Liberal S&T critic tabling private member's bill to bring back long-form census

Liberal S&T critic Dr Ted Hsu will table a private member's bill next week calling for the reinstatement of the Long-Form Census (LFC) although Cabinet has already decided to continue with the voluntary National Household Survey in 2016. While Bill C-626 is unlikely to pass given the Conservative Party's majority status in Parliament, Hsu says the issue too important to ignore, no matter how slim the chances of success.

"The Long-Form Census is an anchor for all sorts of other data," says Hsu. "Even the Canadian Chamber of Commerce drafted a resolution calling for its reinstatement. From their point-of-view, having good data helps you not waste money."

The LFC hasn't been run since 2006 and its elimination has been widely opposed by academics, business leaders and planners at all levels. Even the chief scientist at Statistics Canada — Dr Munir Sheikh — resigned in protest.

Hsu says it typically costs about $600 million to run the LFC and that its replacement is more expensive, costing at least $20 million more. Due to a poor response rate, Statistics Canada was compelled to send out questionnaires to one out of three Canadians, as opposed to one out of five for the LFC. Lacking the deep regional insights provided by the LFC, regional data on employment, income and other key indicators are too unreliable to be used.

Without the LFC survey, researchers who are dependent upon its data are finding their work seriously impaired. Hsu says he's reaching out to researchers "to tell their stories publicly".

"We're now finding out that a lot of research has been impacted," says Hsu, pointing to Univ of Toronto poverty researcher Dr David Huchanski. "His research has stopped now. The income data is now worthless."

One researcher who's leading the charge for the LFC's reinstatement is Dr Susan McDaniel, a professor at the Univ of Lethbridge and director of the Prentice Institute in Global Population and Economy and holder of a Tier I Canada Research Chair. McDaniel says lack of comparable longitudinal long-form data is seriously impacting her research in the areas of regional labour and skills shortages and energy commodity prices and labour shortages.

"The impact has been huge on several levels … It impacts our research but it also impacts policy and planning particularly at the municipal level," says McDaniels. "With the National Household Survey the middle class is over represented. If we don't know where the poor people of Canada are how can we target policy to help them."

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