The Canadian Press
OTTAWA—Call it the start of the government’s biggest big data push.
Today marks the start of mailings from Statistics Canada of census surveys, including the return of the mandatory, long-form questionnaire that was replaced with a voluntary survey five years ago.
Statistics Canada noted more than 15 million households will receive census letters over eight days, along with reminders to either fill the form out by hand or online, which half of Canadians did five years ago.
Every home will receive a short-form questionnaire.
One in every four homes will receive the long-form census.
The census gives a statistical snapshot of the population once every five years—collecting demographic information on every man, woman, and child living in the country, as well as Canadians living abroad on a military base or part of an embassy.
For provincial coffers, the population estimates in the census determine how much per capita funding they will receive in transfers from the federal government.
For local governments and community groups, the demographic details in neighbourhoods help with decisions on where to place new schools, transit routes, seniors’ housing, and emergency services.
For companies, the census data act as a much-needed complement to what’s become known as big data.
“Some people wonder, well, why do you even need a census when we have big data?” said Jan Kestle, president of Environics Analytics.
“When you combine the kind of data we now can collect with census data, you can really get a more integrated view of what consumers want both in terms of products and services,” she noted.
“And that’s also true in terms of what citizens want from government.”
