CCA Bulletin 20/10 - The Long-Form Census Controversy and the Arts
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Just the Facts
On June 26, as Canadians were focused on the G-8 and G-20 meetings in Toronto, the government discretely announced its decision that the long-form census would no longer be compulsory. The census, which is sent every five years by Statistics Canada to a fifth of Canadian households, would be replaced by a voluntary survey of a full third of Canadian households. The short version of the national census, which contains only eight questions, remains compulsory and protected by the Constitution.
Statistics Canada was not consulted on this decision but simply asked to provide alternative solutions, none of which, they recognize, will provide the same quantity and quality of information. While no solution can adequately compensate for the change in methodology, the extended voluntary Household Survey will cost Statistics Canada an estimated $ 30 million more to administer a system which all statisticians describe as faulty. (more)
On June 26, as Canadians were focused on the G-8 and G-20 meetings in Toronto, the government discretely announced its decision that the long-form census would no longer be compulsory. The census, which is sent every five years by Statistics Canada to a fifth of Canadian households, would be replaced by a voluntary survey of a full third of Canadian households. The short version of the national census, which contains only eight questions, remains compulsory and protected by the Constitution.
Statistics Canada was not consulted on this decision but simply asked to provide alternative solutions, none of which, they recognize, will provide the same quantity and quality of information. While no solution can adequately compensate for the change in methodology, the extended voluntary Household Survey will cost Statistics Canada an estimated $ 30 million more to administer a system which all statisticians describe as faulty. (more)
Labels: 2010, arts, Census, culture, statistics
posted by Canadian Conference of the Arts / Conférence canadienne des arts at 5:18 p.m.
4 Comments:
READ MORE on this entry doesn't pull up the rest of the article?
Curious to know exactly which specific questions in the long form would pertain to anything to do with the arts?
Demographics, ethnic heritage, languages spoken, ages, gender, size of family, etc. are all invcluded in the short census which everyone has to fill out.
What questions in the long form does the art community need?
Dawn, thanks for pointing that out. If you click the "more" link at the end of the second paragraph, you will be directed to our website with the entire bulletin.
Anonymous - The key information that we need concerns the work status of artists - i.e. self-employed - that can be coupled with other information provided by the long-form census. This employment information, plus data on their socio-economic traits (location, language spoken, ethnicity, education, earnings, etc.) are important indicators of the health and vitality of the artistic sector. Our other main preoccupation is about the validity of other Statistics Canada household surveys that are dependent on the long-form census for proper sample size and distribution. Surveys such as the Survey of Household Spending and the General Social Survey, which tell us about what kinds of culture products people buy and use, can only be designed with the census as a baseline. Finally, and more generally, as we state in our bulletin, as citizens we have to be concerned and vigilant about the availability of reliable data for use by our governments and by various agencies, as well as NGOs, to plan policies and programs and assess their effectiveness.
The long form survey serves as the basis for designing all other surveys drawn up by whatever organizations. It is akin to a structural foundation, something that needs to be strong and reliable.
To spend more money for something that would be deeply flawed by skewing the data significantly smacks of putting ideological concerns before those of valid public policy.
But not having reliable data would weaken the positions of many groups the government finds annoying.
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