Flawed census is another Conservative failure: NDP

Data from hundreds of communities unusable and low-income data flawed

OTTAWA – New Democrats slammed the Conservatives today over a National Household Survey that has proven to be an inadequate replacement for the long-form census—exactly as experts predicted.

“Not only is much of the information from this survey inferior, it cost Canadians more to collect,” said NDP Industry critic Chris Charlton (Hamilton Mountain). “Even worse, Statistics Canada has acknowledged that the low-income data trends in the NHS do not match those from other, more established surveys.”

Despite expert advice that a voluntary survey would be inferior, the Conservatives eliminated the 2011 long-form census as part of their retreat from science-based decision-making. The flawed results will hurt Canadians by undermining government’s ability to deliver services fairly and efficiently.

“This is not what leadership looks like,” said Charlton. “An NDP government would listen to the experts and re-establish the long-form census.”

Data from hundreds of census subdivisions is unusable because of poor response rates. In Saskatchewan, for example, data cannot be published on more than 40% of communities. It also appears that as much as half of the Aboriginal population was excluded from NHS measure of low income.