Census change could have local impact

This could have a negative impact on a community’s ability to conduct research for various segments of our population. We will see what happens here. Could also impact local businesses as they would use Statisics Canada research for business and marketing plans.

Census change could have local impact
Colin MacLean
Summerside - It's the little issue that just won't go away.

Changes to the Canadian National Census coming up in 2011, announced in late June by Statistics Canada, are continuing to make waves across the country - including here in Summerside.
Island organizations depend on census data for numerous reasons, such as developing policy and deciding what kinds of projects to implement. Many are concerned the changes being made by the federal government will result in less accurate data thus impacting the effectiveness of services locally.
"We have 30 priority programs running across the Island right now. I met with them all last week and everyone was talking about it. We all use that information," said David Hennessey, executive director of the United Way of Prince Edward Island.
"There's 583 registered charities across P.E.I., how else in the name of God would we ever know what our demographics are, who needs help, what are the situations?" he asked.
He has been working with charitable organizations for more than 20 years, he said, nearly all of which have used Statistics Canada data compiled from both the long and short forms of the census.
The bone of contention with these changes continues to be the decision to switch the mandatory long form questionnaire, which asks in-depth questions, to a voluntary form. This part of the census is normally distributed to 20 per cent of homes nationally, but will now be sent to one in three dwellings to make up for the expected drop in returns now that the long form is optional.
The short form will remain largely unchanged. It asks basic questions like how many people live in the home, what are their ages, mother language, marital status and so on. It will continue to be mandatory and will be distributed to all Canadian households.
Canadians also now have the option of insuring their census data is never released publicly, something that was previously done automatically after 92 years.
Industry Minister Tony Clement has stated on numerous occasions that the census will continue to be accurate despite these changes. He's also explained the reasoning behind these changes is many Canadians believe census questions violate their privacy.
"This reasoned and responsible approach is about finding a better balance between collecting the necessary data and protecting the privacy of Canadians," Clement told the Canadian Press.
But that idea doesn't sit well with Trinity United Church Minister Andrew Richardson.
"Anything that's voluntary ... its participation is not as high as if it were mandatory," said Richardson.
"I've seen evidence that show people who are the most likely to fill out a form voluntarily are of a certain income and education level. So you're missing a whole group of people who wouldn't be filling out the forms and they are the people who might be reporting information that's important," he said.
The United Church of Canada has a contract with Environics Analytics. If a United Church group wants to start a program in its community that company would do the preliminary research and would almost certainly use census data, he added.
Richardson is also chair of Summerside's Crime Prevention Committee. It recently completed a safety audit of the community and used census data to do it.
"One of the pieces of information we used was a demographic breakdown of Summerside, what kind of people live here, what are their income levels, what are the education levels ... all those kinds of things are predictors of crime. So if we don't have access to some of that data then we aren't able to make evidence based decisions," he said.
This issue has snowballed in recent weeks with dozens of organizations, municipalities and churches speaking out against the changes. Four provincial governments, including P.E.I., have also spoken out against the changes.
Adding fuel to the flames are outcries from within the StatsCan family. Retired organization chief Ivan Fellegi, who held the job for 22 years, started speaking out against the changes early on. And just last week, StatsCan Chief Munir Sheikh resigned over the issue. StatsCan has also denied claims by Clement that it had recommended these changes to the government.
Clement has indicated in recent announcements that he is willing to negotiate on some points in this issue, however optional long form census is not one of them.