Participate in the 2011 census and the National Household Survey!

CCA Bul­letin 18/11

May 4, 2011

Just the facts

In addi­tion to being fed­eral elec­tion day, Mon­day marked the debut of the 2011 manda­tory

short-form cen­sus

.  On May 2, 2011, the eight-question doc­u­ment began to make its way by mail to approx­i­mately 15 mil­lion house­holds across the coun­try.  Accord­ing to the Sta­tis­tics Act, all Cana­dian res­i­dents are legally required to com­plete the cen­sus ques­tion­naire. The cen­sus ques­tion­naire can be com­pleted online or on paper. To com­plete the forms online, Cana­di­ans will need the secure access code located at the top of the let­ter or paper questionnaires.

Approx­i­mately four weeks after the manda­tory short-form cen­sus, some 4.5 mil­lion Cana­dian house­holds will also receive the new

National House­hold Survey

(NHS). The vol­un­tary NHS has replaced the manda­tory long-form cen­sus ques­tion­naire after a con­tro­ver­sial deci­sion by the gov­ern­ment in June 2010.

If you receive the NHS, it is very impor­tant that you com­plete this vol­un­tary sur­vey in full!

Why does this mat­ter to you?

The cen­sus ques­tions cover basic demo­graphic char­ac­ter­is­tics such as age, sex, mar­i­tal and common-law sta­tus, house­hold rela­tion­ships and mother tongue.  The NHS cov­ers ques­tions on demog­ra­phy, cit­i­zen­ship and immi­gra­tion, lan­guage and lan­guage of work, eth­nic ori­gins, abo­rig­i­nal groups and sta­tus, reli­gion, mobil­ity, work activ­ity and place of work, edu­ca­tion, income, hous­ing, etc.

Cen­sus results are used to make deci­sions that affect our neigh­bour­hoods, province or ter­ri­tory, and the entire coun­try. Gov­ern­ments, busi­nesses, asso­ci­a­tions and com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tions use cen­sus infor­ma­tion to plan ser­vices and poli­cies that ben­e­fit every­one who lives in Canada. This included schools and day­care, health and police ser­vices, fire protection…and cul­tural policies!

There is also a ques­tion that asks for your con­sent to release your per­sonal cen­sus and NHS infor­ma­tion to the National Archives after 92 years. Grant­ing such per­mis­sion is impor­tant for future his­to­ri­ans, geneal­o­gists and researchers who will want to study the state of Cana­dian soci­ety at the begin­ning of the 21st century.

Tell me more

The deci­sion to abol­ish the manda­tory long-form ques­tion­naire and replace it with a vol­un­tary National House­hold Sur­vey has elicited dis­ap­proval from all cor­ners of soci­ety. For our nation’s cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions, the long-form cen­sus has been a use­ful tool both directly and indi­rectly. An under­stand­ing of the chang­ing demo­graph­ics of indi­vid­ual com­mu­ni­ties and neigh­bour­hoods is essen­tial when plan­ning cul­tural pro­grams, design­ing cul­tural infra­struc­ture, and more.

There are fears that a vol­un­tary sur­vey with an antic­i­pated response rate of 50% (ver­sus 94% with the last manda­tory long-form cen­sus) will under-represent a num­ber of Cana­di­ans, includ­ing First Nations, the poor­est and rich­est of Cana­di­ans and the self-employed, who cover a very large num­ber of artists and creators.

We there­fore risk los­ing impor­tant data on the Cana­dian cul­tural work­force. Gov­ern­ments, the CCA, the Cul­tural Human Resources Coun­cil and arts orga­ni­za­tions across the coun­try need the data col­lected by the now vol­un­tary NHS to get appro­pri­ate infor­ma­tion on cul­tural pro­fes­sion­als. Artists are mobile, often liv­ing in non-traditional hous­ing (com­mer­cial and indus­trial areas) and work­ing in other occu­pa­tions to earn their pri­mary income.

For a descrip­tion of the data qual­ity emerg­ing from a vol­un­tary sur­vey, click here.

What can I do?

You are legally obliged to respond to the short-form cen­sus. For those of you who do receive the vol­un­tary NHS,

we urge you to com­plete it in full. The sur­vey must be filled out upon reception

. It is vital that we get the most com­plete and reli­able infor­ma­tion on Cana­dian artists, cre­ators and cul­tural work­ers from all over the coun­try. Cen­sus data reflects an impor­tant source of infor­ma­tion on the Cana­dian pop­u­la­tion, and goes a long way in assist­ing with the devel­op­ment of pol­icy and pro­grams for the fed­eral, provin­cial and ter­ri­to­r­ial gov­ern­ments, includ­ing those related to arts, cul­ture and heritage.

Please make sure you cir­cu­late this infor­ma­tion and call to action within your orga­ni­za­tion and to your networks.

Click here for more infor­ma­tion of the 2011 cen­sus. You can also find more infor­ma­tion on the NHS, and the ratio­nale behind the ques­tions that are asked.