While federal parties are busy in comparing filling out in information in census questionnaire sent by Stats Canada with water boarding, the mayors of municipalities the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and Ontario are urging the federal government to rethink its decision to scrap mandatory 35-page census form to a smaller voluntary form.
The argument that the long census form is “invasive” and “too intrusive” doesn’t ring bell with the Mayors of the Greater Toronto Area and Ontario. They give counter arguments about people’s giving information to their doctors and bankers “which is pretty intrusive,” as Her Worship Mayor Susan Fennell of Brampton put it. The mayors and officials from municipalities Generation Next spoke with over the last two weeks mentioned that with changing demographics and a number of new Canadians increasing in Ontario, the information gathered by Stats Canada is crucial to their planning processes.
The mandatory long-form with 61-questions is sent to one in five homes with a voluntary household survey that will be sent to 30 per cent of Canadian households.
Up until now, Canadians were compelled to send back the information required on census or face jail time of up to 3 months. Although no one really has been sent to jail for not filling out the long census form, making it non-mandatory will result in imprecise information on communities and neighbourhoods.
Municipalities across Canada use the census data to plan their towns and cities and neighbourhoods, to know what services are needed by the community, how many public, Catholic and French immersion schools should be built, how many more units of public transport are needed, what neighbourhoods need recreational services and parks and community centres and so forth.
Although the indication is that the federal government will not revise its decision as the forms to be sent out next year have already been printed, Mayors of Ontario are hopeful that the government will take into consideration the mandate that municipalities have in providing services to their residents.
Ontario becomes home to 100,000 new Canadians each year. It is place where about 20,000 people from across the world take refuge in. Consequently the officials of Ontario municipalities and Ontario government are voicing their concerns about lack of accurate information once the changes are enforced.
We asked the officials from various municipalities of Ontario their reaction to the federal government’s decision of making mandatory long census questionnaire to a voluntary smaller form, how they use the census date, privacy related issues and consequences of not having the census data. Here’re opinions of some of the officials we spoke with :
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New changes will make it harder to meet the needs of Canadians – Brock Carlton, CEO, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Municipalities use the census like a GPS to navigate on-the-ground changes in our communities – to see where we need better bus service, to build affordable housing, or set up support programs for new Canadians. There’s a real concern that these changes are going to make it harder for us to meet the needs of Canadians – we need to know the federal government isn’t going to let that happen.
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Voluntary responses can be biased – Mayor David Miller, Toronto
The City relies on long-form data as a vital resource for the planning of efficient and targeted social, health and other community services. It is also critical for development of effective strategies to manage the growth of the city’s economy, it’s physical built-form and our transportation networks.
..a survey that relies on voluntary responses will introduce bias in the results..a higher response will not compensate for this. An additional result would likely be the suppression of the data at neighbourhood level.
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People complain about long census form being long – Mayor Susan Fennell, Brampton
The information in the long form is a guide for our city, for planning, for community services, for parks and recreation, for diversity, for facilities. Just knowing how many people are here [in Brampton] is not enough, we need to plan for your people.
Each time you go to the doctor’s office, you give your information and there’s nothing more personal than your body. There is lot of personal information that people provide every time they deal with a government. I’ve never heard anybody complain about census form being intrusive. The only thing I’ve ever heard people complain about is that they got the long form, and it takes time to fill it out.
I think that the federal government will look for what the city of Brampton’s position is and what the Region of Peel’s position is. We are the tenth largest city in the country and we provide good data in helping to form national policies.
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Why are people objecting to long census questionnaire now? – Mayor of Mississauga- Hazel McCallion
I don’t know who has raised the objection to the long census questionnaire. The operation has been in practice for a long time, so why are people objecting to it now?
My council has registered our objection to any change in the form, and our staff has recommended that we support the long form.
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Benefits to broader community outweigh small concerns – Deputy Mayor Jack Heath, Markham
The statistics that come out of long from are used by municipalities in the areas of housing, social assistance, transportation and so forth. Making it voluntary would mean unreliable data with unreliable outcome. Obviously you have to have some punch to the process. Jail time adds that punch. The numbers who don’t cooperate are very very small.
There are privacy related issues to all sorts of things in the society; nonetheless the benefits to the community as a whole outweigh small concerns someone might have.
The federal government is clearly not listening to municipalities of Ontario and Canada
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Census change can result in waste in social agencies – Tom Adams, Regional and Town Councillor in Halton Region (Oakville)
At the region of Halton, we’ve already passed the resolution to eliminate the changes made.
Not only are municipalities asking for the decision to be reverted, there are a whole host of social agencies that are asking for it too. And they’re all asking for it for the same reason. When you’ve got more information you are able to target it more effectively. Not only is there going to be higher costs of the changes they are making, there is also going to be a lot of waste in the social agencies which are trying to use the information to solve social problems.
Saying that the long census questionnaire is “intrusive” is a ridiculous argument. I’ve never heard of a complaint. I think it’s very poor policy decision to remove the long census form. I’ve spoken with our member of parliament, but he has reiterated the federal party’s concerns about privacy.
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It strikes me odd that census was chosen as an issue – Mayor Dave Barrow, Richmond Hill
It’s important that we understand our community and the only way to do is to gather information in the long census questionnaire.
As for its being intrusive, if somebody asked for my background, I am proud of who I am. We’re serving the public and we need to know, even simple things like how many languages are spoken in the town of Richmond Hill. How do we put our services in context with the languages that are spoken? That’s just the simple part of it. When we were doing our official plan, we measured the socio-economic positions of the people of Richmond Hill and used the census.
I read about the census debate in the Star. Sometimes you hear that they [the federal government] are waffling a bit. But it strikes me odd that they [the federal government] chose this as the issue. I haven’t heard anyone say it’s intrusive.
The Canadian Federation of Municipalities have a very close relationship with both levels of government and normally when something like this is happening, they do consult us. I’m surprised that they didn’t and I’m quite disappointed.
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The federal government’s asking us to fly blind into the future – Mayor John Gray, Oshawa
Not having the census will affect us greatly, especially when it comes to land-use planning. We also have an aging baby booming population and many immigrants in our community which we will not have sufficient data on, and thus will have trouble catering to their needs.
We will not really have an idea about the demographics of our populations. When families move into Oshawa, we won’t know how many children they have, how old they are etc. Not only will the school system be affected, it will affect parks, daycare and more. In terms of further education, universities and colleges use the census in several aspects and they too will now suffer.
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Services needed for new Canadians are different from established communities; long census questionnaire provides that – Mayor Carl Zehr, Kitchener
We rely on the information provided by the census data from year to year and from census to census. Without comparable information, the trend lines could be misconstrued and the data will be lost. It’s not just the matter of one census, but you can lose the data for a period of one or two census, and a lot can change over that time.
We have a large immigrant population and this means that services that are needed for new Canadians are different than the more established communities, so it’s important to know that.
I don’t think that the long census questionnaire is intrusive. The information is confidential and not attributed to individuals; we’re looking for collective information, as I understand it. I was pleased to see that they took away the jail time, however there is the risk that less people will respond to it.
Regrettably the federal government is firm in its position, however at Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ meeting, we will see if there are some changes that we can influence them [the federal government] to make.
