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Cutting the Census

Captain.Sassy

Master Poster
Captain.Sassy
Joined
Sep 14, 2009
Messages
2,236
Tony Clement (lmhr) has decided to cut the long-form census questionnaire in Canada.

For those of you who don't know, the Canadian census has/had two components, the 'short form' and the 'long form'. Everyone gets the short form, and filling it out is compulsory. Around 25% of households used to get the compulsory 'long form', which had all the interesting questions about language, income, education, immgration status, etc.

The cutting of the long-form questionnaire bugs a lot of people, cause it will mean that these data will now likely be inaccurate (the LF is being replaced with a voluntary survey, leading to likely selection bias in respondents.) Not only will these data be unavailable, but surveys like the Labour Force Survey (which tracks unemployment) depend on the long form census to produce their sampling methodology. Without it these surveys could also suffer in accuracy (inaccuracy?)

So why's the gov doing this?

In the grand scheme of things, after all, the census costs are pretty minor and you get tons of really useful information out of it.

Apparetly, it's cause the Conservatives are gaga for personal freedom and they think the census is draconian.

In Britain, they've similarly decided to axe their census, though I'm not sure on the specifics.

tl;dr
census=good
freedom=bad
 
Corsair 115 said:
Because the current Conservative government is run by idiots? That's as near as I can figure it.

Maybe Harper et. al. have a hate on for Statistics Canada...
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Because the current census is inaccurate as well as being expensive. It relies on householders completing the form, I haven't for at least the last two. It also relies on householders being able to read and understand the form, adult illiteracy is still a problem (albeit not as bad as it was).

Steve
 
Oh no?

"This weekend, the British government announced they would cut the census to save money, and will depend instead on the use of private data sources such as credit and mail records to put together population statistics."

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ca...servatives-in-canada-britain-us-98206054.html


"In future, data could be gathered from records held by the Post Office, local government and credit checking agencies - thought to be more effective."

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ca...servatives-in-canada-britain-us-98206054.html
 
oggiesnr said:
Because the current census is inaccurate as well as being expensive. It relies on householders completing the form, I haven't for at least the last two. It also relies on householders being able to read and understand the form, adult illiteracy is still a problem (albeit not as bad as it was).

Steve
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There's always some potential for inaccuracy in survey data, especially given that non-respondents might have some other characteristics in common, thereby biasing the sample. I'm not sure about what kind of efforts are made to get people to fill out the census forms; for the LFS, I know that StatCan makes repeated efforts to get each sampled household to fill the survey since the households are chosen very specifically in order to get a representative sample.
 
oggiesnr said:
Because the current census is inaccurate as well as being expensive.
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The 'expensive' argument, coming from the current government which spent some $1 billion dollars on security for the G8/G20 summits (but which couldn't protect downtown Toronto from being vandalized) and built a million-dollar 'fake lake' for foreign journalists coming to the summits, just doesn't fly. It seems the only expensive items they are upset with are the ones they didn't come up with themselves.

Also, it's worth noting that we have a national census every five years, as opposed to every ten years as in the U.S.


oggiesnr said:
It relies on householders completing the form, I haven't for at least the last two.
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Captain.Sassy said:
I'm not sure about what kind of efforts are made to get people to fill out the census forms; for the LFS, I know that StatCan makes repeated efforts to get each sampled household to fill the survey since the households are chosen very specifically in order to get a representative sample.
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I never got around to filling out and returning the short census form that was sent to me. Some time after the deadline had passed, I got a call from a friendly worker at StatsCan who took my census form short data over the phone.
 
Captain.Sassy said:
Oh no?

"This weekend, the British government announced they would cut the census to save money, and will depend instead on the use of private data sources such as credit and mail records to put together population statistics."

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ca...servatives-in-canada-britain-us-98206054.html


"In future, data could be gathered from records held by the Post Office, local government and credit checking agencies - thought to be more effective."

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ca...servatives-in-canada-britain-us-98206054.html
Click to expand...

Have a look at this blog from the FT, it explains what Maude actually said and what is happening: http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2010/07/maude-to-save-480m-by-scrapping-census-but-not-until-2021/
 
Captain.Sassy said:
Tony Clement (lmhr) has decided to cut the long-form census questionnaire in Canada.
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Scooter's been an idiot since he was inflicted on Ontario by Harris. This is the same spendthrift lot that thought selling-off a public/private toll road for a one-time budget input was smart economics. They're playing to their base

Conservatives seem to do everything BUT conserve

Fitz
 
Darat said:
Have a look at this blog from the FT, it explains what Maude actually said and what is happening: http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2010/07/maude-to-save-480m-by-scrapping-census-but-not-until-2021/
Click to expand...

And even in 2021 they're going to do a kind-of-census, by buying data from private databases. It's not at all likely to cost more doing it that way, no siree.

