Census aids city planners
Merritt Herald
Aug 17 2010

The Canadian Institute of Planners issued a press release July 14, 2010 calling for the government of Canada to reverse its decision on dropping the long form from the 2011 Census.

The decision to replace the mandatory long form census with a voluntary National Household Survey is likely to reduce the reliability of Statistics Canada information, especially at the dissemination area and census tract level.

This information is vital to make location-based decisions and targeted investments affecting planners in a wide range of areas including site analysis, market analysis, immigrant settlement, and transportation networks, among many others.

The long-form questionnaire, which is sent to one-fifth of Canadian households during a Census-taking, asks questions on such issues as work, education, housing, income, child care, migration, ethnicity and family life. This is all important information that can be used to build stronger communities by making informed land use decisions.

A lack of socioeconomic information would severely impact the way municipal planners….

The long form collects information on types of dwellings people reside in, and modes of transportation they rely on, and that data dovetails into developing successful policies….