Can the Conservatives walk back from killing the long-form census, now that definitive proof is in that the quality of data has eroded, it’s more costly and our ability to plan has been hampered?
From The Globe and Mail. Note the quotes from Vancouver planner and current president of the Canadian Institute of Planners, Michael Gordon.
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Canadian cities to weigh loss of long-form census for community planning
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The debate over the demise of the mandatory long-form census has reached the city level in Canada, where mayors and local officials say the cancellation has hampered the ability to plan and support the needs of their communities. …
Across the country, cities are feeling the impact of the census changes, said Brad Woodside, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayor of Fredericton.
“We’ve heard from our members that the change to the new National Household Survey is impacting their ability to effectively plan and monitor the changing needs of their communities,” he said in an e-mailed statement to The Globe. “We support all efforts to increase the reliability of the data from the census.”
Local governments rely on this information to understand the changing needs of communities, and make a range of decisions, “from where to establish new bus routes, build affordable housing and provide programs for new Canadians, he said. “We continue to call on Statistics Canada to work with municipalities to provide communities of all sizes the most reliable information from the available data.” …
Toronto’s manager of social research told The Globe last week that the switch has driven costs higher because of the need to purchase supplementary data and in extra staffing hours to check whether the data is comparable over time. It’s become more difficult to plan which low-income neighbourhoods are most in need of long-term investment and how to match services with changing demographics. “It’s affected us,” said Harvey Low, manager of social research at the City of Toronto. “It definitely has had an impact in the way we plan for services. It’s basically staff time and dollars spent on acquiring other sources of data, which may or may not be as useful as the long-form census once was.” …
In Vancouver, city planner Michael Gordon said the end of the mandatory census is a “significant issue,” hampering the ability to analyze infrastructure needs, such as transportation planning, along with housing, particularly affordable housing. Mr. Gordon, president of the Canadian Institute of Planners, has found some data from NHS “fishy,” and says there has been a “very disappointing” impact in the ability to provide sound advice based on factual information.
“I’m just not confident that when the federal government passed this legislation that they really thought through the implications it was going to have on making decisions on public policy,” said Mr. Gordon, who is also a senior planner for the City of Vancouver. “I really hope they revisit it – it’s important given the people paying taxes and the needs they have for services. Politicians need better information for making those decisions.”
“We’re very suspicious of the numbers. And here we’re expected, as professionals, to be providing decision-makers with good projections for the investment of infrastructure, investment in transit and making decisions on things like transit service for the future.”
“This isn’t just a researchers’ issue. This is ultimately where politicians have to make decisions on the use of taxpayers’ money.”
There have not been good alternative sources of information with reliable comparable data, he said.
“In god we trust; all others, bring data”
Michael Bloomberg, Former Mayor of New York
Posted in the Globe & Mail:
Relax. Nation-wide censi have been around for over 2000 years, and are now woefully out-of-date in the modern, digital era of rapid change. In Canada, it was every 5 years, and results tricked out 1 to 3 years after that. Stale. People move homes, move jobs go from employed middle-class to low-income unemployed, then back again employed. People change relationships far more frequently than married at age 22 for life.
Completing the long forms is increasingly seen as onerous and obtrusive, with many people viewing it as an invasion of privacy. Originally, it was where you lived, and how many people of which gender in the household. Now, it’s priceless data like how many working toilets do you have. As a result, compliance rates have been falling for decades; in the U.K. when required to list a religious affiliation, 1% wrote that they Jedi Knights.
Now, progressive jurisdictions gather info from more accurate and robust sources. Vast, digitalized, cross-referencing databases held by government; income tax records, vehicle licensing & insurance, benefit databases, building permits, electoral lists and school rolls, etc. Gov’ts observed that investment decisions in the private sector (say the size and location of a retail outlet), would not rely on stale census data, and required more strategic examination of local or regional expenditure patterns. More localized, and timely sampling of the population is far more valuable. Lazy governments pre-link decisions to stale, stodgy census data, then when the results turn out bad, defend it with the untouchable “yeah, but it’s national data, our hands are tied.”
Its a global trend; lead by the kings of statisticians, in Scandinavia. Denmark has been tracking its populace without a traditional census for decades; Sweden, Norway, Finland and Slovenia, others, have similar systems. Germany dropped it’s archaic long-form in 2011, and I believe also with Britain.
The cancellation isn’t even seen as down-loading. If long-dated, long-form surveys were so valuable, provinces would immediately step in to fill the gap. But there’s no need for them to do that, because they have within their massive, cross-referenced databases much more timely and accurate information than a plodding, infrequent, inaccurate and untimely nation-wide census.
Governance is becoming more regional and localized, and at a fast paces. That’s why no one is barking for a global or continental census.
Perhaps completing the census is difficult, but that’s not a reason to get rid of it. There is no substitute for the quality and quantity of the data it provides. All the other instances of data sources that you describe (building permits, income taxes, etc) are not available to the public. Charities and other institutions rely (used to rely) on this data to make decisions. It is not feasible for lower levels of government (or non-governmental agencies) to step in and collect their own data. This is because only the federal government has the institutions, the economies of scale, and the mandate.
I don’t know what you mean by “Governance is becoming more regional and localized, and at a fast paces. That’s why no one is barking for a global or continental census.” Last I heard, Ottawa is still the capital of Canada and more power seems to be heading their way every month (anti-terrrorism bills, spying on Canadians, taking over environmental review processes from the provinces, etc).
Losing the long form census is a symptom of a larger problem with the Harper government. By removing the census, the government can avoid inconvenient facts and prevents citizens from learning enough to properly hold anyone accountable.
Does the end of better quality data justify the means? In countries with stricter privacy laws than Canada the long form census would never have been legal.