Census of Canada

A national census in Canada is conducted every five years by Statistics Canada. The census provides demographic and statistical data that is used to plan public services including health care, education, and transportation, determine federal transfer payments, and determine the number of Members of Parliament for each province and territory. At a sub-national level, two provinces (Alberta and Saskatchewan) and two territories (Nunavut and Yukon) have legislation that allows local governments to conduct their own municipal censuses.

In an article in the New York Times in August 2015, journalist Stephen Marche argued that by ending the mandatory long-form census in 2011, the federal government "stripped Canada of its capacity to gather information about itself" in the "age of information." Nearly 500 organizations in Canada, including the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Catholic Council of Bishops, protested the decision to replace the long form Census in 2011 with a shorter version.

On November 5, 2015, during the first Liberal caucus meeting since forming a majority government, the party announced that it would reinstate the mandatory long-form census, starting in 2016.

The first census in what is now Canada took place in New France in 1666, under the direction of Intendant Jean Talon. The census noted the age, sex, marital status and occupation of 3,215 inhabitants.

The first national census of the country Canada was taken in 1871, as required by section 8 of the then-British North America Act (now the Constitution Act of 1867). The constitution required a census to be taken in 1871 and every tenth year thereafter. Parliament implemented the requirements of the constitution through the Census Act of May 12, 1870. All inhabitants of Canada were included, including aboriginals. While this was the first national census of Canada, only four provinces existed at the time: Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Other areas of what later became part of Canada continued to be enumerated in their own separate censuses. The results of the 1871 census, in both English and French, were reported in a five volume set.

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