"There is a load of data out there in loads of different places," the minister said.
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before turning his baseball cap backwards and claiming that a dog ate his red box.
 
Last edited:
Well I hope this disease doesn't spread to Australia. All census data is available, down to postcode level. I use the data all the time for business purposes.
 
Darat said:
Have a look at this blog from the FT, it explains what Maude actually said and what is happening: http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2010/07/maude-to-save-480m-by-scrapping-census-but-not-until-2021/
Click to expand...

Ah so they are planning on axing the census. Thank you for clarifying the details as to the specifics of the timeframe for this plan.

How do these 'private sources' collect their data? Are their collection methods free from bias? Are these collection methods less or more intrusive than the methods used in the census? These are some questions the limey statisticians will have a chance to answer in the next decade or so. I guess the private data aren't survey based, as implied here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10584385
He told the Daily Telegraph: "There are, I believe, ways of doing this which will provide better, quicker information, more frequently and cheaper."

Mr Maude said population counts could be done more often using various databases.

"This would give you more accurate, much more timely data in real time. There is a load of data out there in loads of different places," he said.

So at least they'll be able to take the most recent census and compare it to what could be gotten from these alternative sources and check out where and how they differ. Canada's proposed axing of the census allows no such comparison period.
 
So

parently the tories decided to cut the census cause some folks complained about the 'intrusive' long form to their MPs. The extent of the consultation process involved a chat between Clement and these MPs (the lack of broader consultations also seems evident from Clement's public statistical bumbling and statements from the minister's office that demonstrate at best a poor job by whoever's briefing him on statistical issues or, more likely, an unwillingness to engage with statisticians on this issue.)

I read a bit of interesting analysis somewhere (sorry to whichever blogger pundit or wonk originally suggested this) that since a few complaints to a few MPs were what triggered this decision, Grits and Dippers should go through the list of complaints their MPs have received and compare it to the number of complaints about the census. Would be a good tactical opportunity for them to highlight that this is an ideologically motivated decision rather than a response to a pressing concern of Canadians (which is how the Tories are trying to spin it.)
 
Looks like this whole event is just giving me yet another reason to never vote Conservative. (The straw that broke this camel's back was the dumping of the G20 summit on downtown Toronto. 'Economic benefit' to the city my arse.)
 
Corsair 115 said:
Looks like this whole event is just giving me yet another reason to never vote Conservative. (The straw that broke this camel's back was the dumping of the G20 summit on downtown Toronto. 'Economic benefit' to the city my arse.)
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Yeah, an event guarenteed to result in rioting, businesses ruined, and a huge bill for police protection is an "Economic Benefit".
A few people here, in Sacramento, are talking about trying to get a G20 meeting to put Sacramento on the map. Any city council member proposing this idea has just lost my vote.
 
dudalb said:
Yeah, an event guarenteed to result in rioting, businesses ruined, and a huge bill for police protection is an "Economic Benefit".
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A wag on another forum I frequent put it this way: if there had been any actual economic benefit to the G20 summit, Harper would have put it in Calgary.
 
fitzgibbon said:
Why don't we send you the torched hulks of the Toronto cop cars and see how quickly that bonnie idea goes south.
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Actually, dudalb, that's not a bad idea if a "no on the G20" group forms in Sac. Get an old, burned out hulk and drop in front of city hall. Fun.

ETA: Or better yet, get an old clunker and burn it in front of city hall. :)
 
Corsair 115 said:
A wag on another forum I frequent put it this way: if there had been any actual economic benefit to the G20 summit, Harper would have put it in Calgary.
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Precisely. Dumping the G20 in Toronto served 2 Harper purposes:

1) The Harper version of the Salmon Arm Salute because Toronto is a wasteland for Tory votes

2) Send a message to the converted outside the GTA of how awful things are in Toronto because the voting trend is "Anything But Tory".

How much infrastructure could $1 Billion dollars (the amount spent on security in Toronto alone) have added to Huntsville so that the G8 and G20 could've been held in one place?

[/derail]
 
fitzgibbon said:
Precisely. Dumping the G20 in Toronto served 2 Harper purposes:

1) The Harper version of the Salmon Arm Salute because Toronto is a wasteland for Tory votes
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The funny thing is offering up such 'punishment' only ensures the Conservatives will have an even tougher time getting any votes here. Seems to me if he was really the crafty politician some say he is he'd be sweet talking the city to try and score at least some of the (many) seats the area has to offer.


fitzgibbon said:
How much infrastructure could $1 Billion dollars (the amount spent on security in Toronto alone) have added to Huntsville so that the G8 and G20 could've been held in one place?
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Today it was announced the Conservative government has a deal worth $9 billion to purchase 65 of the F-35 JSF. I wonder if this $9 billion was already accounted for in their future budgets in terms of deficit reduction...
 
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