How Census-Gate Will Change Canada

City planners need data provided in the long-form census to build efficient and effective public transit systems, which are essential for healthy cities.

If cities are living organisms, a transit system functions as the heart and arteries that circulate its citizens.

A clean, safe system that runs efficiently and effectively is therefore symbolic of a thriving city in which economic growth is unhindered by transportation challenges. However, the unpredictability of human behaviour renders the planning process for public transit a continuous work in progress.

Perpetually updated information, then, is an essential tool for municipal, provincial, and federal planners as they mete out demographic information that indicates where to allocate funds.

Technically, governmental jurisdiction to fund the infrastructure for Canada’s planes, trains, buses, bicycles, and automobiles, and perhaps the odd Segway or two, falls at both the federal and provincial levels. But for several reasons, including the national scope of the federal government, the stimulus program, and its collection of the gas tax, this level has taken the lead in funding massive infrastructure projects. For example, the current Building Canada initiative, which allocates funds based on population, provides $37 billion for infrastructure programs.

But before any funds flow, in order for neighbourhood planners (municipalities are constitutional creatures of the provinces) to apply for and spend funds, they must be cognizant of a city’s infrastructure needs. In other words, they need to know how many people drive to work, where they drive, why they choose the car over a bus, whether they would take a subway, and if they instead choose pedal power, among other things.

(A more general description of subjects addressed is available here. In addition, the census addresses specific topics such as working at home, time use, and commuting patterns.)

This is why Canadian municipal leaders were just one of many groups who reacted so strongly when the Conservative government decided to discontinue the mandatory portion of the long-form census in favour of the shorter National Household Survey (NHS). (Read a Q-and-A with Industry Minister Tony Clement here.)

And while there will likely be no shortage of valuable information gleaned from the NHS, planners are usually of the attitude that a surplus of information is preferable.

In a letter to Clement, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) protested the decision, saying that more than 25 pieces of federal legislation require census data to allocate funds.

As FCM CEO Brock Carlton stated: “Municipalities use census data to target the needs of specific neighbourhoods and invest in services where they will do the most good. With the example of public transit, municipalities need high-quality data to plan better bus routes and new light rail lines to cut growing commute times, which are now longer in Canada’s biggest cities than in New York, London, and even Los Angeles.” The Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA) is also alarmed, and predicts “severe consequences on the reliability and the consistency of the data.”

The objections on the part of both the FCM and CUTA relate to the fact that the NHS has a lower response rate than the long-form questionnaire. Specifically, the NHS provides an average return rate of 30 per cent, which will generate 1.35 million responses, versus the 97 per cent response rate of the long-form survey, which yields 1.94 million responses. The result will be a smaller sample size, which translates into a smaller sample of data from municipalities. This will directly affect the quantity and quality of information that planners require, according to FCM.

Of more concern is the FCM’s contention that the people who are unlikely to participate in the NHS are those who tend to rely most on the services provided at the municipal level and who exist at the lower levels of the social and economic strata. So it is clear that the Conservative government’s decision is not just an arcane policy shift of little consequence for most Canadians. It will eventually reverberate out to the country’s already strained public transit systems.