a
public good. The vast majority of Canadians accept this and readily comply. Fortunately so, as the
usefulness of the long form Census depends critically on the exceptionally high response rate – over
95 percent, the highest of any G20 country – that is only possible with a mandatory questionnaire.
Replacing it with the voluntary National Household Survey, as has been proposed, is not an
acceptable alternative. The average response rate to voluntary Statistics Canada surveys is of the
order of 70 percent. The problem is that the 30 percent who do not respond are likely to be drawn
disproportionately from the most vulnerable groups in society, including aboriginal peoples, persons
with weaker language skills, newly arrived immigrants and the low income elderly. Young people,
especially in the critical years of post-secondary education and entry into the labour force, are also
under-represented. Our understanding of these groups would be diminished, and policy measures
would be based on much weaker evidence.
Data confidentiality is taken extremely seriously by Statistics Canada. Over 3000 researchers have
worked with confidential master files from previous censuses, household surveys and other sources
in our Research Data Centres across Canada. To access data in these secure laboratories, researchers
must submit to a personal security check by the RCMP, and sign a confidentiality agreement that
could result in criminal prosecution if information is divulged.
As a Network, therefore, we are well-placed to assess both the confidentiality of Statistics Canada
census and survey data and the “public good” they offer. Without a single breach of confidentiality
in the Network’s ten years of operation, research carried out in our centres has offered invaluable
insights into countless issues at the heart of Canadian society and provided planners and decisionmakers
with the information they need to help ensure that tax dollars are used for the public good.
The importance of this unique and internationally recognized cornerstone of knowledge about our
society and the basis it provides for evidence-based policy cannot be stated strongly enough. A
publicity campaign to raise awareness of the benefits to Canadians of this information would be a far
more effective way of dealing with complaints than abolishing the Census long-form questionnaire,
and we would be more than happy to participate in such an undertaking.
Yours sincerely,
_____________________________________ Raymond F Currie, Executive Director Emeritus
_____________________________________ Robert H McNutt, Executive Director
_____________________________________ Byron G Spencer, Chair, Executive Committee