Municipal census in Canada

Four provinces and territories in Canada have legislation that allow municipalities to conduct a municipal census. These include the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and the territories of Nunavut and Yukon. Of these four provinces and territories, municipalities in Alberta were the only ones that exercise the option to conduct a municipal census as of 2006.

Alberta's Municipal Government Act (MGA) is the enabling legislation that allows its municipalities to conduct their own censuses. The MGA also stipulates that the Minister of Alberta Municipal Affairs (AMA) may regulate how municipal populations are determined and how they are conducted. The regulation that stipulates these is the MGA's Determination of Population Regulation (DOPR).

The DOPR provides a three-month period for municipalities to conduct censuses, which begins on April 1 and ends on June 30, and requires the municipalities to set a census date within this period relating to enumeration. It also requires that censuses be conducted in accordance with a training manual approved by the Minister of AMA, and submission of the results to AMA before September 1 of the same year in which the census is conducted. The results become the populations of the submitting municipalities if they are accepted by the Minister of AMA.

The conducting of municipal censuses in Alberta is widespread. Between 2007 and 2011 inclusive, the last full five-year period between Statistics Canada's releases of the last two federal censuses, 157 of its 357 municipalities conducted at least one municipal census. Of these, each of Alberta's 17 cities and 8 Metis settlements conducted censuses, as well as 64 of its 108 towns, 45 of its 93 villages, 3 of its 51 summer villages, 3 of its 5 specialized municipalities and 17 of its 64 municipal districts. In 2013, at least 40 municipalities conducted censuses. Alberta recognized censuses conducted by 38 of these municipalities.

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